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...
Batter relaxed about Jacob Bethell’s potential return after century against Zimbabwe with India and Australia to come
A Test match that began with England saying they wanted to be better at media interactions and show a touch more humility ended with the captain growling about his words being twisted. And they say a week is a long time in politics …
It was my question that sparked all this, as it happens. The day before the one-off Test against Zimbabwe, I asked Ben Stokes about Jacob Bethell, the conversations that surrounded his absence to play in the Indian Premier League, and whether, as the “incumbent No 3” who made such an impression in New Zealand, he would be “straight back in” for the series against India.
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