Blithe Spirit is one of Noel Coward’s best-loved comedies.

Novelist Charles Condomine and his second wife Ruth are literally haunted by a past relationship when an eccentric medium manages to conjure up the ghost of Charles’s neurotic first wife, Elvira.

Charles has assumed the preposterous Madam Arcati is a fraud who will simply entertain their dinner guests with a little chicanery and supply Charles with material for his forthcoming novel, but when Elvira appears, visible only to Charles, and detemines to sabotage his current marriage, life – and the afterlife – begin to get complicated.

This Theatre Royal Bath production has a stellar cast led by Alison Steadman (Abigail’s Party, Gavin And Stacey) as Madame Arcati. Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst, best known for playing husband and wife in Cold Feet, team up once more to play Ruth and Charles, while musical theatre star Ruthie Henshall plays Elvira.

Blithe Spirit plays at Richmond theatre prior to the West End.