YORK Theatre Royal artistic director Damian Cruden has fond memories of Noel Coward's ghostly tale Blithe Spirit, stretching back to his Scottish childhood.

"I've always wanted to do this play as it's the first play I remember seeing as a child in the early 1970s in Strathaven. I was maybe nine and I went to see my mother playing Elvira, which was a proud moment and one that will stay with me," he says. "Even as a nine year old, I was able to enjoy it and that was because Coward's writing was so good.

"I later learnt that Coward calls it 'an improbable farce', which is a lovely starting point for a play that's beautifully constructed and so enjoyable to do."

Written in remarkably quick time in 1941, in the shadow of the Second World War, Coward's darkly humorous comedy of manners and supernatural goings-on revolves around cynical novelist Charles Condomine inviting eccentric clairvoyant Madame Arcati to conduct a seance, hoping to gather material for his next book.

The scheme backfires, however, when Charles is haunted by the ghost of his first wife, Elvira, a temperamental minx determined to undermine his marriage to beige second wife Ruth, who can neither see nor hear the scheming spectre.

When first produced to raise the nation's spirits, Blithe Spirit became the most successful show the West End and Broadway had ever seen and its popularity has never dimmed.

"It's one of those pieces that community theatre companies love doing because it's part of the fabric, the culture, of the nation that we hail from, and so it's important that from time to time it's available to the community at a theatre like ours.

"Keeping that canon alive is part of our responsibility as a theatre, like doing Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest."

Looking back to the play's wartime origins, Damon says: "What's interesting is that it's a play that had a role for the people watching it, saying that death was not quite as finite as it might have seemed at that time," he says.

"It's a brave play too as he wrote it with humour but it's not a piece of comic fluff, and you're more likely to get a great play when it has a purpose rather than being written as just a joke. He discovers the jokes within the story instead of imposing them, such as from the way the differing characters deal with the notion of ghosts and their belief in them or cynicism towards them."

Blithe Spirit also addresses the theme of faith, again when written against the backdrop of war.

"At one point Charles tells Ruth, 'You should have more faith', and wherever Coward personally stood in terms of religious faith, he certainly understood the notion of the importance of faith to a nation at war," says Damian. "So while his characters are generally cynical about Madame Arcati and 'the other side', they're all wrong because the play shows there is an afterlife.

"In an abstract sense, whether you believe in God, ghosts or the afterlife, it is your memory that keeps someone alive."

Damian does not see writer Charles Condomine as being an extension of Coward himself.

"I don't think you could say that, though there are aspects of him in Condomime, but at the end of the play, it's the women who come out stronger, so Coward is ultimately more generous to the women, whereas Charles is self-seeking and self-centred. That's why I don't agree when people say it's a misogynistic play."

Blithe Spirit has resonance anew in 2014, suggests Damian.

"In a way, this is a time when people want something that's refreshing and funny. There's always a need for audiences to see work that gives them a laugh and this a high-quality piece of theatre that does exactly that," he says.

"It's also set in the early summer, which is when we're staging it, and that's why there's wood burning in the hearth – because it is a British early summer's day!

"It was a case of us wanting to find a piece of theatre that was right for this time of year. We haven't done a Coward play for a while, he's popular, and as I said earlier, it's one of those plays I've always wanted t o direct."

Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit runs at York Theatre Royal from May 9 to May 31 with a cast led by Nichola McAuliffe as Madame Arcati, Andrew Hall as Charles Condomine and Caroline Harker as Elvira. Performances: 7.30pm plus 2pm, May 22 and 29 and 2.30pm, May 17 and May 24. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk