Background
The title of the play is taken from Shelley's poem "To a Skylark". After his London office and flat had been destroyed in the Blitz, Coward wrote Blithe Spirit in 1941 during a holiday that he took with the actress Joyce Carey at Portmeirion on the coast of Snowdonia in Wales. In his autobiography, Coward said that he wrote the play in five days.
During World War II, before Russia and the U.S. joined forces with the Allies, Britain was suffering severe casualties and facing German bombing attacks at home. Coward felt that British audiences would want to view an escapist comedy such as Blithe Spirit. 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 the war; however, such objections were quickly forgotten, and the play went on to set British box-office records. The subject was timely for many, because some who wished to contact their loved ones who had died in the war were turning to spiritualism. The play's run of 1,997 consecutive performances set a record for non-musical plays in the West End that was not surpassed until 1957, by The Mousetrap.
Coward repeats one of his signature theatrical devices at the end of the play, where the central character tiptoes out as the curtain falls – a device that he also used in Present Laughter, Private Lives and Hay Fever.
Read more about this topic: Blithe Spirit (play)
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