Harold Pinter Theatre, London
Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes (including interval)
Age Restrictions: To be confirmed.
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Jennifer Saunders is one of the UK’s most popular comic actresses. Her gleefully funny performance as the eccentric clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, delighted both critics and audiences alike when the production opened in Theatre Royal Bath’s 2019 Summer Season. With a distinguished creative team who have won a plethora of awards between them, this is a Blithe Spirt full of sparkling and spirit-lifting hijinks.
Novelist Charles Condomine and his second wife Ruth are literally haunted by a past relationship when an eccentric medium – Madame Arcati - 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.
Jennifer Saunders is much loved for the sketch show French and Saunders, for which she and Dawn French received a BAFTA fellowship in 2009, and for the hit comedy series and subsequent film, Absolutely Fabulous, which she both starred in and wrote.
Lisa Dillon (Ruth) is best known for her role as Mary Smith in BBC 1’s Cranford. Geoffrey Streatfeild’s credits include Spooks, The Thick of It, Traitors and the Histories Cycle at the RSC.
Richard Eyre, director of the National Theatre for ten years, is the winner of five Olivier Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award. Designer Anthony Ward’s numerous productions include Tony Award winning Mary Stuart and Olivier Award winning Oklahoma!
‘Absolutely fabulous… comic gold. Jennifer Saunders is a delight’ Sunday Express
‘Jennifer Saunders… brilliantly funny. Enormous life affirming fun’ Times
‘Jennifer Saunders… a revelation. A fabulous Coward revival. Richard Eyre has cast to perfection across the board’ Daily Telegraph
‘Jennifer Saunders gives a brilliantly physical display of comic clowning’ Sunday Times
‘Coward’s sublimely crafted dialogue. Jennifer Saunders…a splendid Madam Arcati’ Mail on Sunday
Harold Pinter Theatre
Harold Pinter Theatre
Panton Street
London
SW1Y 4DN
The Harold Pinter Theatre (formerly The Comedy Theatre), is a London West End theatre, and opened on Panton Street in the City of Westminster on 15 October 1881. It was known then as the Royal Comedy Theatre.
The Harold Pinter Theatre: History
The theatre was designed by Thomas Verity and built in just six months in painted stucco stone and brick. By 1884 it was known as just the Comedy Theatre.
In 1883, the successful operetta Falka had its London première at The Harold Pinter Theatre, and in 1885, Erminie did the same. The Harold Pinter's reputation grew through World War I when Charles Blake Cochran and André Charlot presented their famous revue shows. In the mid-1950s West End's Harold Pinter Theatre underwent major reconstruction and re-opened in December 1955, the auditorium remains essentially that of 1881, with three tiers of horseshoe shaped balconies.
The Harold Pinter Theater was notable for the role it played in overturning stage censorship by establishing the New Watergate Club in 1956, under producer Anthony Field. The outdated Theatres Act 1843 still required scripts to be submitted for approval by the Lord Chamberlain's Office. Formation of the club allowed plays that had been banned due to language or subject matter to be performed under 'club' conditions. Plays produced in this way at The Harold Pinter included the UK premieres of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, Robert Anderson's Tea and Sympathy and Tennessee Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. The law was not revoked until 1968, but in the late 1950s there was a loosening of conditions in theatre censorship, the club was dissolved and Peter Shaffer's Five Finger Exercise premiered to a public audience.
The Harold Pinter Theatre was Grade II listed by English Heritage in June 1972.
The Homecoming, No-man's Land, Moonlight, The Hothouse and The Caretaker have all been presented at The Harold Pinter in recent years. Maureen Lipman has also graced The Harold Pinter stage, starring in Alan Plater's highly acclaimed comedy, Peggy For You, but the theatre's two biggest successes were The Caretaker starring Michael Gambon in 2000 and an eight week sell out of Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs in 1999, starring Ewan McGregor and directed by Denis Lawson, which smashed all box office records. More recently, Francesca Annis and Anthony Andrews have starred in Ibsen's Ghosts and 2004 saw the much lauded revival of RC Sherriff's Journey's End and a successful run of The Old Masters by Simon Gray, starring Edward Fox and Peter Bowles This production was directed by Harold Pinter, after whom the then Comedy Theatre was of course renamed The Harold Pinter Theatre.
