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...
Pressure on household finances eases as shop price rises slow to 0.2% and petrol costs drop for second month
Britain’s next government is poised to benefit from easing pressure on household finances after a slowdown in inflation in stores and a fall in fuel prices, but costs remain “too expensive” for many families.
Figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) show that annual UK shop price inflation cooled last month to 0.2%, down from 0.6% in May – the slowest pace since October 2021 – as retailers cut the prices of many of their key products, including butter and coffee.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/n0YeZ2X
via IFTTT
Comments
Post a Comment