Noel Coward’s Christmas Spirits continues at the St James Studio, London until 23 December.
It’s probably almost cultural heresy to say so, but any time the name Noel Coward crops up, the first image that pops into my mind is of the great man playing master criminal and prison inmate Mister Bridger in the classic British action caper The Italian Job. It’s a fabulously memorable cameo, played to perfection by an artist famed for demanding the very highest standards, not just from himself but all his fellow performers.
In this deftly crafted, slightly eerie and mystical festive-themed production, Stefan Bednarczyk (also musical director) absolutely nails it as Coward. Dapper in his trademark silk dressing gown, from the moment he opens with ‘Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs Worthington’, the spirit of Coward is very much alive and kicking in London SW1.
There’s wit and whimsy aplenty here and it is all deftly interlaced with darker tales of death and destruction by writer and director Nick Hutchison. Herbert Mason’s famous 1940 photograph of a smoke smothered St Paul’s Cathedral during the London Blitz forms the main backdrop to the set and serves as a constant, stark reminder of the human misery that Coward witnessed all around him, seeking refuge in his Belgravia flat.
From his no-doubt swish abode, he uses his latest creation, Madam Arcati, the visionary medium, played with devilish eccentricity by Issy Van Randwyck, to summon up voices that tell of the spirits of Christmas past and present.
Sporting vivid green tights and looking like she’s come fresh from hosting a séance, the character Van Randwyck creates is both marvellously batty and beguiling. When joined on stage by the instantly charming and clearly very adaptable Charlotte Wakefield, in parts this production is quite wonderful.
It’s hard not to be moved, of course, by beautiful songs like ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ (Ivor Novello and Lena Gilbert Ford), while it is even harder not to laugh at Bednarczyk’s fabulously naughty rendition of ‘Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans’ (Coward) and Van Randwyck taking eccentricity to a new level when performing ‘The Fairy on the Christmas Tree’ (Roma Campbell Hunter and Harry Parr-Davies).
The production’s stand-out moment comes in Act I when Wakefield sings ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ (Eric Maschwitz and Manning Sherwin) when you can hear a pin drop.
Peppered with a stream of both amusing and unsettling anecdotes, amid all the mystical spirits called upon, it’s perhaps ironic though that it’s simply the brave human spirit of war-ravaged Londoners that prevails the most.
As for Coward, the story goes that having been bombed out of his Mayfair flat, he was forced to take up temporary residence in the Savoy Hotel – war, as someone once said, can be hell.
Derek Smith
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