The reviews are in for Hay Fever, Emily Burns’s revival of Noël Coward’s 1924 comedy, in which a family of incorrigible show-offs invite four guests for a country weekend and then make their lives a misery. The notices are mostly warm rather than rapturous, running from four five-star raves to one firm pan, and the critics disagree most about the two names above the title: Richard E Grant is perfect casting for City AM and only okay for Time Out, while Christine Baranski’s English accent wins over WhatsOnStage and City AM but strikes The Guardian, theartsdesk and BroadwayWorld as getting in her way. Where they do agree is on the guests, with Charles Edwards, Nancy Carroll and Lucy Karczewski picked out time and again. Frankie Bradshaw’s drawing-room set wins most of them over too, though The Independent finds it sterile.
The verdict: thirty-one reviews in so far — four five-star notices, eleven four-star, nine three-star and one two-and-a-half, plus British Theatre Guide and Gay Times, which show no rating, with The Telegraph, The Times, The Stage and the Financial Times behind paywalls. Among the twenty-five we could read that give a score, the average is 3.7 out of 5. The critics part company over the two stars, but the visiting guests — Charles Edwards, Nancy Carroll and Lucy Karczewski — are praised almost everywhere.
What are critics saying about Hay Fever?
All That Dazzles
Reviewer: Sam Woodward
“At the forefront of this strong cast is Christine Baranski, a talented actress whose skills span film, television and stage, earning her numerous accolades including two Tony Awards. It is not always easy to live up to the expectations that such acclaim can bring, but Baranski meets and exceeds them with ease. A force of comic genius, her impeccable timing, brilliant voice work and deadpan humour are exceptional to watch, making it very difficult to peel your eyes away from her. Commanding the attention of the audience, her family and the guests on stage, Baranski is the perfect Judith Bliss. Her lament over her own appearance in the mirrors captures the balance between egotistical power and subtle emotional misery beautifully, making Judith’s vanity both ridiculous and faintly sad. Audiences move seamlessly between laughing at, with and against matriarch Bliss, thanks to Baranski’s layered and dynamic performance.”
Jonathan Baz
Reviewer: Jonathan Baz
"Frightfully fabulous five-star farce!"
A Young(ish) Perspective
“Winsomely delivered by a beautifully balanced cast, this Hay Fever finds fresh life in Coward’s comic rhythms”
Reviewer: Antonia Constantin
Antonia Constantin is among the warmest voices yet, crediting Emily Burns’s staging with turning the Bliss family’s chaos into pure pleasure. She enjoys Baranski’s saucy Judith and Grant’s self-important David, but says the real joy is a company in which neither the veterans nor the younger actors overshadow the other.
"This feels like a company enjoying the same joke and knowing exactly how to pass it around."
She singles out Charles Edwards’s bewildered diplomat as particularly funny and calls Frankie Bradshaw’s lived-in set another highlight.
Read Antonia Constantin’s full review at A Young(ish) Perspective
ArtsHub UK
“Richard E Grant and Christine Baranski sparkle in Noël Coward’s Hay Fever”
Reviewer: Diana Carroll
Diana Carroll is one of the most enthusiastic voices in the roundup, applauding Emily Burns for trusting Coward’s text instead of forcing a modern spin on it. She calls Christine Baranski superb on her West End debut, finding real warmth and wit beneath Judith’s posturing, and has Richard E Grant as a delight from first scene to last as David.
"A century after Coward wrote it, Hay Fever remains deliciously, wickedly alive."
She has warm words for the supporting company too, Jo McInnes’s long-suffering Clara above all, and for Frankie Bradshaw’s grand country-house set.
