Although decidedly odd, the Bliss family can be perfectly charming when they want to be. Although it is indubitably true that Judith, a retired actress, tends towards melodrama in her everyday affairs, and her husband, David, a novelist, can be rather reclusive and foul tempered. Their grown-up children, Simon and Sorel, are quite capable of civility – if it suits them. It is just that, on this blighted weekend, each has invited a guest to stay at their house in the country without telling any of the others. So dashed inconsiderate! And for their poor guests, perfect agony!

No Bright Young Thing ever burned brighter than Noël Coward in the Twenties. His supreme comedy of bad manners, Hay Fever, has been raising scandalised laughter for almost a hundred years.

2016 Helpmann Award-winning director Lee Lewis kicked up controversy a few years ago with her biting, free-flowing direction of David Williamson’s Rupert for MTC. She returns to apply her sure touch on this high-toned, high society classic starring the irresistible Marina Prior (Jumpy) and Simon Gleeson (star of Les Misérables).