Chewing the Scenery

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A novel about a top West End production of a classic play, from the fist day of rehearsals to the curtain coming down on Press Night. Legendary leading lady, Judith Gold, is at loggerheads with avant-garde theatre director Alexander Columbus on a West End production of the ghostly comedy Blithe Spirit. Judith considers he is ruining an excellent play. an opinion shared by fellow cast members, movie star Rupert Blake and his possessive real life wife, the glamorous though selfish, Miranda Flynn. Alexander believes he has the ambitious young Scarlett Montgomery on his side, in addition to Echo, the vacuous American ex-beauty queen, who has virtually no theatre experience and even less talent. Isabelle Whiteside is only interested in whoever delivers the best gossip, while Adam Lane merely prays to overcome his chronic stage fright. For producer Wesley Barrett, what had promised to be the perfect project has turned into a theatrical nightmare, complete with unexploded bombs and air raid sirens in what is supposed to be a 1930s drawing room comedy.