NOEL Coward wrote Hay Fever in only three days, fevered writing indeed in 1925. Cynics might say that's why there is so little plot to a play in which, in the words of York Theatre Royal artistic director Damian Cruden, "nothing happens and yet everything happens".

Cruden has always loved Coward's light comedy of bad manners at an impromptu house party, and that love blossoms in a deliciously stylish, summer-lit production full of spite and polish. From nostalgic poster to Nigel Hook's exquisite haute couture, this Hay Fever made the right moves, typified by the final comic touch of Gilly Tompkins's always amusing maid, Clara, taking her bows from the kitchen doorway, while family and house guests enter from the hall.

Designer Hook gives the artistic Bliss family a country house aptly crammed with clutter rather than history, a baronial pile with a tumble of books on the endless staircase. Everything here looks casual and dumped, a foretaste of how the Blisses are to treat their guests. Romantic novelist David (David Leonard), retired but far from retiring actress Judith (Kate Brown) and their equally self-absorbed children, Simon (Jack Sandle) and Sorel (Danielle King), have each invited a guest for their weekend amusement without telling the others.

Enter into the Blisses' world of game playing and bad manners Judith's young quarry, the infatuated, nice but dim Sandy Tyrell (Alex Kerr); Simon's older woman, calculating socialite Myra Arundel (Julie Teal); Sorel's older man, ever diplomatic diplomatist Richard Greatham (Mark Payton); and David's bit of research fluff, flapping flapper Jackie Coryton (Amy Humphreys). Unpredictable artistic temperament and insurmountable self-confidence combine to inflict humiliation upon the cornered quartet, but the sting to Coward's tale is that the artistic set are utterly open in their behaviour, whereas each guest's modus operandi is open to question.

Cruden's flowing production elects for two intervals rather than the old three, but his cast judges the pace as well as a marathon runner. Brown stands out, her Judith determinedly out-acting everyone in the manner of ever theatrical Judith herself; Payton's Greatham is wonderfully awkward, as only the English can be; Leonard plays the cad with customary elongated elegance; King and Sandle's Sorel and Simon spat amusingly; Teal's Myra is to the Twenties' manner born, and Kerr and Humphreys' hapless victims add comic zest, particularly in the egg-cracking breakfast scene. Blissful.

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Updated: 12:24 Thursday, May 26, 2005