An English novelist invites an eccentric medium to conduct a seance in his home. The medium does her thing, and the novelist and his friends pretend to take it all seriously. Then the novelist discovers the medium has somehow brought the spirit of his first wife back from the "other side." He can see and hear his dead wife. No one else can.

Welcome to the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s ambitious Mainstage production of the classic Noel Coward comedy "Blithe Spirit."

"Ambitious" because Coward is as much an acquired taste for island audiences as Shakespeare is. Coward’s characters typically speak a formal, upper-class British English far removed from contemporary American speech and come from a social milieu whose notions of proper behavior are of another era.

None of that is reason to skip "Blithe Spirit." Accents aside, much of Coward’s comedy is timeless: a man talking to someone only he can see; the physical missteps of a bumbling subordinate; those "what if?" questions women ask men for which there is no "safe" answer.

The UH production runs a long three hours including intermission, but by the time the forward momentum of the story starts to drag, director Paul Mitri’s actors have the audience invested in the outcome.

Timothy Callais (Charles Candomine) hits all the right notes in the demanding role of the novelist. Callais emerses himself in the character of an upper-class Englishman who finds his world turned upside down — and discovers he may like it like that.

Kyle Scholl (Elvira) is adorable as the returned spirit. Her sassy and saucy performance makes Charles’ renewed interest in his deceased wife seem natural albeit a bit unfair to his living spouse.

Karissa J. Murrell Myers (Ruth Candomine) balances drama and comedy playing a woman who finds her seemingly secure marriage shaken by the "other woman" she can neither see nor hear. Rachael Uyeno brings the skills of an acrobat to the role of the maid (watch for her smooth tumble over a sofa).

Sharon R. Garcia Doyle (Madam Arcati) personifies bizarre with her portrayal of the eccentric and very oddly dressed medium. Unfortunately, she pushes it to the point where it ceases to be funny and becomes a distraction, but give her credit for her comic work in the scenes where Madam Arcati attempts to talk to invisible Elvira.