Chichester Observer 18 June 97
Plenty of fun with a flourish.

Sadly, we may never know what Maureen Lipman
would have made of the role of Madame Arcati
in Noel Cowards' superlative comedy, but the
instant it was announced that Dora Bryan was
to be her replacement you felt that here was
a more likely Arcati.  It's almost impossible
to put Margaret Rutherford from your mind in
the role, and, unfair or not, Rutherford is
bound to be most people's yardstick, but Ms
Bryan comes satisfyingly close. The fluffed
lines, and there were plenty of those, add to
the general dizzy dippiness of Coward's happy
medium, and where the lines fail the gestures
never do. Ms Bryan's Arcati is forever
lifting her legs, hitching her skirts, and
pulling faces as she plunges everyone into
other-worldly mayhem.
 
Twiggy grows on you as the petulant, skittish
Elvira, and Belinda Lang is strong as the
haughty and sorely tried second wife.
Steven Pacey, in the middle of it all, is
enjoyable as the plummy novelist trying to
research his next work and getting far more
than he bargained for. The result is plenty
of comedy, particularly when words directed
at the first wife are misconstrued by the
second. One slight niggle, though it's
difficult to see how else the theatre could
have handled it, is the fact that there are
two intervals, something that always makes a
play seem far longer than it is, but if you
find yourself struggling once it gets to
10.20, just hold on a little longer.  The
final moments, when the spooks really let
fly, give the play a final flourish to end
on.