Hay Fever - A light comedy (Acting Edition S.) - Softcover

Coward, Noel Sir

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0573011745 ISBN 13: 9780573011740

Publisher: Samuel French, 1925

Synopsis

Hoping for a quiet weekend in the country with some guests, David Bliss, a novelist and his wife Judith, a retired actress, find that an impossible dream when their high-spirited children Simon and Sorel appear with guests of their own. A housefull of drama waits to be ignited as misunderstandings and tempers flare. With Judith's new flame and David's newest literary 'inspiration' keeping company as the children follow suit, the Bliss family lives up to its name as the 'quiet weekend' comes to an exhausting and hilarious finale worthy of Feydeau.

About this title

Review:

'No one in modern English comedy boasts a more seductively comic or escapist approach to life than the self-absorbed family in Noel Coward's Hay Fever... Coward celebrates the value, enchantment and absurdity of escaping from life into theatrics.' Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard, 17.4.09 'Coward's Hay Fever, like the allergy, is always with us.' Michael Billington, Guardian, 17.4.09 'Hay Fever...was written in a spirit as fresh and cutting as new-mown lawn. It's an affectionate and arch portrait of Berkshire bohemians behaving badly. Politeness and Restraint are not this play's middle names.' Dominic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph, 17.4.09 'Coward's paradoxical plot hilariously exposes the guests good manners as a mask for hiprocrisy and the artifices of the family as the true expression of sincerely genuine natures.' Clare Brennan, Observer, 27.06.10 'This hectically Bohemian family, "artificial to the point of lunacy" in the memorable words of one of their hapless house guests, is among Noel Coward's strongest creations and has enjoyed star-studded outings since its 1925 debut.' Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard (London), 29.9.10 'This comedy of bad manners, in which a family of insufferably self-regarding bohemians treat their more conventional guests with abominable rudeness at a weekend house party' Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph, 29.9.10 'There is a splendid clipped precision about Coward's dialogue, and the constant realisation that the characters are actually thinking very different things from the banal platitudes they actually utter.' Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph, 29.9.10 'It's a beautifully constructed play' Jeremy Kingston, The Times, 30.9.10 It was 'written by the playwright over a single weekend in 1921. It proved a highly profitable weekend for Coward' Lyn Gardner, Guardian, 1.10.10

Book Description:

Peggy Ashcroft and Tony Britton star in this 1971 BBC Radio production of Noël Coward’s classic comedy about a disastrous weekend house party.

About this edition

• Publisher: Samuel French
• Publication date: 1925
• ISBN 10: 0573011745
• ISBN 13: 9780573011740
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 108