High spirits as Rupert Everett becomes the ghostly toast of Broadway

CROWNING one of the most unpredictable careers in showbusiness, Rupert Everett woke up this morning a Broadway star.

Making his debut on the Great White Way, the 49-year-old actor, best known for his film roles in My Best Friend's Wedding and Another Country, received rave reviews for his performance as urbane novelist Charles Condomine in a revival of Noel Coward's 1941 ghostly comedy Blithe Spirit.

The audience attending last night's opening at Manhattan's Shubert Theatre included Allegra Versace, Diane Lane and Sir Peter Shaffer. Everett appears alongside 83-year-old Angela Lansbury, who plays psychic Madame Arcati, and Christine Ebersole as his first wife Elvira, who torments him from beyond the grave.

The rapturous critical reception accorded to Everett places him in contention for success at the Tony Awards in June.

The New York Times observed: "Mr Everett does shallow splendidly, and even finds a few teasing currents of depth in the dapperer-than-thou Charles... Mr Everett presents [him] with candid clarity, while never breaking the brittle, bantering rhythms of Cowardspeak."

The Associated Press deemed that Everett "is a worthy successor to Rex Harrison, who starred in the 1945 film version". The irony that Everett is thriving professionally at a time when job security in the Big Apple is at an all-time low is not lost on him. "I'm an emerging market," Everett told the Standard. "It's very weird. I'm happy to have a job, to be honest."

Blithe Spirit's English director Michael Blakemore said: "Rupert is one of the few natural light comedians who can do this stuff with wonderful conviction. He brings the requisite style and the requisite pace."

This is the latest twist in Everett's curious career. Since he rose to fame in the Eighties, in addition to acting, he has been a pop singer, novelist and indiscreet autobiographer.

In his memoir Red Carpets And Other Banana Skins, Everett recounted how the last time he was in a Coward play, The Vortex in the West End in 1989, he sent a clump of his pubic hair to a couple from Northwood who had written to him complaining he was inaudible on stage. The recipients duly alerted the Evening Standard and a storm ensued.

Recalling his last Coward foray, Everett said: "I was very young then. I'm very old now so I'm much more sage."

And Blakemore added: "To the best of my knowledge there has been no pubic hair."

Blithe Spirit was last staged in the West End in 2004. But Everett has no plans to reprise his role in London.

He said: "I think it's very difficult to keep fresh when you're in a play for a long, long time. I'd rather do something else in the West End."