It’s a play about contacting those who have ‘passed over’, but this production manages to suck all the life out of Coward’s farce and spit out a lifeless corpse. At the Royal Exchange I have sometimes felt detached when watching from seats high up in the auditorium, but even after we moved to the stalls at the interval I literally nodded off despite being a few metres from the action.
I say action, but actor Milo Twomey as Mr Condomine chooses to deliver his lines like a sergeant major – arms by his sides and rooted to the spot most of the time. On the other hand, the maid’s part was over-acted to the point of annoyance. Annette Badland as eccentric medium Madame Arcati shows how it should be done, although her diction was a little indistinct towards the end – a fault which fellow Coronation Street actor Suranne Jones displayed from time to time as Mrs Condomine.
One turkey to avoid this Christmas.
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