WhatsOnStage
“Christine Baranski and Richard E Grant offer up a light and delicious West End confection”
Reviewer: Sarah Crompton
“Each represents a type, but the economy of Coward’s writing gives each a distinct character, and the actors fill out the frame. As the suave diplomat Richard Gratham, Charles Edwards is wonderfully catatonic with embarrassment, picking at the furniture in distress, but constantly trying to find the polite thing to say, while Nancy Carroll as the socialite Myra Arundel is a polished whirlwind of sophisticated flirting and pent-up anger, furious that the rules of a game she is used to playing are being torn up.”
City AM
“Richard E Grant is perfect Coward fodder”
Reviewer: Adam Bloodworth
“Richard E Grant is obviously perfect for the feverishly privileged, short tempered David, who, like so many poshos, is magnetic to watch self-destruct. I could watch the actor play angry, bellowing, gesticulating toffs for literal years, even if Saltburn, Withnail & I and the countless other roles have tended to typecast him. Baranski grips equally, flipping in milliseconds between sensual and ballistic, drawing on her Mamma Mia film performance to produce a decent English accent (Maggie Smith premiered the part at the Old Vic in 1964, when the play become the National Theatre’s first production of a play by a living author).”
The Upcoming
Reviewer: Emilia Gould
“This staging has nothing particularly political to say, nor does it leave the audience with any moralistic takeaways; rather, Hay Fever feels like a dance of elongated vowels, pantomime-worthy gasps and sideways glances. The Bliss family, described by Myra (Nancy Carroll) as “superficial to the point of lunacy”, maintain their exaggerated demeanour throughout the play, leaving little room for any real depth. The first half of the show is dynamic and highly bouncy; however, the second half stalls and is slightly less digestible.”
LondonTheatre.co.uk
“Christine Baranski and Richard E. Grant lead a fun and frothy revival”
Reviewer: Olivia Rook
“Baranski certainly has stage presence, as she wafts about in a gold caftan, with billowing sleeves, gently gesticulating while her mellifluous voice floats out to the auditorium. She captures Judith’s dismissive superficiality and delivers wonderfully deadpan lines such as “Perfect agony, I wish I were dead”, emitting a small sigh or staring off into the distance as though waiting for her close-up (appropriate enough, given Baranski has spent much of her life working on screen). Her performance feels slightly underpowered for the role, though she picks up the pace in Act II after being startled by a kiss from Richard, and catching not only her daughter tucked away in the library with Sandy, but her husband in a romantic entanglement with Myra.”
The Reviews Hub
“Top notch revival”
Reviewer: John Cutler
“Baranski is a good actor playing a bad actor, brilliantly. Her Judith, part declaiming, gesticulating Edith Evans and part ferocious Brooklyn drag queen, has an accent that meanders back and forth across the Atlantic for much of the evening. Still, the comic timing is impeccable, and the sheer expansiveness of the performance is quite something to see. She gets a deserved round of applause for a gloriously off-key, faux-operatic rendition of a song the character seems to genuinely believe she is nailing.”
West End Best Friend
Reviewer: Cara Brazier
“However, the jewel in this crown is the inimitable Christine Baranski. Switching seamlessly between boredom and pizzazz, she brings a slightly maniacal, Schitt’s Creek-esque energy to Judith, endlessly causing havoc with seemingly no regard for the consequences. It is a joy to watch the double Tony Award winner in action as the matriarch of this happily dysfunctional family.”
LouReviews
Reviewer: Louise Penn
“Director Emily Burns has left this 1924 play to speak for itself. Unlike the Present Laughter currently on tour, there is no modernisation or attempts to switch the focus. She trusts the script to make us laugh, and it does.”
West End Wilma
“Hay Fever has got it right. Christine Baranski does a great job as retired actress Judith – it’s refreshing to see an American actor take on an English accent and actually commit to it, rather than coasting through it the way so many visiting stars seem to. Richard E. Grant has a fairly small part to play as husband David, but he brings it the grace and charm he’s known for.”
Radio Times
Reviewer: Olivia Garrett
"Hay Fever is ridiculous, unpredictable, theatrical and just a damn good evening out."
