Photo Flash: HAY FEVER In Rehearsal at the Noel Coward Theatre

Howard Davies’ production of Noël Coward’s Hay Fever will run at the Noël Coward Theatre from 10 February – 2 June 2012. The "sublime comedy of bad manners" has designs by Bunny Christie, lighting by Mark Henderson and sound by Mike Walker.

Hay Fever is produced in the West End by Richard Willis, Matthew Byam Shaw for Playful Productions and Sonia Friedman Productions.

The cast is Lindsay Duncan (Judith Bliss), Jeremy Northam (Richard Greatham), Kevin R McNally (David Bliss), Olivia Colman (Myra Arundel), Sam Callis (Sandy Tyrell), Freddie Fox (Simon Bliss), Jenny Galloway (Clara), Amy Morgan (Jackie Coryton) and Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Sorel Bliss).

About the show: "Judith Bliss, once glittering star of the London stage, now in early retirement, is still enjoying life with more than a little high drama and the occasional big scene. To spice her weekend up, Judith invites a young suitor to join her in the country. However, her novelist husband, David, and her two eccentric children, Simon and Sorel, have had the same idea for themselves and any hope for private flirtation disappears as the family’s guests begin to arrive. Misjudged meetings, secret seductions and scandalous revelations all run riot at the most outrageous of all house parties."

In 1920 Noël Coward made his stage debut at what was then known as the New Theatre in his own first play, I'll Leave It To You. In 1973 the theatre was renamed the Albery and subsequently, in 2001, Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman played Amanda and Elyot in Coward's Private Lives to great critical acclaim. In June 2006 the theatre was renamed once again as the Noël Coward Theatre when the building underwent major refurbishment. This included the naming of the two principal dressing rooms as Noël and Gertie, the latter being Coward’s favourite leading lady, Gertrude Lawrence.

Playwright, composer, director and actor, Noël Coward, wrote Hay Fever in 1924 and it was first produced a year later at the Ambassadors Theatre. Coward wrote over 50 plays during his career including Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter, Blithe Spirit and Hay Fever. His many compositions include Mad Dogs and Englishmen, A Room with a View and Mrs Worthington, and his film credits include Brief Encounter, The Vortex and The Italian Job. Coward was knighted in 1970.

Double Olivier award-winner Lindsay Duncan has worked extensively for the National Theatre where her credits include Plenty, The Homecoming and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and for the Royal Shakespeare Company in productions including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Les Liaisons Dangereuses. In the West End she has been seen in The Cryptogram, That Face and Noël Coward’s Private Lives. For the Royal Court her credits include the original production of Top Girls as well as Ashes to Ashes and Mouth to Mouth. For the Almeida Theatre her credits include Celebration and The Room. On television she has recently appeared as Alex Cairns in Black Mirror – The National Anthem and The Duchess of York in Rupert Goold’s Richard II. Her other television credits also include White Heat, Dr Who and the title role in Margaret; as well as Lost in Austen, Longford, Rome, Shooting the Past, Perfect Strangers, The Rector’s Wife, A Year in Provence, GBH and Traffik. Her film credits include Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Starter For Ten, Mansfield Park, An Ideal Husband and Prick Up Your Ears.

Olivier award-wining Jeremy Northam was most recently on stage at the Donmar Warehouse in Old Times. His other theatre credits include Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Country Wife for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Certain Young Men for the Almeida Theatre and The Voysey Inheritance at the National Theatre. He has most recently been seen on television in Stephen Poliakoff’s Glorious 39 and as Thomas Moore in The Tudors. His other television credits include White Heat and Journey’s End. Northam’s film credits include Creation, Dean Spanley, A Cock and Bull Story, Gosford Park (in which he played Ivor Novello), The Winslow Boy, An Ideal Husband, Happy Texas, Possession, Emma, The Net and Carrington.

Kevin R McNally’s most recent stage credits are as Claudius in Hamlet and Lebedev in Ivanov, both for the Donmar Warehouse at Wyndham’s Theatre. Previously his extensive theatre credits include Boeing-Boeing, The Lady in the Van, Naked, Dead Funny and The Iceman Cometh. Recent television includes ITV1’s Downton Abbey. His other television credits include New Tricks, Life On Mars, Margaret, Bloodlines, Dunkirk, Spooks, Shackleton, Rab C Nesbitt, Enigma and Diana. McNally’s many film credits include the role of Joshamee Gibbs, Captain Jack Sparrow’s first mate in The Pirates of the Caribbean films, The Raven (to be released next spring), Valkyrie, De-Lovely, The Phantom of the Opera, Johnny English, Sliding Doors, Irish Jam and Entrapment.

Olivia Colman’s theatre credits include England People Very Nice for the National Theatre, The Three Some for the Lyric Hammersmith and A Long Day’s Journey Into Night at the Lyric Theatre. Her upcoming film credits include The Iron Lady directed by Phyllida Lloyd and Hyde Park on Hudson. Her other film credits include Tyrannosaur, Dog Altogether, Grow Your Own, I Could Never Be Your Woman and Hot Fuzz. On television she is best known for playing Sophie Chapman in the Peep Show series and Harriet Schulenburg in the Green Wing series. Her other television credits include The Baader Meinhof Gang series, Exile, Doctor Who, Beautiful People, Consuming Passion, That Mitchell and Webb Look, Hancock and Joan, Love Soup, Much Ado About Nothing, Ny-Lon and The Office.

Sam Callis was most recently on stage in Henrik Ibsen’s The League of Youth at Nottingham Playhouse. His other theatre credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York and The Tempest for Sheffield Crucible and the Old Vic. On television he is best known for playing Sergeant Callum Stone in The Bill. His other television credits include Doctor Who and London’s Burning. Film credits include Shrink, Capital Punishment and Kidulthood.

Freddie Fox has appeared in three productions - A Flea In Her Ear, Cause Célèbre and last month’s 24 Hour Plays - at the Old Vic since graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama last year. He is soon to play the title role in the BBC’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ The Mysteries of Edwin Drood. His other television credits include Any Human Heart, Worried About The Boy and The Shadow Line. His film credits include The Three Musketeers and St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold.

Amy Morgan has recently been seen in Inadmissible Evidence at the Donmar Warehouse. Her other theatre credits include The Taming of the Shrew and To Kill A Mockingbird for Theatre Clwyd and the 24 Hour Plays at the Old Vic. Her television credits include Holby City, Baker Boys and Closer and on film her credits include A Way of Life and Big Font.Large Spacing.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s theatre credits include Sixty Six Books for the Bush Theatre, Tribes at the Royal Court and Rope for the Almeida Theatre. She is currently playing Chloe in Sky 1’s The Café. Her other television credits include How Not To live Your Life and Doctors and her upcoming film credits include The Iron Lady and Albert Nobbs.

Jenny Galloway is an Olivier Award winning actress, last seen on stage in Anna Christie at the Donmar Warehouse. Her previous theatre credits include Les Miserables, Oliver! and Mamma-Mia. She is best known on television for her role of Bella Ellis in Marple: The Pale Horse. Galloway’s film credits include In Transit, About a Boy and Johnny English.

Multi award-winning Howard Davies is an Associate Director of the National Theatre where his many productions include The Cherry Orchard, The White Guard, Burnt by the Sun, The Taking Cure, Flight, Present Laughter and Mourning Becomes Electra. For the Almeida Theatre, where he was also Associate Director, his productions include Period of Adjustment, The Play About the Baby, The Iceman Cometh and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? At the Royal Shakespeare Company he produced 26 new plays in 4 years at the Warehouse Theatre which he established and ran. His other RSC credits include The General from America, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Jail Diary of Albie Sachs. In the West End Davies’ directing credits include All My Sons, The Breath of Life and Noël Coward’s Private Lives. His many Broadway transfers include A Moon for the Misbegotten, The Iceman Cometh, My Fair Lady, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Information for HAY FEVER

Dates: 10 February – 2 June 2012
Press performances: 23 February at 7pm, 24 February at 7.30pm, 25 February at 2.30pm and 7.30pm
Reviews embargoed until 27 February
Address: Noël Coward Theatre
St Martin's Lane, London, WC2N 4AU
Performances: Monday – Saturday at 7.30pm
Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm
First Wednesday matinee 29 February
Box Office: 0844 482 5140

Ticket prices: £16 - £53.50 plus concessions
Day seats: a limited number of £25 best front row stalls seats will go on sale at the Box Office at 10am on the day of each performance
Website: www.hayfeverlondon.com

PHOTO CREDIT: CATHERINE ASHMORE