PRIVATE LIVES & HAY FEVER

These Noel Coward comedies feel dated, especially PRIVATE LIVES, with Stephen Fry and Imogen Stubbs as Elyot and Amanda, a divorced couple who meet again on their honeymoons to their second spouses. They run off together but are soon arguing as violently as they did when they were married. Unfortunately, the respective spouses sound so much like Fry and Stubbs that the story occasionally becomes difficult to follow. HAY FEVER is a fluffy, contrived comedy set in a British country house in the 1920s. The guests are so appalled by the rude behavior of the Bliss family that they flee while the family is loudly quarreling. HAY FEVER translates well to audio and features the marvelous Judi Dench as Judith Bliss, self-absorbed actress and matriarch. A.B. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 07]