All four members of the Bliss family have independently invited a guest for the weekend at their house near Maidenhead. The guests arrive only to find themselves alternately humiliated and embarrassed by their self-obsessed and self-dramatizing hosts. As Coward himself wrote, "Hay Fever is considered by many to be my best comedy." It was first produced in 1925 and hailed as a technical masterpiece. It remains a classic comedy of bad manners. "It does not date ... it is in the highest mood of fantastic comedy, it is deliciously heartless and, therefore, deliciously alive and fresh."-The Times "He is simply a phenomenon and one that is unlikely to occur ever again in theatre history."-Terence Rattigan "NoAl Coward is the Congreve of our time."-Arnold Bennett