As the Palace Theatre's contribution to the Coward centenary, Lawrence Till and designer Simon Higlett have created a sub-Daldry staging in which the Condomine's Kentish country house not only looks like a condemned property, shored-up by ghostly stacks of books, but finally collapses in dusty ruins as a bathtub makes its sudden appearance.

The living room, where guests assemble for pre-dinner drinks and a post-prandial séance, is like the pad of an unsuccessful writer, not a best selling novelist with a full-time cook and maid on the payroll, while a spiral staircase leading to other rooms creates constant problems for the cast, especially Debra Penny's splendid Edith. Christopher Strauli, rather rumpled as the debonair Char1es, pulls off his wellies on first entrance and signally fails to dress for dinner,  even though he later claims it as one of his things. But Paula Wilcox as his acerbic second wife is a genuinely likeable Ruth, wearing her thirties wardrobe with tremendous style.

Along With Malaprop and Wishfort, Coward's Madame Arcati is one of British theatre's great comic creations, a gift for eccentric actresses to whoop gleefully. Anne Reid looks the part and scores with her ectoplasmic sniffling and loopy gestures, but she delivers the imperishable lines like a dour WI matron. Natalia Makarova is divinely roguish as the wraith-like Elvira, a figure of astonishing grace and beauty in lavender chiffon, gliding with balletic lightness, but her exotic allure is meant for a different vehicle, and with play, production and performances at odds with each other, this is not one for the Coward purist.