Hay Fever
By Noël Coward
Directed by Cedric Messina
BBC Broadcast 26 December 1984
CAST
Penelope Keith – Judith Bliss
Paul Eddington – David Bliss
Phoebe Nicholls- Sorel Bliss
Michael Siberry – Simon Bliss
Joan Sims – Clara
Patricia Hodge – Myra Arundel
Michael Cochrane – Sandy Tyrell
Susan Wooldridge – Jackie Coryton
Benjamin Whitrow- Ricard Greatham
This is the start of a Noël Coward reviews season based on the BBC Collection boxset. We were indoors with Covid and worked through the Terence Rattigan BBC box set, and this was the natural follow on. Hay Fever was our choice for a light-hearted start.
It was written in 1924 and first performed in 1925.
Noël Coward: Reviews were amiable and well-disposed although far from effusive. It was noted, as indeed it has been today, that the play had no plot and that there were few if any ‘witty’ lines.
1964
Hay Fever was the big Boxing Day TV play in 1984, in the days when the BBC still lavished money on Christmas specials. Penelope Keith had played Judith on stage the year before and they built around her.
As with other BBC plays of the era, they ‘doubled’ the set, in that we have indoors, plus just outside the French windows (which would not happen on stage). That seems a set piece of BBC Play design. The costumes for the women are high 1920s and gorgeous. There is also an elaborate opening credits sequence which needs a train and a vintage car. No expense was spared.
The Good Life sitcom connection with Hay Fever is strong. Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington (Margo and Jerry) are again playing a married couple. The previous BBC play version in 1968 had featured Richard Briers (Tom Good) as Sandy Tyrell (It has not survived. Ian McKellen was in it too). Then when we saw it in Bath in 2014, Felicity Kendall (Barbara Good) played Judith Bliss. We’ve seen it (at least) twice on stage. In 2009 it was Diana Rigg as Judith Bliss in Chichester. As the play is about a famous actress, having a genuine famous actress enhances the part. It’s almost something you have to have.
See the Bath review of Hay Fever here for more on the plot. Basically: Judith Bliss (Penelope Keith) is an actress (it’s the 1920s. We don’t say ‘female actor’!) who might be on the edge of retiring. Her husband David (Paul Eddington) is a famous novelist.
Their children are Sorel (Phoebe Nicholls) and Simon (Michael Siberry). All four of them have invited someone to be a house guest for the weekend. Judith has invited Sandy Tyrell (Michael Cochrane) an ardent ego-feeding admirer. David has invited Jackie (Susan Wooldridge) who is tongue-tied, nervous, obviously ‘not one of their class’ which we can see from her teeth. He completely forgets he’s invited her or that he’s met her.
Simon has invited the older and sexier Myra Arundel (a young Patricia Hodge) while Phoebe has invited Richard Greatham (Benjamin Whitrow) a stuffy older diplomat. There will be much exchanging of affections.
Clara (Joan Sims) is Judith’s theatrical dresser, now employed as a housekeeper. She’s played admirably by Joan Sims, and it must have been painful dealing with Clara’s dialogue. From my 2014 review of the Bath production:
He has Clara say “You mark my words, there’s hanky panky going on.” While Noël could script Bohemian banter with aplomb, every time he tries to write “working class” it’s hackneyed. “You mark my words” is what Noël Coward fondly imagined all working class people said as the preface to any utterance. See This Happy Breed. I always wonder how a writer could get upper class banter so right, and the servants’ hall so cliched. The man had an ear for dialogue, but lord luv’a duck, Noël, mate, just mark my words, you couldn’t write what us ordinary folk say, and that’s a fact!
I had remarked on Terence Rattigan’s issues at writing working class, but he’s far better than Noël Coward. Coward’s father was a piano salesman in Teddington, which isn’t posh, but his maternal grandad was a navy captain, which is posh. Rattigan was genuinely very posh indeed (Harrow and Oxford) so his better ear may be the upper class / working class affinity (both say ‘pudding’) compared to a middle class background (who say ‘dessert’).
There is an issue with every filmed stage play and I have mentioned this on NT live reviews. Football commentators need to be in the stadium, not watching a TV feed. They need to see what players are doing off the ball, how they’re positioning. It’s the same with a play, in the theatre, you can see everyone on stage all the time. A director and a camera selects what you’re seeing. This enhances a soliloquy from Hamlet, but not necessarily larger scenes. There’s an example here. In my Bath review of Felicity Kendall as Judith, David says ‘… at your time of life’ to Judith in the play. Judith’s face at Bath was aghast with horror and there was a loud ‘Oooh!’ from the audience. Here, he says it as he is exiting, and the director does not cut to Penelope Keith’s reaction. Lost moment. There is an impetus to follow activity and miss reaction shots (something we used to write in to scripts: cut to reaction).
Act I establishes character and situation and that the inhabitants of the house barely notice the comings and goings of others. Judith is out in the garden learning the names of flowers. Her children guess that she wants to impress someone. When her enthusiastic fan Sandy arrives, they walk past him without shaking hands.
Judith: You mustn’t mind if Simon and Sorel insult you. They’ve been very bad tempered lately.
Sandy: It’s hard to imagine you having a grown up son and daughter at all. I can hardly believe it.
Judith: I was married very young … I liked you from the first. Small hips and broad shoulders.
When Myra arrives, she is well-known to Judith. She claims Sorel had invited her. There is catty repartee (something Coward could write).
Jackie and Richard arrive together, having shared a taxi. They have to let themselves in. Judith wafts through, ignoring them completely.
Richard: Do you mind if I smoke? Will you?
