ARTISTIC director Damian Cruden began rehearsals this week for York Theatre Royal's production of Hay Fever, Noel Coward's comedy of bad manners in the English country.

The play's seeds were sown one unusual weekend in 1921 at the New York home of Broadway star Laurette Taylor and her family, as Coward recalled in his autobiography. "On Sunday evenings we had cold supper and played games, often rather acrimonious games, owing to Laurette's abrupt disapproval of any guest who turned out to be self-conscious, nervous, or unable to act an adverb or an historical personage with proper abandon," he wrote.

Upon seeing the show on its 1924 debut, Laurette Taylor nevertheless denied any resemblance to her family with the comment: "None of us is ever unintentionally rude."

Such a line of defence could so easily have come from the mouths of the Bliss family in Hay Fever: retired actress Judith, novelist husband David and their self-absorbed children, Sorel and Simon, who set the scene for mayhem by each inviting a guest for the weekend without telling the rest of the family.

The hapless guests anticipate a romantic break but the eccentric Bliss family's penchant for dramatics overtakes the proceedings, whereupon the weekend is turned into an excuse for parlour games of the most unexpected variety.

"Hay Fever is possibly Coward's best comedy, portraying the surreal world of the Bliss family, who are joyously unconventional in their manners, outsiders on the inside," says Damian. "Anarchy is always wonderfully theatrical and this play disrupts all the accepted norms!"

Joining Cruden for a wicked weekend with the Bliss family will be David Leonard, the Theatre Royal pantomime villain for 18 years, in the role of David Bliss. Kate Brown heads north to play Judith Bliss, in the wake of appearing in the West End hit Round The Horne... Revisited at The Venue, London.

The roles of the Bliss children, Sorel and Simon, go to Danielle King, from ITV's Bad Girls, and Jack Sandle, who performed alongside David Leonard in Adam Bede and Summer Again at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond.

Mark Payton, who has starred at the Theatre Royal in A Cloud in Trousers and Northanger Abbey, plays suave diplomat Richard Greatham; Julie Teal, last seen in York in Abandonment, is femme fatale Myra Arundel; Alex Kerr, from the Theatre Royal cast for J B Priestley's When We Are Married, is the athletic, tennis-playing Sandy Tyrrell; Amy Humphreys plays naive flapper Jackie Clayton. Gilly Tompkins, the servant in A Cloud In Trousers, takes on another domestic part, this time as family maid Clara.

Looking forward to the "fun rehearsal period", Damian Cruden says: "After the success of Private Lives, it was obvious that there's a large following for Coward's work in our city.

"I've always found Hay Fever one of his funniest works and thought that it would be a wonderful early summer treat."

In the production team with Cruden are Nigel Hook, the designer for Theatre Royal productions of Single Spies, Dead Funny and Piaf, and Malcolm Rippeth, whose lighting designs were an outstanding feature of Macbeth earlier this year.

Hay Fever will run from May 23 to June 11. Tickets cost £3.50 to £18 on 01904 623568.

Updated: 16:02 Thursday, April 28, 2005