More of a sniffle than full-blown fever

Hay Fever, Oldham COliseum, to June 29.

NOEL Coward’s comedy hasn’t often been seen in recent years, but what revivals there have been have tried different ways of approaching Coward’s mannered delivery and the Bliss family’s outrageous behaviour towards guests.

This approach is evident in Kevin Shaw’s new production: as with Robin Herford’s excellent Private Lives at the Coliseum two years ago, Coward has had a mild wringing out.

The dinner jackets and Twenties gowns are in evidence, but the dialogue borders on the naturalistic, the headlong rush of witticisms delivered more matter-of-factly and the clipped delivery almost unhooked completely.

This creates a couple of interesting changes: one, as in other recent productions of Hay Fever, Coward slowed to a natural pace becomes more human, the characters appreciating the chance to develop and become more realistic.

On the other hand, when you slow this Coward down a little it offers more time to realise the work, written in a few weeks, shows it: we have little more than a string of witticisms built on a shaky foundation of bad behaviour. As Coward himself suggested, this is a hard play to do: nothing happens and the characters have no depth.

Nonetheless it’s fun to watch, and if we don’t manage to get much emotional depth from these characters — there must be a reason why they constantly “perform” and are never terribly serious about anything, but we don’t see it — then at least the sight of James Simmons and Jackie Morrison as the Blisses (they were Elyot and Amanda in “Private Lives” too, a cute bit of Cowardly continuity) grounds the couple with a sense of edgy familiarity.

Henry Devas and Caitlin Thorburn as children Simon and Sorel add a nicely-weighted sense of dimness in his case and conscience in hers, while guests Jackie (Lisa Brookes), Sandy (Andrew Cullimore), Myra (Polly Lister) and Richard (Andrew Pollard) and maid Clara (Heather Phoenix), add their own quirks, foibles and embarrassed silences, which never quite add up to fully-developed characters but are amusingly down to earth nonetheless.

It’s a pleasant and highly-entertaining evening — even if it’s mostly sniffles, rather than full-blown fever.