Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit has been brought to stages and screens several times in the past, but that isn't deterring the team behind the latest adaptation. With Dan Stevens, Judi Dench, Isla Fisher and Leslie Mann heading up the cast, the ghostly comedy will be back in cinemas later this year. Check out the trailer...
The story is that of best-selling crime novelist Charles (Stevens), who is struggling with catastrophic writer’s block and a stressful deadline for his first screenplay. His picture-perfect second wife Ruth (Fisher) is doing her best to keep him focussed in the hope of fulfilling her dream of heading to Hollywood. Charles’ desperate search for inspiration leads him to invite Madame Arcati (Dench), a medium recently exposed as a fraud, to perform a séance in their home. They all get more than they bargained for when Arcati accidentally summons the spirit of his deceased first wife: the fiery and jealous Elvira (Mann) who embarks on a mission to kill Charles so she can spend eternity with him which leads to an increasingly comical and deadly love triangle.
Edward Hall, who worked with Stevens on Downton Abbey and shot episodes of the seemingly-but-not-actually-connected Spooks directs here, while Meg Leonard, Nick Moorcroft and Piers Ashworth wrote the adaptation. Blithe Spirit will haunt UK cinemas from 1 May.