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...
Australian cross-code athlete’s own expectations weigh heavy even as she soars to greater heights as World Rugby’s sevens player of the year
Pressure on Maddi Levi, Australia’s best women’s rugby sevens player, had been building. In a whirlwind four years she had swiftly progressed from D-grade teams in Queensland, through a brief stint in AFLW, to an Olympic Games and recognition from World Rugby as one of the best female athletes in the world.
But as her feats grew, so did her own expectations. Finally, before the first stop of the 2023 season just over a year ago, the tears flowed in a meeting in a Dubai hotel room with the Australian team’s psychologist.
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