Rupert Everett’s Blithe Spirit wows Broadway

The English actor Rupert Everett, one of the most erratic talents in showbusiness, has become the toast of Broadway for his performance in a revival of Noel Coward’s 1941 comedy Blithe Spirit, his first ever US stage role. A starry crowd turned up at Manhattan's Shubert Theatre, among them Allegra Versace, Diane Lane and Sir Peter Shaffer, on Sunday night to watch the 49-year-old tread the boards.

Everett, who is best known for his film roles in My Best Friend's Wedding and Another Country - although he has managed to appear in dozens of turkeys over the years - plays the novelist Charles Condomine alongside 83-year-old Angela Lansbury (pictured left with Everett), as psychic Madame Arcati, and Christine Ebersole as his first wife Elvira, who torments him from beyond the grave.

The New York Times observed: "Mr Everett does shallow splendidly, and even finds a few teasing currents of depth in the dapperer-than-thou Charles... Mr Everett presents [him] with candid clarity, while never breaking the brittle, bantering rhythms of Cowardspeak."

Meanwhile, the Associated Press deemed that Everett "is a worthy successor to Rex Harrison, who starred in the 1945 film version". Speaking today to the London Evening Standard, Everett mused on his new-found success. "I'm an emerging market," he said. "It's very weird. I'm happy to have a job, to be honest." 

This is the latest twist in Everett's mercurial career, which has embraced a short - and unsuccessful - period as a pop singer, a sometime novelist and an indiscreet autobiographer. ·