Wyndham’s theatre, London Grant brings shock-haired vigour as a vain novelist forced to welcome his boho children’s surprise guests in comedy of clipped social embarrassment Hay Fever, now one of Noël Coward’s best-known and most-performed works, hasn’t always been a smash hit. British critics who found its West End debut in 1925 amusing enough nevertheless noted its lack of plot, and the first Broadway production was a flop. A critic for Vogue called it “funny in places”, which sounds like the kind of stinging putdown you’d expect from the playwright’s own hand. A century of performances have proved the play’s lasting power, but its comic effect has always lain less in the words as written than their delivery – it is, after all, about a family that is “artificial to the point of lunacy”. At their centre is diva Judith Bliss, who has retired from the stage to take up the role of country hostess. When she, her husband and their self-consciously bohemian childre...
‘Astonishing’ signs of regrowth discovered on world-famous tree, whose destruction led to outpouring of grief The felling of the Sycamore Gap tree brought forth an outpouring of emotion last year, with local people and tourists alike left bereft by pictures showing it on its side. But the latest stage of the saga has brought some “astonishing” green shoots of recovery, the National Trust has said – in a literal and metaphorical sense. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/t3sThFK via IFTTT