Blithe Spirit review: Jennifer Saunders is hysterically funny as one of drama’s greatest comic creations

As the psychic Madame Arcati in this marvellous production, Saunders channels AbFab’s Edina – only with more intrepidity

Saunders as unapologetically eccentric Arcati, with Geoffrey Streatfeild as Charles Condomine, Emma Naomi as Elvira, left, and Lisa Dillon as Ruth (Nobby Clark)

★★★★★

In this inspired revival of Noel Coward’s comedy, Jennifer Saunders socks us with a hysterically funny performance as Madame Arcati, the psychic invited round to supper for what she thinks are convivial, neighbourly reasons. In fact, it is a ruse, designed so that she can be observed performing a seance by Charles Condomine (Geoffrey Streatfeild), a smug novelist who is doing research on the “tricks of the trade” for his latest work-in-progress. At a book signing, I would unhesitatingly join the queue for one of the wonderfully wayward-sounding children’s books that Madame Arcati writes in her ectoplasm-free spare time, rather than for a full set of Condomine’s romantic efforts.

The uptight, class-constipated crew of fellow diners get a great deal more than they had bargained for (the joke is more on them than Arcati). The delicious results are calibrated with a deadly droll but upbeat eye for the self-deceptions of the British class system in Richard Eyre’s zestfully canny revival.