The Genesian Theatre Company’s new play is a revival of Noel Coward’s classic 1925 comedy, ‘Hay Fever’, in a production directed by Genesian stalwart, Nanette Frew. Coward’s play takes us in into the madcap, crazy world of an eccentric family, similar in style to Moss Hart and George Kaufman’s brilliant 1936 comedy, ‘You Can’t Take It With You’.

The play is set at the start of a summer weekend in the Thames-side home of popular novelist David Bliss (Timothy Bennett). The novelist shares his home with his actress wife, Judith (Hilary Miller) and their two grown up children, Simon (Michael Sutherland) and Sorel (Marisa-Clare Berzins). Plans for an enjoyable weekend are thrown into jeopardy when it emerges that unbeknownst to the others, each has invited a special guest up for the weekend. Before anything can be changed, the first guest, Sorel’s guest, Richard (Jordan Watt) arrives at the door.

Nanette Frew’s production serves Coward’s satirical comedy well, communicating the get the guests mentality of the Bliss family as they created havoc, that is, until the guests got to have the last laugh. There were some fine performances. Hilary Miller, a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, was great in her high energy comic portrayal of Judith as the quintessential drama queen and control freak. University of New England drama graduate Melanie Robinson was strong in her portrayal of the bitchy, deadpan Myra Arundel who had no time for Simon Bliss’s good natured flirting.

Debbie Smith’s fine set of the Bliss’s french provincial style living room featuring a white piano, and with doors leading to a garden and library worked well. As did Susan Carveth’s costumes, especially a glittering chintz gown that Hilary Miller as Judith paraded around the stage.

Nanette Frew’s production of ‘Hay Fever’ plays the Genesian Theatre, 420 Kent Street, till the 8th August, 2009.