Read About Stuff
Reviewer: Dan English
"As Judith, Baranski is sublime in her forced grace and poise…"
Seen and Heard International
“Richard E. Grant brings star quality to a decent production”
Reviewer: Barbara Ford
Barbara Ford enjoys Grant’s expansive self-absorption and has warm words for the guests, Nancy Carroll’s sharp-tongued Myra above all. Her reservation sits at the centre of the play: she finds Baranski’s Judith serviceable but too restrained to convince as a glamorous theatrical monster.
"Yes and no: it rattles along, with plenty of zing and a few good laughs."
She is delighted by the look of the show, from the blue-and-gold country-house hall to the procession of 1920s costumes.
Read Barbara Ford’s full review at Seen and Heard International
The Guardian
“Richard E Grant and Christine Baranski host Coward’s country house shenanigans”
Reviewer: Emma John
“Will Close’s Simon swings from pretentious artiste – in paint-stained plus-fours and buttoned boots – to Tiggerish lover at the arrival of the experienced Myra (a statuesque Nancy Carroll). And even the seen-it-all-seductress is less in command than she thought as the games progress from after-dinner entertainments to more overtly saucy ones. Charles Edwards, meanwhile, maintains an endless gallantry as the visiting diplomat whose social skills are strained to the limit as he falls beneath Judith’s spell.”
The Standard
“Richard E. Grant hams it up no end”
Reviewer: Nick Curtis
“In Burns’s production, the grandstanding of the central duo is built on a layer of dependable support. Nancy Carroll and Charles Edwards are faultless as the baffled and buffeted Myra and Richard, right down to their body language. Lovibond is deliciously pert as Sorel. And Lucy Karczewski is unrecognisable from her terrific, Stevie Nicks-ish stage debut in Stereophonic last year. As the ingenue Jackie she’s drippy, muted, awkward – and absolutely hilarious.”
The Independent
“Christine Baranski mumbles and Richard E Grant disappears in a half-amusing Noel Coward comedy”
Reviewer: Alice Saville
“Noel Coward delighted in overturning conventions, both theatrical and social. So perhaps he’d somewhat approve of the way that Emily Burns’s new production of his jaunty 1924 comedy Hay Fever upends the received wisdom that a show’s biggest stars should be the main draw. Christine Baranski mumbles her way through the central role of flamboyant actress Judith Bliss, while Richard E Grant fades unexpectedly into the scenery as her grumpy husband David. Instead, the biggest joy of the evening are this couple’s bewildered house guests, whose politeness imprisons them in an oh-so-genteel form of hell.”
Time Out
“A brilliant ensemble cast lift a trad production at Wyndham’s Theatre, though big name Grant is the weakest link”
Reviewer: Andrzej Lukowski
“And you know what: it’s very nearly good enough to style it all out on casting alone. Guesting American Christine Baranski brings a pleasingly doleful turn to reluctantly retired actress matriarch Judith Bliss, who must play hostess (of sorts) when each of the four Bliss family members invites a guest to stay without telling anybody else. Charles Edwards is beautifully hapless and well meaning as Richard, nominally invited as the guest of acidic daughter Sorrel (Ophelia Lovibond), but actually using it as a front for his designs on her mother (who has invited Ash Hunter’s wide-eyed Sandy down as her guest).”
theartsdesk
“Noel Coward’s 100-year-old comedy begins to show its age”
Reviewer: Helen Hawkins
“Is this enough for Judith Bliss, though? I found Baranski just a bit too well behaved for the role, but maybe director Emily Burns can coax her to go more OTT as the run goes on. She’s up against the sharpest of English actors in Nancy Carroll and Charles Edwards (as "diplomatist" Richard, pictured above with Carroll), both giving masterclasses in snappy articulation and less-is-more comedy. Lucy Karczewski, a standout in the West End Stereophonic, is also impressive as the winsome flapper Jackie, dim but adorable. Of the men, Will Close (barely recognisable as Dear England’s Harry Kane) is a plausible Simon, lazy and louche, while Richard E Grant is Richard E Grant, but a neat fit with the basically affable personality of David Bliss.”
