Hollywood and Broadway star Christine Baranski makes her long-awaited West End debut this autumn, starring alongside Richard E. Grant in Noël Coward’s classic comedy of bad manners in a strictly limited 12-week season at Wyndham’s Theatre.
One of the most anticipated castings of the autumn season arrives this September as Christine Baranski, the two-time Tony Award winner and star of The Good Wife, The Gilded Age and Mamma Mia! makes her long-awaited West End debut in a major new revival of Noël Coward’s Hay Fever. Baranski stars opposite British screen icon Richard E. Grant, in his first West End appearance in over two decades, in a strictly limited 12-week season at Wyndham’s Theatre from 22 September 2026.
Directed by Emily Burns, this pairing of two beloved performers in one of Coward’s wittiest comedies is set to be one of the highlights of the West End year.
View live availability for Hay Fever tickets here
Key dates and venue
- Theatre: Wyndham’s Theatre, Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0DA
- Performances: 22 September – 12 December 2026 (12 weeks only)
- Tickets: On sale now
What is Hay Fever about?
Hay Fever is a sparkling comedy of appalling manners set over a single, disastrous weekend at the country home of the eccentric, bohemian Bliss family. The story centres on Judith Bliss, a gloriously theatrical retired actress who can’t quite resist performing in everyday life, along with her novelist husband David, and their two grown-up children, Simon and Sorel adding to the chaos too.
It all begins when all four members of the family each secretly invite a guest to stay for the weekend. As four bewildered visitors arrive expecting a relaxing country retreat, they find themselves swept up in the Blisses’ games, flirtations and melodramatic flounces, where nothing is sincere and everything is performance.
The result is a masterclass in social disaster and a fast, frothy and gleefully silly comedy in which the guests are slowly driven to distraction by their impossible hosts. Coward gives us no real plot to speak of, but that makes his comedy of character, manners and quicksilver wit shine all the brighter, building to the kind of glorious anarchy that has made it one of his best-loved plays.
The history of Hay Fever
Hay Fever first premiered in the West End in 1925 and has remained one of Noël Coward’s most popular and frequently revived comedies for a century.
Coward wrote it in just three days, and though some early critics dismissed it as having “no plot and very little action,” audiences disagreed and it has endured as a staple of the British stage ever since.
The role of Judith Bliss in particular has become one of the great comic parts for a leading actress, played over the decades by a roll-call of British stars including Edith Evans, Judi Dench, Felicity Kendal and Lindsay Duncan.
This new production offers a fresh twist on that tradition by casting the American Christine Baranski in the role: a fitting choice, as it happens, since Coward originally based the character on the American actress Laurette Taylor, whom he met in 1921 and whose theatrical household reportedly inspired the play.
Who is in Hay Fever?
Christine Baranski (The Good Wife, The Gilded Age, Mamma Mia!) as Judith Bliss, the gloriously dramatic retired actress at the heart of the family
Richard E. Grant (Withnail & I, Saltburn, Can You Ever Forgive Me?) as David Bliss, Judith’s husband, a novelist, in his first West End role in over twenty years
Christine Baranski’s casting is a genuine event. A two-time Tony Award winner who began her career on stage before becoming a household name through six Emmy-nominated television roles, she has described appearing in the West End as a lifelong dream, recalling that she attended her first West End play as a Juilliard student in 1971.
A self-described “Cowardian” who has previously starred in Coward’s Private Lives and Blithe Spirit in the US, she said Hay Fever “requires quicksilver delivery and suave flamboyance,” adding: “I hope it will be a delicious treat for audiences to spend time with this Blissful Bohemian family.“
Richard E. Grant, the Oscar-nominated star of Can You Ever Forgive Me? and beloved for Withnail & I and more recently Saltburn, returns to the West End stage for the first time in over twenty years. He has described Baranski as “sensational” and expressed his delight at returning to the stage in Coward’s “delicious” comedy.
The playwright: Noël Coward
Sir Noël Coward (1899–1973) was one of the defining figures of twentieth-century British theatre: a playwright, composer, director, actor and singer whose wit and style came to embody an entire era.
Known universally as “The Master,” he wrote more than fifty plays, including the enduring comedies Private Lives, Blithe Spirit, Present Laughter and Design for Living, alongside hundreds of songs and a string of revues.
Hay Fever, written early in his career when he was just 25, remains one of his most performed works: a perfect distillation of the brittle, brilliant comic voice that would define his writing.
Coward’s particular genius was for plays that appear effortlessly light while demanding immense precision and timing from their performers, and Hay Fever is among the finest examples. A century on, his work continues to be revived constantly on both sides of the Atlantic, and his reputation as one of the great comic dramatists of the English language is secure.
The creative team
- Writer: Noël Coward
- Director: Emily Burns (Jack Absolute Flies Again)
Hay Fever is directed by Emily Burns, one of the most exciting directors of her generation, whose work includes Jack Absolute Flies Again and who has served as associate director on major productions including the West End and Broadway hit Present Laughter. The production is produced by Wessex Grove and Gavin Kalin Productions.
Screen history
While Hay Fever is primarily a stage work, it has been adapted for television several times, most notably in a 1968 BBC production and a 1984 version. It has never received a major feature-film adaptation, which makes a live staging the definitive way to experience it.
The stage is the perfect way to watch the escalating comic energy of the Bliss family in full flow: the timing, the flamboyance and the sheer accumulating chaos of a houseful of guests being driven slowly mad. Hay Fever is a play built for the shared, in-the-room experience of an audience laughing together, and it rewards the precision of live performance in a way that has kept it on stage for a hundred years.
Why Hay Fever matters
A century after it was written, Hay Fever endures because it is, quite simply, one of the most perfectly constructed comedies in the English language. Coward took a deceptively slight premise, namely a family too self-absorbed to behave well and spun from it a play that has never stopped being funny. Its portrait of a theatrical family who treat their own lives as a never-ending performance feels, if anything, more recognisable than ever in an age of curated personas and constant self-dramatisation.
It also remains a showcase for star actors, particularly in the role of Judith Bliss, which is why each major revival becomes an event in its own right.
What to expect on the night
Hay Fever is a witty, fast-paced and very funny period comedy. Expect an evening of high theatrical style, glorious one-liners and escalating social chaos. The tone is sophisticated and gleefully silly, with the comedy coming from character and manners rather than plot. Sparkling dialogue is practically the play’s raison d’etre.
Is Hay Fever worth seeing?
Without question, for lovers of classic comedy and great star casting alike. This is a rare chance to see Christine Baranski make her West End debut in a role she seems born to play, opposite the magnetic Richard E. Grant in his first West End appearance in over twenty years.
Add a century-old comedy that remains genuinely, reliably funny, and the sharp directorial eye of Emily Burns, and you have one of the most appealing prospects of the autumn season. With a strictly limited 12-week run and demand for tickets high, early booking is strongly recommended.
Book tickets to Hay Fever at Wyndham’s Theatre here
Plan your visit
- Theatre: Wyndham’s Theatre, Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0DA
- Booking dates: 22 September – 12 December 2026 (12 weeks only)
- Getting there: Leicester Square (Northern and Piccadilly lines), a short walk away
- Tickets: On sale now
Wyndham's Theatre, London
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