Noel Coward's supernatural comedy follows Charles Condomine, a novelist who invites the eccentric medium Madame Arcati to his home to conduct a seance, intending it purely as harmless research for his next book, only to find that the ritual actually succeeds in summoning the mischievous, flirtatious ghost of his glamorous first wife, Elvira. Visible and audible only to Charles, Elvira delights in wreaking havoc on his second marriage, needling his current wife Ruth with pranks that Ruth cannot see or hear, while Charles is left desperately trying to explain increasingly bizarre behavior to a spouse who understandably assumes he has lost his mind. As Elvira's jealous mischief escalates from playful annoyance to genuinely dangerous sabotage, the household spirals into supernatural chaos that Madame Arcati, delighted by her own unexpected success, proves comically unable to reverse. Coward's blend of drawing-room wit and ghostly farce turns marital comedy on its head, using the returned first wife as a device to needle at the messy, unfinished business that lingers even after a marriage officially ends. Its clever premise and quotable dialogue have made it one of Coward's most frequently revived comedies.

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