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Review Round-up: Critics Feverish for Dench Bliss

A slightly shaky start to this limited season of the Judi Dench-headed revival of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever – with a rescheduled press night (due to a clash with the RSC) and cancelled previews (because of the leading lady’s case of the flu) – did nothing to diminish the impact when it opened last night (20 April 2006) at the West End’s Theatre Royal Haymarket.

While not all the critics were impressed with some other aspects of Peter Hall’s production, none disputed the brilliance of its leading lady, who plays bohemian actress Judith Bliss, who has retreated to a rural haven where her writer husband David (Peter Bowles) and their precocious son and daughter all invite unsuspecting guests down for a madcap weekend of game-playing. And, with Dench at the top of her form, more than a few were critics deemed this Hay Fever a smash hit.

First performed in 1925, Noel Coward’s comedy of manners was inspired by the eccentric American actress Laurette Taylor, and her husband Hartley, and written by Coward in just three days. Dench and Bowles are joined in the cast by Kim Medcalf, Dan Stevens, Belinda Lang, William Chubb, Charles Edwards, Lin Blakley and Olivia Darnley. The production is presented by Bill Kenwright and continues until 5 August 2006.

Paul Taylor in the Independent - “Dench’s Judith veers hilariously between striking attitudes and spouting prefabricated sentiments… and sudden rapid, pettish concessions to reality. It’s the seamless, brilliantly timed way in which she (Dench) slides from the semi-rehearsed to the grudgingly spontaneous that makes her performance so funny.” The revival, writes Taylor, is “a Hay Fever that is not to be sneezed at.”

- by Terri Paddock

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	1st Night Photos: Dench & Co Contract Hay Fever - 24th Apr 2006 photos
	Hay Fever - 21st Apr 2006 reviews