Were Critics Charmed by Judi Dench in West End Hay Fever Revival?
London’s most beloved stage star, Judi Dench, returned to the West End’s Haymarket Theatre—a theatre where she last appeared in the world premiere of David Hare’s The Breath of Life in 2002—to now breath new life into Noel Coward’s 1925 comedy about a theatre family, Hay Fever. The production opened on April 20 under the direction of Peter Hall. Did critics fall under Dame Judi’s spell once again? Here’s a sampling of what they had to say: Matt Wolf in his Theatre.com Review: “It’s tempting, and happily altogether true, to describe Judi Dench’s performance in Hay Fever as bliss, which is of a piece with the character she is playing: the preening actress Judith Bliss. Dench has played actresses before on numerous occasions, from Desiree in A Little Night Music and Arkadina in The Seagull through to her Tony-winning Esme in Amy’s View. But a couple of go’s at Oscar Wilde’s Lady Bracknell notwithstanding, Dench has rarely been given the opportunity for high comic style that she seizes upo
