CityLife

Blithe Spirit is right for troubled times

RETURNING TO AN OLD FAVOURITE: Herford

IT is ‘an extraordinary coincidence’, admits Robin Herford, director of Blithe Spirit, at Oldham Coliseum until June 6, that the Royal Exchange are also about to mount their own production of the Noel Coward play, albeit as their Christmas show.

“But I think it shows what a much-loved play it really is and, as you know, it was the play that the audience here at the Coliseum voted for, to be part of the season.”

In fact, Robin has directed the play twice before. “I did it most recently 10 years or so ago and, before that, more than 20 years ago,” he recalls.

“With a gap like that, you do find yourself coming to it fresh but with the advantage that, when you think you can feel a problem looming, you suddenly remember that you felt like this before and that all you have to do, generally speaking, is to trust Noel Coward’s writing, which is brilliant.

“It’s well-documented, of course, that Coward claimed to have written the play during a five-day holiday he took in Portmeirion and that he wrote it straight through from beginning to end. Even so, only two lines of dialogue were removed before the first production.”

Perhaps not quite so well known, though, is that that first production was actually at the Manchester Opera House in June 1941, before the play opened in London’s West End the following month.

Although there was a small outcry that it was seen to be possibly making fun of death at the outset of the Second World War, such objections were quickly forgotten and the play went on to set British box-office records.

Indeed, its run of 1,997 consecutive performances remained the highest for a non-musical play in the West End until the Seventies.

“Working with material like this gives you a confidence that you don’t necessarily always feel as a director,” Robin laughs. “I’m a firm believer also in the ability of a fresh cast to re-mint something.

“Perhaps the only real danger with this play, though, is forgetting the comic imperative that this is a sceptic conjuring up a ghost. In an absolutely naturalistic context, something extraordinary happens. In my view, it can be a mistake to stress the supernatural aspect of the play and so to lose sight of the comedy.”

Turn Of The Screw

Robin is no stranger to the Coliseum stage, where his previous productions have included Turn Of The Screw, Driving Miss Daisy, Proof, Home, The Mortal Ash and An Inspector Calls, with Home and Proof betweeen them picking up no less than six M.E.N. Theatre Award nominations, with Paul Webster picking up the coveted Best Actor In A Leading Role award.

Much of Robin’s career outside the Coliseum has been involved with Alan Ayckbourn and the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough.

Joining the company in 1978 as an actor, he was appointed associate director in 1979, then artistic director from 1986-88.

He also has the distiction of having appeared in the original productions of more Ayckbourn plays than any other actor, and, while he was artistic director at Scarborough, commissioned and directed Stephen Mallatratt’s phenomenally successsful adaptation of The Woman In Black, which is still running in the West End after 20 years and has completed 10 national tours. 

He is, he says, ‘very comfortable’ working at the Coliseum. “I tend to do about one play a year here now and Kevin Shaw (Oldham’s artistic director) has always been very generous in the plays he has asked me to do. I have to admit that some of them I would have hung onto to direct myself, if I were in that position!

“I think,” he concludes, “that, even though Coward wrote it in 1941, Blithe Spirit is still significant and useful today. He wrote it in the darkest days of the war and it was designed to lift people’s spirits. Isn’t that appropriate in these troubled times?”

Blithe Spirit is at the Oldham Coliseum until Saturday, June 6. £5 - £18.50. Call 0161 624 2829.