In January 2005, Kim Cattrall starred in Peter Hall's London production of Whose Life Is It Anyway? by Brian Clark, followed by Tom Courtenay in Brian Friel's The Home Place and Joseph Fiennes and Francesca Annis starred in Epitaph for George Dillon by John Osborne and Anthony Creighton. The Harold Pinter Theatre London has also played host to Steptoe and Son, Michael Frayn's Donkey's Years, the Rocky Horror Show, and the hilarious high-flying comedy, Boeing-Boeing.
As of 8th of September 2011, The Comedy Theatre was renamed as The Harold Pinter Theatre.
The Harold Pinter Theatre: Recent Productions
Donkeys' Years (9 May 2006 - 15 December 2006) by Michael Frayn, starring Samantha Bond, David Haig, Mark Addy and James Dreyfus
The Rocky Horror Show (18 December 2006 - 29 January 2007) by Richard O'Brien, starring David Bedella and Suzanne Shaw
Boeing-Boeing (5 February 2007 - 5 January 2008) by Marc Camoletti, starring Roger Allam, Frances de la Tour, Elena Roger, Mark Rylance, Daisy Beaumont, Tamzin Outhwaite, Amy Nuttall, Rhea Perlman, Jean Marsh, Jennifer Ellison, Tracey-Ann Oberman and Kevin McNally
The Lover/The Collection (12 January 2008 - 3 May 2008) by Harold Pinter, starring Timothy West, Gina McKee, Charlie Cox and Richard Coyle
Dickens Unplugged (23 May 2008 - 29 June 2008) by Adam Long
Sunset Boulevard (4 December 2008 - 30 May 2009) by Andrew Lloyd Webber, directed by Craig Revel Horwood
Too Close to the Sun (24 July - 8 August 2009), world premiere of a new musical about Ernest Hemingway
Prick Up Your Ears (30 September - 6 December 2009) by Simon Bent, starring Matt Lucas and Chris New
La Bête (8 July - 4 September 2010) by David Hirson, starring Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley
Birdsong (28 September 2010 - 15 January 2011) based on the book by Sebastian Faulks, starring Ben Barnes
The Children's Hour (22 January - 30 April 2011) by Lillian Hellman, starring Keira Knightley
Betrayal (27 May - 20 August 2011) by Harold Pinter, starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Douglas Henshall and Ben Miles[6]
Death and the Maiden (24 October 2011 - 21 January 2012) by Ariel Dorfman starring Thandie Newton, Tom Goodman-Hill and Anthony Calf[7]
Absent Friends (26 January - 14 April 2012) by Alan Ayckbourn
South Downs and The Browning Version (24 April - 21 July 2012) by Terence Rattigan, starring Nicholas Farrell, Anna Chancellor and Alex Lawther
A Chorus of Disapproval (27 September 2012 - 5 January 2013) by Alan Ayckbourn, starring Rob Brydon, Nigel Harman and Ashley Jensen
Old Times (31 January 2013 - 6 April 2013) by Harold Pinter, starring Rufus Sewell, Kristin Scott Thomas and Lia Williams
The Harold Pinter Theatre: Current Productions
Merrily We Roll Along (23rd April - 27 July 2013) Transfer of the hit Menier Chocolate Factory producion directed by Maria Friedman
Chimerica (6th August - 19 October 2013) Written by Lucy Kirkwood (NSFW, Royal Court), with ‘breakneck direction’ by Lyndsey Turner (Posh, Royal Court and West End).
Mojo (September 2013 - ) Starring Brendan Coyle (Downton Abbey, The Weir), Rupert Grint (Harry Potter, Driving Lessons), Daniel Mays (Made in Dagenham, Mrs Biggs, The Winterling) and Ben Whishaw (Skyfall, The Hour, Peter and Alice).
Travel by train: Charing Cross. Nearest tube: Piccadilly Circus
What a wonderful performance from the whole cast ,we laughed until our faces hurt 😂👏
Posted by Andrea O on 10/03/2020
Blithe Spirit, Duke of Yorks Theatre, London - 9th March 2020
