At London’s Wyndham’s Theatre, Richard E Grant delivers a performance of shock-haired vigour as a vain novelist compelled to welcome the unexpected visitors of his bohemian children in Noël Coward’s sharp comedy of social humiliation.
While Hay Fever has become one of Coward’s most recognised and frequently staged works, its initial reception was mixed. British critics who attended its 1925 West End premiere found it amusing but criticised the absence of a traditional plot, and its first Broadway run was a commercial failure. A Vogue reviewer at the time offered what appeared to be a backhanded compliment, describing the play as “funny in places.”
A hundred years of performances have since demonstrated the piece’s resilience, yet its humour has always depended more on delivery than on Coward’s text alone—a fitting trait for a narrative centred on a family “artificial to the point of lunacy.” The story revolves around Judith Bliss, a diva who has stepped away from the stage to become a country hostess. When she, her spouse, and their deliberately unconventional offspring, Sorel and Simon, invite surprise guests for a weekend, the attendees become trapped in a web of self-indulgent drama defined by exquisite embarrassment.
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