Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noel Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem To a Skylark. The action of the play centres on socialite Charles Condomine being haunted by the ghost of his first wife Elvira following a séance, and Elvira's continued (and increasingly desperate) efforts to disrupt Charles' current marriage. The play is notable for the comic character of Madame Arcati, the eccentric medium. The play provoked a small outcry at the time of its first performances, as it was seen to be possibly making fun of death at the height of World War II; however, such objections were quickly forgotten and the play went on to set all manner of British box-office records. Its mark of 1,997 consecutive performances in the West End was only eventually beaten by Boeing Boeing in the 1970s. In his autobiography Coward claimed he wrote the play in five days during a holiday he took with actress Joyce Carey to Portmeirion on the coast of Snowdonia in Wales. He wrote it straight through from beginning to end whilst staying at the Fountain 2 (Upper Fountain) suite at Portmeirion and only two lines of dialogue were removed before its first production in London.