I find it impossible to write about this play with detachment: from the first time it came into my life during wartime leave in 1941 from the Royal Artillery the comedy's wit, pace and complete originality, despite having been dashed off on Coward's typewriter in six days, have never failed to enchant through innumerable revivals and with casts of varying suitability, none or whom have ever excelled the originals, although some have come close. Fay Compton as Ruth Condomine, Cecil Parker as her husband Charles, Kay Hammond as his ghost wife Elvira and Margaret Rutherford as the bicycling Medium Madame Arcati stood as the definitive performances well beyond the initial West End run of six years in three different theatres, although cast members were changed from time to time.

More than half a century later the Theatre Royal’s company all give a good account of themselves although Marsha Fitzalan’s Ruth and Geoffrey Davies’s Charles, at the matinee performance when we saw it, tended to take the dialogue at a gallop which detracted from the humour of some of the lines and she strikes one as a little lightweight for the prosaic and unimaginative second Mrs Condomine. I own to a touch of unavoidable invidiousness in recalling Fay Compton, Constance Cummings (in the film) and, more than two decades later, Phyllis Calvert in the 1970 revival when Beryl Reid's Scottish Madame Arcati was considered by many to have measured up, in her very different way, to Margaret Rutherford’s classic original.

At Windsor we have, in Peggy Mount, an actress of unassailable individuality to take her place with the other great comedians to have given their own special touch to Coward’s memorable creation, including Cicely Courtneidge and Beatrice Lillie in the musical and Avril Angers and Anthony Quayle in other revivals. Although no one could erase the memory of the ethereal Kay Hammond in the part Coward must have written with her in mind, Louise Jamieson’s down-to-earth (no offence  intended) Elvira, at times evokes the other perfect delineation of the role, Judy Campbell, opposite Coward himself, which I saw on tour in Leeds - my second year in the army. Under Mark Piper's direction the comedy comes up mint-fresh, with admirable support from Kerry McDevitt as Edith, the Maid and Eira Griffiths and Robert Mill as Dr and Mrs Bradman.