Editing Blithe Spirit (play) (section)

==Critical reception==
After the first performance in Manchester the reviewer in ''[[The Manchester Guardian]]'' thought the mixture of farce and impending tragedy "An odd mixture and not untouched by genius of a sort".<ref>"Opera House", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 17 June 1941, p. 6</ref> After the London premiere, [[Ivor Brown]] commented in ''The Observer'' on the skill with which Coward had treated his potentially difficult subject; he ended his notice, "But here is a new play, a gay play, and one irresistibly propelled into our welcoming hearts by Miss Rutherford's Lady of the Trances, as rapt a servant of the séance as ever had spirits on tap."<ref>Brown, Ivor. "At the Play", ''The Observer'', 6 June 1941, p. 7</ref> The London correspondent of ''The Guardian'' wrote, "London received Mr Noel Coward's ghoulish farce with loud, though not quite unanimous acclaim. There was a solitary boo – from an annoyed spiritualist, presumably."<ref>"Blithe Spirit in London", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 4 July 1941, p. 4</ref>  ''[[The Times]]'' considered the piece the equal not only of Coward's earlier success ''[[Hay Fever (play)|Hay Fever]]'' but of [[Oscar Wilde|Wilde]]'s classic comedy ''[[The Importance of Being Earnest]]''.<ref>"Piccadilly Theatre", ''The Times'', 3 July 1941, p. 2</ref> There were dissenting views. [[James Agate]] thought the play "common",<ref>Citron, p. 7</ref> and [[Graham Greene]] called it "a weary exhibition of bad taste".<ref>Pryce-Jones, p. 74</ref>

When the piece had its first West End revival in 1970 the play was warmly though not rapturously praised by the critics,<ref name=mb>Billington, Michael. "Comedy, not farce", ''The Times'', 24 July 1970, p. 13</ref><ref>Barber, John. "Blithe Spirit as delightful as ever", ''The Daily Telegraph'', 24 July 1970, p. 14; Hope-Wallace, Philip. "Blithe Spirit at the Globe", ''The Guardian'', 24 July 1970, p. 8; and Dawson, Helen. "Not so blithe", ''The Observer'',  26 July 1970, p. 24</ref> but by the time of the next major production, in 1976, [[Irving Wardle]] of ''The Times'' considered, "Stylistically, it is Coward's masterpiece: his most complete success in imposing his own view of things on the brute facts of existence,"<ref>Wardle, Irving. "Blithe Spirit", ''The Times'' 25 June 1976, p. 11</ref> and [[Michael Billington (critic)|Michael Billington]] of ''The Guardian'' wrote of Coward's influence on [[Harold Pinter]].<ref name=mb1>Billington, Michael. "Familiar spirits", ''The Guardian'', 7 July 1976, p. 8</ref> Coward's partner, [[Graham Payn]], commented to [[Peter Hall (director)|Peter Hall]] that Coward would have loved the production (directed by Pinter) "because at last the play was centred on the marriage between Charles and Ruth; Elvira and ... Madame Arcati were incidentals".<ref>Hall, p. 271</ref>{{refn|At the first rehearsal Pinter had told his cast, "Noël Coward calls this play an improbable farce. Well, I just wish to make one thing clear – I do not regard it as improbable and I do not regard it as a farce".<ref>Hall, p. 232</ref>|group=n}} After the Broadway revival in 1987 ''[[Newsweek]]'' commented that the play reminds us that Coward was the precursor of playwrights like Pinter and [[Joe Orton]].<ref name=mm376>Mander and Mitchenson, p. 376</ref>

In 2004 [[Charles Spencer (journalist)|Charles Spencer]] of ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' wrote, "With ''Hay Fever'' and ''Private Lives'', ''Blithe Spirit'' strikes me as being one of Coward's three indisputable comic masterpieces. [It is] the outrageous frivolity with which Coward treats mortality that makes the piece so bracing."<ref>Spencer, Charles. Review. ''The Daily Telegraph'', 24 November 2004, p. 24</ref>