BroadwayWorld
“A comfortable and comforting night at the theatre – just don’t expect fireworks”
Reviewer: Aliya Al-Hassan
“As Judith Bliss, Christine Baranski makes her West End debut as an actress playing a bad actress. Judith has very reluctantly retired from the stage, but is keen to bring theatrics into her life wherever possible. Baranski has a commanding presence, but her muddled accent of an odd mixture of RP and Atlantic twang impacts some of her delivery. But when she gets into her stride she leans into the acute and comedic melodrama of the role with gusto, sweeping from low imperious tones to much higher octaves.”
Theatre Weekly
Reviewer: Greg Stewart
"…a handsome, entertaining revival elevated by a game cast and a magnetic central performance…"
Everything Theatre
"A perfectly pleasant, intermittently funny comedy of manners, but not contagious."
Reviewer: Owen Thomas James
Owen Thomas James finds a starry, handsome revival with every ingredient in place except the one that matters most: it has not caught fire yet.
"What is missing, at least for now, is the spark to turn all that potential into something electric."
He thinks Christine Baranski’s Judith stays on the outside of the part, closer to a caricature of a diva than the real thing, while Richard E Grant gets more out of much less stage time. Charles Edwards and Lucy Karczewski stand out among the guests, Frankie Bradshaw’s set is the night’s biggest success for him, and he expects the comic timing to tighten as the run goes on.
Plays International
Reviewer: Neil Dowden
Neil Dowden enjoys the evening without laughing much, and would have liked more mischief than Emily Burns’s very conventional staging allows.
"Hay Fever is a delightfully airy soufflé that could not bear too much weight put on it…"
He finds Christine Baranski’s UK debut a little underpowered at first, partly as she works at the accent, though she warms up as it goes on, and wants more bite from Richard E Grant’s David. The younger Blisses land best for him, Ophelia Lovibond’s Sorel above all, and Frankie Bradshaw’s design, modelled on Wyndham’s own interior, impresses him.
First Night Magazine
“Drowsy performances are something to sneeze at”
Reviewer: Guillermo Nazara
“Both leads deliver flat, unelaborate performances. Richard E. Grant plays a bombastically loud David, but no amount of noise can cover the emptiness of his rendition. Conversely, Baranski is too tame to play a convincing Judith. She doesn’t convey the character’s grandiloquence organically. It’s fair that Judith’s histrionics should hint at a touch of pretence, but that only works when her actual personality is already pompously garish. Sadly, that’s exactly what she can’t grasp, perhaps because she’s too busy trying to put on an old RP accent.”
Gay Times
“Richard E Grant and Christine Baranski lead high-camp Hay Fever revival”
Reviewer: Chris Selman
Chris Selman finds a revival that delivers exactly what you would expect, staged in a style not far removed from Coward’s own production a century ago.
"It’s the theatre equivalent of comfort viewing, like a series you’d pop on for an evening of easy entertainment."
He means it kindly: the camp one-liners and withering put-downs still raise a laugh, and the caricatures are part of the fun. The rest of his review sits behind the magazine’s subscriber wall.
British Theatre Guide
Reviewer: Vera Liber
"…best for me is Jo McInnes as their droll, unshockable maid Clara…"
Production photographs by Marc Brenner.
Also reviewed by: The Telegraph (“Richard E Grant is great fun”), The Times, The Stage (Tom Wicker, “Glossily amusing”) and the Financial Times (“Richard E Grant and Christine Baranski star in diverting Noël Coward play”), whose reviews sit behind paywalls.
For more from this week’s press nights, see our roundups of The Standard of Living at the Theatre Royal Haymarket and Tru at the Menier Chocolate Factory.
Hay Fever is booking at Wyndham’s Theatre until Saturday 12 December 2026.