You can’t do Coward without cigarettes. His stage directions even place the ash trays around his sets. Lots of them. In 1984 the cast wouldn’t have had fake cigarettes either. It’s non-stop.
They all assemble for tea. David understands how confusing multiple house guests are.
David: Add your own milk and sugar. Otherwise we’ll get muddled.
Act II is the highlight of the play.
It’s evening and everyone is playing a version of charades in which the person brought into a room has to guess an adverb by getting the others to do things in the style of the adverb. In this it’s winsomely which is hard. Judith gets a flower winsomely. Myra doesn’t act too well shaking hands winsomely.
Myra: You have an advantage over we poor amateurs. Having been a professional … for so long.
Those age references should pile on each other with each getting a stronger reaction from Judith. Then Judith starts to talk about her age, in the expectation of being corrected. Then they terrify the guests by professing deepest love theatrically. Judith picks on Richard.
Judith: I had begun to think that romance was dead!
Sorel and Sandy are getting it together in the library (caught by Judith).
Then David and Myra are chatting in the garden Would you like a cigarette or anything? is his obvious starter. So then Myra is turning her charms on David. She tells him she declined an invitation to the house last year … because he was away.
David starts coming on strong. Judith catches them at it.
David and Judith both go into a massive theatrical break-up scene to the astonishment of Myra. David professes to be madly in love with Myra. She was simply flirting. She is in shock.
Judith: I don’t think I can bear anymore right now.
David: This is the end!
Judith: Yes, my dear. The end!
They’re interrupted by Simon announcing his engagement to Jackie, to be greeted effusively by a tearful Judith (her pushing Jackie aside is brilliant timing).
Myra walks out on the lot of them.
Myra: You’re the most infuriating set of hypocrites I’ve ever seen.This house is a complete featherbed of false emotions. You’re posing, self-centred egoists and I’m sick to death of you … the only time I open my mouth I’m mowed down by theatrical effect. You haven’t got one sincere, genuine feeling among the lot of you! You’re artificial to the point of lunacy. It’s a great pity you ever left the stage, Judith. It’s your rightful home. You can rant and roar there as much as you ever like.
The puzzled Richard asks if it’s all been a game, and Simon and Judith instantly go into a melodramatic scene from her most famous play. David and Sorel join in. It ends with Judith collapsing to the floor.
Where it falls down is the acting has to be very large indeed which is hilarious on stage but too large for the small screen.
Act III is breakfast, with everyone coming down to the buffet. I’m not fond of breakfast buffets, but it’s comforting to know they stem from English country house tradition, not your local Holiday Inn. Sandy starts it solo to cheerful music. The terrified Jackie is next, still all to music. They’re both trying to avoid the family.
Jackie: I believe they’re all mad, you know. The Blisses.
Sandy: I’ve been thinking that too.
They retreat to the library, hoping to stop Sandy’s hiccups. Richard and Myra are next … Coward was shaking up the pairings.
Richard: They’re strange people, aren’t they?
Myra: I think ‘strange’ is putting it mildly.
The four guests meet up and decide to leave in Sandy’s car.
Judith and Sorel come down later. Judith reads her newspaper mentions. Simon arrives with his drawing, and David comes down to read his latest novel extract. They bicker over his description of Paris and are soon back in full theatrical mode.
At the end all four guests decide to creep off and escape leaving the rowing Blisses to their own devices. This ending became a re-used Coward cliché or a Coward hallmark if you prefer.
We concluded that this is intrinsically a stage play and it’s hard for a filmed performance to match it. Penelope Keith was typecast. It’s what she does and very well too. It’s not a patch on either stage version in spite of set, costumes and actors. The impetus seems to be ‘It’s Coward, keep it pacy and witty.’ Yet I’d want more air, more visible reaction. At the start of Act One, Sorel positively gabbles.
To quote Coward, there is no plot. It is what we now call situation comedy. The fun is in the characters. Create the characters, you have interest. Therefore you probably needed an experienced sitcom TV director rather than a director of ‘Plays of the Month.’
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
NOËL COWARD
- Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal 2010 (Alison Steadman)
- Blithe Spirit, by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal 2019 (Jennifer Saunders)
- Blithe Spirit FILM 2021 (Judi Dench)
- Fallen Angels, by Noël Coward, Salisbury Playhouse
- Hay Fever by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal 2016
Hay Fever, by Noël Coward, BBC TV Play 1984 - Relative Values by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal
- This Happy Breed by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal
- Present Laughter, by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal, 2003 Rik Mayall (retrospective)
- Present Laughter by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal 2106, Samuel West
- Present Laughter by Noël Coward, Chichester 2018, Rufus Hound
- Present Laughter by Noël Coward, Old Vic 2019, Andrew Scott
- Private Lives by Noël Coward, Nigel Havers Theatre Company, 2021, Chichester
- Private Lives, by Noël Coward, Donmar Warehouse, London 2023
- Noël Coward’s Brief Encounter, by Emma Rice, Salisbury Playhouse, 2023
- The Vortex, by Noël Coward, Chichester Festival Theatre 2023
PENELOPE KEITH
The Chalk Garden by Enid Bagnold, Chichester 2018
The Way Of The World, by William Congreve, Chichester, 2012
PHOEBE NICHOLLS
The Southbury Child by Stephen Beresford, Chichester 2022
PATRICIA HODGE
Private Lives by Noël Coward, Nigel Havers Company 2021
Copenhagen, Chichester Minerva 2018
Travels With My Aunt, Chichester 2016
Relative Values, by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal, 2013
MICHAEL COCHRANE
Fortunes of War (TV series)
Twelfth Night, RSC 2017
While The Sun Shines by Terence Rattigan, Bath 2016
Leave a comment