The Clubs' first really professional printed programme, which had a dramatic and colourful cover, thanks to the efforts of Jiirg Chresta and Penny Ehrsam.

And they were Free Flights to London to be won on all four performance nights with the entry coupon in the programme!

Blithe Spirit (Noël Coward)

Director  -  Richard Levitt

Assistant to the Director  -  Muriel Taylor

Production Manager  -  Ruedi Kuster

Stage Manager  -  Peter Nixon 

Cast

Tony James  -  Charles

Lesley Stockreisser  -  Elvira, Charles first wife (passed over)

Cynthia Baer  -  Ruth, Charles second wife

Barbara Clark  -  Madame Arcati

Graham Simons  -  Dr Bradman

Ruth Meier  -  Mrs Bradman

Joan Kuster  -  Edith, the Maid

Synopsis

Charles Condomine, a successful novelist, is gathering material for a new book whose plot involves spiritualism. He therefore invites Madame Arcati, the eccentric local medium, to conduct a séance at his home for himself and his second wife, Ruth – with Dr Bradman (the village GP) and his wife to add scientific weight. Charles intends to ferret out the disreputable tricks of a bogus medium; but unfortunately Madame Arcati is not as bogus as she seems, and Charles has overlooked the fact that Elvira, his first wife, “passed over” (mediums never say “die”) some years previously and is consequently waiting on the Other Side. There are, furthermore, powerful forces unconsciously at work under his own roof. As a result, some hectic hours are passed at the Condomines’ and a profound but not altogether unwelcome change takes place in Charles’ life.

Blithe Spirit was written “between one Saturday and the next” in the Watch House, a cottage forming part of the Italiante Welsh village of Portmeirion.

Venue: Gymnasium Bäumlihof, Basel

15/16/17/18 February 1984