Angela Lansbury wowed a London audience this week in her return to the West End stage. The 88-year-old is playing the role of medium Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s stage farce. It is the first time she has appeared on a London theater stage in almost 40 years. Critics seem to absolutely love her.

The Daily Telegraph’s Charles Spencer wrote about her “astonishing energy and comic panache.”

“Thirty-five years ago I remember being bowled over by Lansbury’s performance as Mrs Lovett in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd on Broadway. She brings a similar energy and high definition wit to Madame Arcati,” he wrote. “Her voice swoops and soars with superb grandeur and her extraordinary dance routine, in which she seems physically to vibrate as she goes into a trance, is a wonder to behold.”

“This is a tour de force that will glow warmly in the memory of all who see it,” he concluded.

That’s a pretty darn impressive critique for an 88-year-old actress.

Probably best known for her role as Jessica Fletcher in the hit TV series Murder, She Wrote, Angela Lansbury also voiced the role of Mrs. Potts in the Disney film Beauty and the Beast–in both dialogue and song. The above video clip shows her performing the beloved theme from the award winning movie.

Following her very successful opening night in London on Tuesday, Lansbury said “being back in London felt very natural and terrific.”

Angela Lansbury made Queen Elizabeth’s ‘Honours List’ for 2014, meaning she is a dame at 88–the female equivalent to knighthood. It seems good things definitely come to those who wait. She has, of course, done lots of remarkable thing in the meantime. She is definitely one classy and incredibly talented dame.

Image via Wikimedia Common