Lansbury wows critics in London stage return
![Angela Lansbury: Angela Lansbury on stage at the Gielgud Theatre as she returns to the West End in Blithe Spirit, by Noel Coward.]({"default":"http://newsbcpcol.stb.s-msn.com/amnews/i/e7/d3b1a96dfaeba18a2ffc8c2b303e/_h353_w628_m6_otrue_lfalse.jpg"})
AP Photo: Joel Ryan – Invision, FileAngela Lansbury on stage at the Gielgud Theatre as she returns to the West End in Blithe Spirit, by Noel Coward.
LONDON (AP) — Angela Lansbury has British critics spellbound with her performance as a dotty mystic in “Blithe Spirit” on the London stage.
The 88-year-old performer is appearing in the West End for the first time in almost 40 years as medium Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s supernatural farce. She won a Tony for the role on Broadway in 2009.
The Daily Telegraph’s Charles Spencer praised Lansbury’s “astonishing energy and comic panache” in the production, directed by 85-year-old Michael Blakemore. In Wednesday’s Times of London, Dominic Maxwell said Lansbury’s “amazing precision and vim” were “a master-class in character comedy.”
London-born Lansbury is known worldwide as small-town sleuth Jessica Fletcher on long-running TV series “Murder, She Wrote.”
She said after Tuesday’s opening night that “being back in London felt very natural and terrific.”
