Hay Fever recap

Each member of the theatrical Bliss family independently invites a guest to the same weekend at their country house: retired actress Judith brings the admirer Sandy, novelist David invites Jackie as material for a character, Sorel asks the diplomat Richard, and Simon invites Myra. The guests find inadequate rooms, confused arrangements, and hosts who turn conversation into performance. An after-dinner game becomes humiliating, flirtations shift, and Judith stages an emotional crisis when she discovers David and Myra together. The family treats these scenes as familiar play, while the outsiders take them seriously and grow increasingly uncomfortable. At breakfast the next morning, Sandy, Myra, Richard, and Jackie decide to flee together. They leave unnoticed as the Blisses become engrossed in a fresh argument about David's novel, ending the weekend as absorbed in one another as when it began.

At the Bliss family's country house, Sorel and Simon discover that each member of the household has invited a different guest for the weekend without telling the others. Their mother Judith, a recently retired stage star, expects the young admirer Sandy Tyrell. Their novelist father David has invited Jackie Coryton, partly to observe her for his fiction. Sorel awaits the diplomat Richard Greatham, while Simon has asked Myra Arundel. The family argues over bedrooms and preparations as Clara, Judith's former dresser and now housekeeper, provides casual service. When the guests arrive, the Blisses offer little guidance or ordinary hospitality. Judith turns domestic conversation into performance, and the visitors struggle to understand the family's private references and volatile affections. The mismatched gathering settles in with everyone already uncertain about rooms, relationships, and the purpose of the weekend.

The four visitors endure an evening governed by the Bliss family's moods. During a parlor game, the family relies on shared theatrical instincts while the guests are confused and embarrassed. Attention shifts across the original pairings: hosts flirt with one another's visitors, and private conversations acquire an intensity that may be sincere or merely another performance. Judith discovers David and Myra together and launches into a dramatic marital crisis, prompting declarations and accusations from around the room. The outsiders respond as though the household is breaking apart, but the Blisses move through the scene with the ease of people accustomed to inventing emotions for one another. By the end of the night, the guests' expectations for romance or social advancement have been displaced by discomfort, while the family remains absorbed in its own changing roles.

On Sunday morning, Sandy, Myra, Richard, and Jackie gather at breakfast before their hosts appear. Comparing what happened overnight, they recognize that each has been neglected, manipulated, or drawn into scenes whose rules only the Bliss family understands. They decide to leave together and try to escape without attracting attention. The four collect their luggage and depart from the house. Judith, David, Sorel, and Simon then assemble and become involved in a vigorous dispute over a detail in David's unfinished novel. Their argument turns into eager collaborative invention, completely occupying them. They do not notice that all four guests have slipped away. The visitors escape the chaotic weekend, while the Blisses remain contentedly sealed inside the family's mixture of art, quarrel, and performance.

On Sunday morning, the four guests meet over breakfast and compare their experiences. Exhausted by the Blisses' lack of consideration and by the emotional scenes into which they have been drawn, they agree to leave together as quietly as possible. They collect their belongings and slip out of the house. The Bliss family soon gathers, but instead of noticing the departure, its members become absorbed in an argument about the geography and details of David's unfinished novel. Their quarrel quickly gives way to enthusiastic collaboration over the story. The guests escape without a farewell, while Judith, David, Sorel, and Simon remain enclosed in their shared imaginative world and apparently unaware that their weekend visitors have gone.