Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit starring Jennifer Saunders is to return in 2020 for a UK tour and West End Transfer following an acclaimed season at Theatre Royal Bath.

Noël Coward’s classic comedy Blithe Spirit, directed by Sir Richard Eyre and starring Jennifer Saunders, will return next year for a UK tour followed by a strictly limited 6-week engagement at the West End’s Duke of York’s Theatre following a celebrated reception in Bath earlier this summer.

Jennifer Saunders, one of the UK’s most popular comic actors, will revive her role as the preposterous clairvoyant Madame Arcati. She is joined by original cast members Geoffrey Streatfeild who will star as Charles, Lisa Dillon as Ruth Condomine, Emma Naomi as Elvira, Simon Coates as Dr Bradman, Lucy Robinson as Mrs Bradman, and Rose Wardlaw as Edith. The production brings together a distinguished and multi-award-winning creative team, directed by former National Theatre director Sir Richard Eyre with design by Anthony Ward, lighting by Howard Harrison, sound by John Leonard and illusions by Paul Kieve.

Jennifer Saunders in Blithe Spirit. Photo: Nobby Clark

Written in 1941, Coward’s inventive, witty and meticulously engineered comedy proved light relief and a popular distraction at the height of World War II when it was first staged. The show had a record-breaking run in the West End and on Broadway and remains one of the playwright’s most popular works.

This new production opened in June as part of Artistic Director Jonathan Church’s second Summer Season at Theatre Royal Bath where it played to sell-out houses and was widely praised by critics and public alike. It is the third play from Jonathan Church’s Summer Season programmes to transfer to the West End following last year’s 50th anniversary production of Arthur Miller’s The Price at Wyndham’s Theatre and Switzerland at the Ambassadors.

Novelist Charles Condomine and his second wife Ruth are literally haunted by a past relationship when an eccentric medium inadvertently conjures up the ghost of his first wife, Elvira, at a séance. When she appears, visible only to Charles, and determined to sabotage his current marriage, life – and the afterlife – get complicated.

BLITHE SPIRIT UK TOUR AND WEST END 2020

The Blithe Spirit Tour has now concluded.

22 - 25 January 2020

Theatre Royal Brighton

27 January - 1 February 2020

Malvern Theatre

4 - 8 February 2020

Theatre Royal Bath

10 - 15 February 2020

Cambridge Arts Theatre

17 - 22 February 2020

Richmond Theatre

24 - 29 February 2020

Norwich Theatre Royal

5 March - 11 April 2020

Duke Of York's Theatre