UNTIL SEPTEMBER 4 2004, BATH: One of Noel Coward's best-loved comedies, Blithe Spirit, starring Penelope Keith and double Olivier award winner Joanna Riding opens at the Theatre Royal Bath next week as part of The Peter Hall Company 2004 season.

This stylish new production is directed by Thea Sharrock.

Author Charles Condomine and his second wife, Ruth, hold a sance in order for Charles to learn the tricks of the trade as research for his new novel.

Little expecting more than after dinner entertainment, their lives are turned upside down when eccentric medium, Madame Arcati inadvertently conjures up the ghost of Charles' first wife, Elvira, who begins a spirited campaign to get her husband back.

Blithe Spirit is a 20th century classic, Noel Coward's own favourite play, which he wrote in a flush of almost supernatural inspiration in 1941. It remained the longest running comedy in British theatre for three decades.

Filled with scintillating wit and some hilarious characters, this delightful comedy follows the tremendous success of Coward's Design For Living in last year's Peter Hall Company season.

Madame Arcati, one of English theatre's most immortal comic characters, is played by Penelope Keith. Winner of many theatre and television awards, Penelope is known to millions for her roles in the long running TV series The Good Life and To The Manor Born.

Her television credits also include Sweet Sixteen, Executive Stress, Next of Kin, and most recently Margery And Gladys.

Penelope Keith's stage career started by working extensively in repertory, including seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company and London's Aldwych Theatre.

Her many theatre credits also include The House of Bernarda Alba and The Deep Blue Sea.

Penelope's most recent roles at the Theatre Royal include Lorraine Barrie in Noel Coward's comedy Star Quality in October 2001, prior to a West End run at the Apollo Theatre; and Mrs Conway in J B Priestley's Time And The Conways, last November, which also toured the UK.

Penelope Keith is president of the Actor's Benevolent Fund, and was awarded an OBE in 1988. She held the office of High Sheriff of Surrey and, as such, was Her Majesty the Queen's legal representative in the county.

Double Olivier award-winning actress Joanna Riding stars as Ruth Condomine.

Joanna trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and most recently appeared in The Happiest Days Of Your Life and Hobson's Choice at the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre, for which she was nominated for the Manchester Evening News Best Actress Award.

She has won the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical on two occasions for her role as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 2003 and for her role as Julie Jordan in Carousel at the National Theatre in 1993.

She was also nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Jane Smart in The Witches of Eastwick at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and for her role as Sarah Brown in Guys And Dolls at the National Theatre.

Joanna's most recent television credits include Holby City, The Royal, The Brian Conley Show, Casualty and Jeeves and Wooster.

Earlier this summer Joanna appeared in The Time Of My Life at Bristol Old Vic to mark the 50th anniversary of Salad Days which was first performed in Bristol in June 1954.

Aden Gillett plays the role of Charles Condomine. Aden starred as Leo in Design For Living and as Jerry in Betrayal at the Theatre Royal last summer for The Peter Hall Company 2003, and in the West End.

On television, he played the role of Jack Maddox in The House of Eliott.

Aden's film work includes The Winslow Boy, directed by David Mamet and The Borrowers. His stage work ranges from the National Theatre's Noises Off and Stephen Daldry's An Inspector Calls on Broadway (for which he was awarded the Theatreworld Award for Best Newcomer on Broadway) to Jonathan Miller's production of The Tempest and Cheek by Jowl's production of Twelfth Night.

Blithe Spirit

Theatre Royal Bath

Wednesday until September 4