Madame Arcati, a flamboyant medium, is one of the great inventions of 20th-century English drama, according to Dunedin actress Terry MacTavish.
She is relishing playing the larger-than-life eccentric London psychic in Noel Coward's comedy Blithe Spirit, which opens at the Globe Theatre tonight.
Complete with turban and crystal ball, Madame Arcati cycles to the Condomines' country house in Kent (a typical Coward setting), to conduct a seance.
Charles Condomine is writing a novel in which one of the characters is a charlatan medium and he wants to hold a seance to research the occult.
However, Madame Arcati is not a charlatan but the real thing and inadvertently conjures up the ghost of Charles' first wife, Elvira - who died laughing at a BBC musical programme while convalescing after pneumonia.
"She's a particularly flibbertigibbet character in the first place and incredibly irritating to his second wife who is very uptight and does not wish to share her husband with his former wife," MacTavish says.
Only Charles (and the audience) can see the ghost but when Ruth, the second wife, realises her husband is not completely mad but talking to the ghost of his dead wife, she tries to talk to her too.
"There's some very funny stuff because Charles is torn between the two of them. so when he says `now, look, darling', they say `which darling are you addressing?' - `Both of you'," MacTavish says.
"Things get quite heated. Madame Arcati is absolutely livid when she realises they have invited her in a spirit of mockery, and consequently storms out saying `you can stew in your own juice. You brought this on yourselves'.
"There are wonderful fights and typical Noel Coward bitchiness in the lines, some very funny ones - the put-downs are so funny."
It turns out Elvira wants to kill Charles so he will be with her but things go horribly wrong and Madame Arcati has to be called back. In the end the house is inhabited by a horde of angry poltergeists, she says.
One change has been made to the script, which evokes the world of the 1930s - the many cigarettes and cigars smoked on stage have been cut from this production.
"It's fun for us all going back into that world where gentlemen stand when a lady comes into the room, and ladies withdraw for coffee and gentlemen sit over their port. It's a world that disappeared with the Second World War," MacTavish says.
Coward wrote Blithe Spirit during World War 2, aiming to cheer up war-weary audiences with an escapist comedy. First staged in 1941, it provoked a small outcry as some people thought it was poking fun at death and the afterlife when so much tragedy was happening during the war.
Nevertheless, it went on to become the longest running non-musical production in the West End at the time, and has been revived many times.
MacTavish and the rest of the cast hope their performance will not disturb the several ghosts said to be resident in the historic Globe Theatre, attached to a 150-year-old house.
According to Rosemary Beresford, secretary of the Friends of the Globe, the Paranormal Society claim there are several ghosts in the Globe Theatre and adjoining house.
The house and theatre were registered by the Historic Places Trust as category 1 in 2006 because the large wooden villa was built in 1867 by William Mason, an early Dunedin mayor, the country's first professionally trained architect and the founder of architectural firm Mason and Wales.
In 1961, Niel Wales, a partner in the firm, designed the theatre attached to the house for Patric and Rosalie Carey. The Careys lived in the house and the theatre became a magnet for people interested in the arts. It celebrated its 50th birthday earlier this year.
Having the buildings listed by the trust means they have to look after them carefully for future generations, Dr Beresford says.
"Every time I bring in the Historic Places Trust and conservation architects they just drool because there is so much still there. It reeks with atmosphere. It would be still habitable if it didn't have theatre stuff in it and it was done up."
However, old wooden buildings need constant maintenance and a conservation plan is being drawn up for the theatre and house. But, more immediately, the butyl rubber roofing, which is designed to last 10 years and has been up for 20, is now leaking and needs repairing.
The theatre runs on box-office receipts but has to apply for funding for major projects such as building conservation and upgrading equipment, she says.
"We've been told we'll certainly get money from the major funders because of the recognition we've been given."
Not only have the buildings been recognised by the NZHPT, the Friends of the Globe Theatre won the supreme award at the TrustPower Dunedin Community Awards in May this year.
According to the judges, the group, which has hundreds of volunteers at its disposal, makes a "real impact" on Dunedin's art scene.
During the year it undertook several community projects, including staging "Shakespeare in the Gardens", supplying more than 100 people with Victorian costumes for the Layers of Gold heritage festival in March, and helping launch Keith Scott's book Dear Dot (a history of the Otago Witness children's correspondence column) at the Otago Settlers Museum in November.
The group will now represent the district in the national awards in Ashburton next year.
See it
Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward, directed by Brian Beresford, is at the Globe Theatre, 104 London St, Dunedin until December 17. It features Ellie Swann, Kimberley Buchan, Dylan Shields, Bernie Crayston, Laura Wells, Terry MacTavish and Elsa May.
