'This Medium has a message for Broadway' by Patrick Huguenin Daily News, March 11, 2009 "I'm sitting in the bar at Sardi's with a woman who just might know all my secrets. That woman is Paula Roberts, also known as the  English Psychic, who has been working as a clairvoyant in New York for over three decades. She's a prim and proper former Londoner, and under no circumstances will she reveal her age - although I have a feeling she knows plenty about me. She's the official 'Psychic Consultant' to the Broadway revival of Noel Coward's 'Blithe Spirit' opening Sunday, in which Angela Lansbury plays medium Madame Arcati. To get the late playwright's take on the production, producers asked Roberts to channel Coward's spirit - a task for which a long list of New York area mediums were auditioned. This particular seance is shrouded in mystery, though Coward supposedly approved of Lansbury's casting. I've come to find out what Roberts can tell me about my own spiritual circumstances. "I've always demanded to know nothing the person" Roberts says before asking me to cut a deck of tarot cards. "It's not therapy. You're not telling me all your stories and then I'm giving you advice...I am transmitting what I believe I see." All she needs is my astrological sign - Gemini- and she's off. She speaks in one-liners as she flips over cards. "Someone has given you a little present you're rather pleased with" she says. This is true. "Mentally: you're chafing a little bit under authority." Well, that does describe me: (sorry editors). "Personal finances" you've been on a shopping spree." Okay, who showed this lady my Amex bill? The cards, she explains, are merely a visual tool - something on which we cam both focus. She could do the entire reading staring at scattered shells, a crystal ball or, she demonstrates, straight into my eyes. "But that would freak people out" she says. "I've always used the vehicle  of cards. But I've always said there's no such thing as 'reading cards'. If it is merely a feat of memory, anyone could memorize the cards and give meaningful readings." On stage, Madame Arcati accidentally summons more than one pestering poltergeist. This afternoon, things seem tamer. I'm not thrilled with my social life, she says, but it about to pick up. May is my month to ask for a raise. ("Your boss won't hear this?" she asks, Gulp.) A friend with an accent wishes me well. I may win an award in 10 days. "I think you do something else" she says "I know you are a reporter, but what I am looking at here... seems to be more of a script." She's dead on. I write plays on the side and had one produced in New York last summer. But after all, we're sitting across from 'Spirit's' Broadway theater. I want more info. She sees "options on the table" and something being marketed. "Not immediately, but that project, that piece of work, could bring you enough money to make you fairly secure." While I'm busy thinking about the spending spree I could go on with my newfound wealth, Roberts squints at cards she has added to the pile. "Your mother does not life nearby, does she?" she asks. No, my mother lives in Boston. But again - lucky guess? "And you have a younger brother?" Yes, I do. Roberts shrugs. "They just popped up to say hello." Far be it from me to disclose some of Roberts' more personal predictions, but the state of my love life, apartment and one specific friendship gone sour are discussed in detail. It's easy to see how, after being "fired from more jobs than you've had hot dinners" - Roberts' own words - she created a career analyzing handwriting, doling out advice to callers on her NYC public access TV show and hunting ghosts. I wonder if any departed dear will pop up during my session. "You can't pick and choose," says Roberts, even though many so-called mediums asked to conjure Great Grandma or even Shakespeare 'would be only too happy to oblige." For now, the spiritual sphere around me is quiet. "I know from personal experience," says Roberts. "that when some people pass away, they are out of here." 'Blithe Spirit' plays the Shubert Theater, 225 West 44th St.