Blithe Spirit (1941) is a comic play written by Noel Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem To a Skylark. The action of the play centres on socialite Charles Condomine being haunted by the ghost of his first wife Elvira following a séance, and Elvira's continued (and increasingly desperate) efforts to disrupt Charles' current marriage. The play is notable for the comic character of Madame Arcati, the eccentric medium. The play provoked a small outcry at the time of its first performances, as it was seen to be possibly making fun of death at the height of World War II; however, such objections were quickly forgotten and the play went on to set all manner of British box-office records. Its mark of 1,997 consecutive performances for non-musical plays in the West End was only eventually beaten by Boeing Boeing in the 1970s. In his autobiography Coward claimed he wrote the play in five days during a holiday he took with actress Joyce Carey to Portmeirion on the coast of Snowdonia in Wales. He wrote it straight through from beginning to end whilst staying at the Fountain 2 (Upper Fountain) suite at Portmeirion and only two lines of dialogue were removed before its first production in London.

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