Los Angeles Times - Recommended
"...Coward's work enables virtuosos who possess technique that's as polished as it is effortless to reach new heights. Lansbury might as well be flying across the Ahmanson stage. Seeing her in "Blithe Spirit" is as joyful as staring at a Christmas tree being decorated by birds and elves."
LA Weekly - Somewhat Recommended
"...That can be corrected as long as the director insists that the players on stage infuse inner life into their characters. But under Michael Blakemore's direction, Edwards and Parry are, to varying degrees, merely capable. Rooper flounces and pouts, and that's about it. On the other hand, there's Lansbury, who turned 89 in October. If you're looking to experience a beautiful grande dame of the theater at her comic best, this is your chance."
Talkin Broadway - Recommended
"...Director Michael Blakemore gets terrific work from his entire cast, shown off to great effect in Simon Higlett's handsome living room set. The pyrotechnics and special effects at the play's conclusion are a nice touch. Coward's play still holds up brilliantly, bolstered by an ingenious premise and memorable characters, although, as always, his dialogue is the true star. If this production hasn't already sold out, acquiring tickets to attend it would be one the best presents you could get or give this holiday season."
Broadway World - Recommended
"...The entire ensemble shine under Michael Blakemore's superb direction. Lansbury is magnificently energetic, quick and dotty… focused at every split second. It would behoove young actresses to take a look to see how it is done. She gives a master class in comedic character acting."
Edge - Recommended
"...The delightful seven-member cast is a well-rehearsed team, directed by Michael Blakemore. They successfully mine the material for as many laughs and smiles as possible."
Stage and Cinema - Recommended
"...If time had not shown that Noël Coward's 1941 comedy Blithe Spirit is a funny play, one would not find out from Michael Blakemore's touring production, which broke a hip at the Ahmanson this week. Disdaining high and low points, ignoring moments, content pettily to creep, this is theater at a geriatric velocity. Don't blame the marquee attraction: While it is true that Angela Lansbury, at 89, displays few remaining star qualities-her diction, her movements, her timing, all were markedly limited opening night-it is Blakemore, at 86, who has put this show in a daybed and tucked the blanky under its chin."
The Hollywood Reporter - Recommended
"...The good news about Blithe Spirit is the rare chance to see her in a late-career triumph that caps 70 years of working with everyone from John Frankenheimer to Stephen Sondheim to Elvis Presley. The better news is that she is just one part of an outstanding ensemble headed by Edwards (Downton Abbey), in a role Coward himself played on tour - the egotistical and ridiculous novelist at the center of the play. Edwards conjures equal doses of charm, wit and buffoonery, effortlessly walking the line between suave and silly, and never losing the audience's sympathy, no matter how self-absorbed his behavior becomes."
ArtsInLA - Somewhat Recommended
"...With the exception of each welcome entrance of Lansbury's outlandishly quirky Arcati, which immediately fills the stage with a presence so rich one can almost smell her perfume way back in the cavernous Ahmanson's row P, and also excepting the delightful performance of Susan Louise O'Connor as the Condomines's nightmare of a maid Edith, everyone else is too dry and way too serious. The scenes between Charles Edwards as poor haunted Charles Condomine and Charlotte Parry as his terminally British second wife, Ruth, are technically proficient but deadly dull."
Total Theater - Recommended
"...It's a one-joke play that hinges on a supreme improbability–the ghost of a man's first wife showing up to rattle the underpinnings of his second marriage–but thanks to the superb comedic gifts of its seven-person cast, Blithe Spirit manages to light up the Ahmanson stage in its West Coast premiere."
KCRW - Recommended
"...Fair warning – Madame Arcati is not the center of the show but don't worry you're in good hands. While the rest of the cast isn't quite as incandescent as Ms. Lansbury, they more than hold up their side of the bargain. As the wonderfully awkward maid, Edith, Susan Louise-O'Connor has several ingenious physical bits that are a riot. And while it's true this isn't Noel Coward's best writing, it's still sharper and funnier than most."
