Hay Fever

Hay Fever was thought by Coward to be hard to act

Hay Fever performed by Yakety Yak Theatre,
at the Seagull Theatre, Lowestoft

Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 31 October 2016 and The Lowestoft Journal, 4 November 2016

Hay Fever is the Noel Coward play he himself described as difficult to act with no plot and remarkably little action.

However, Yakety Yak successfully transform heavy stylised comedy that is rooted in the 1920s into a timeless gem.

Set in the bohemian house of the Bliss family, each has invited a guest for the weekend without telling the others. They proceed to humiliate and generally confuse their visitors while playing startling mind games.

Agnes Lillis is the magnificent mother, a retired actress who has yet to give up over-acting and histrionics. Geir Madland is her masterfully understated husband.

Tom Scannell plays the son of the house who is a delightfully flippant but bad artist. His sister is Sophie Scannell with a touch of empathy glimpsed beneath her off-handed cruelty.

Charlotte McGuiness, Tom Guttridge, Nancy Paul, George Eddy as guests and Mary Hunt, the maid, brilliantly turn their bewilderment and trivial lives into comic gold.

Collectively the ensemble sustains a cracking pace that sparkles with Coward’s verbal comic repartee and some excellent physicality.

All in all it’s a deliciously, ripping evening of pure pleasure.