HOME CHAT The World Of Noël Coward

NOËL COWARD AT CARNFORTH AND THE UK BIRTHDAY EVENTS ALAN FARLEY DOMINIC VLASTO introduces the broadcasts of the renowned West Coast Radio Arts Host. PRIVATE LIVES and RELATIVE VALUES Reviews of the recent Coward revivals that still ‘raise the bar’ for audiences everywhere. MORE FROM THE ARCHIVES The best of the sepia-tinted media world of Noël Coward in the 1930s

PHOTO: Ann Harding and Noël Coward making their way through the crowd at the Annual Theatrical Garden Party 1936 A MAGAZINE ABOUT THE LIFE AND WORK OF SIR NOËL COWARD •AUGUST 2013 Editorial CONTENTS Welcome and a huge thank you to everyone that has sent us material for our archive pages. We have not been Editorial 2 able to include even a fraction of all the material we have received so please forgive us if you chosen item Forthcoming Events 3 has not made the cut this time, as golfers I think say! There is always next time and the next... Smalhythe 4 At the moment I am working through all that is required for the exhibition at Carnforth Station that starts in October with a Private Lives 5 planned day of talks and films about Noël Coward, Brief Encounter and its theatre forbear Still Life. Relative Values 6 This year’s UK Coward events include our AGM at The Noël Coward Theatre and the Annual Luncheon at the Grand Saloon at the Theatre Michael Law - Easy to Love 7 Royal, Drury Lane. The cabaret for the lunch will be perfvormed by Helen McDermot and Adrian Wright accompanied by Annette Jude. Their Notes from New York 8 performance will consists of an extract from their concert show, Cowards in the Wings that includes rarely heard pieces from Waiting in the The Other Coward 10 Wings and the almost unknown and unrecorded songs from Words and Music in ‘The Hall of Fame’ where we discover amongst other things ‘...the Speaking of Noël Coward man who sailed across Lake Windermere in an India-rubber bath!’ The Alan Farley Interviews 13 You may by now have noticed that as well as receiving your membership fees by cheque and standing order we are now able to receive A Choice of Coward them via the web using credit/debit cards and PayPal. Financial changes are Lance Salway introduces us to... 16 continuing to take place as our accounts are guided by Stephen Greenman into my temporary care whilst we explore the way forward with a new An Earlier Essay Competition 19 structure and a new treasurer. We are delighted that Ken Starrett is on his feet again and although not You and Yours... fully recovered is once again mobile. Items from Members 23 My thanks to everyone who has sent in kind thoughts and expressions of gratitude for Home Chat and our events. As volunteers we do our best so Key People and Contacts 24 when things go well it makes our efforts all worthwhile. Latest on the John Knowles Brief Encounter Exhibition Writing Competition Reminder at Carnforth Station 1st October - 11 December ‘In His Own Write’ for £1,000 31st October Films and Talk by John Knowles Competition closes on October 30th, 2013 As you will be aware the Society has arranged an exhibition about Noël Coward at the Carnforth Station Heritage Centre Please do remind or tell your friends and contacts about our from 1st October to the 11 December 2013 entitled: celebration of the 40th anniversary of the death of Sir Noël A Brief Encounter with Noël Coward. In addition ... Coward the Society with our first writing competition open to all. An application form and details are available on-line A day of film presentations and talks has been arranged by (noëlcoward.net). John Knowles and Peter Tod at the Heritage Centre All the rules, and submission dates are provided there. echoing the title of the exhibition on Thursday 31st Details of a celebratory event for the four selected finalists will October. be featured in a future edition of Home Chat. Remember that we are inviting anyone who wishes to take Tickets available from the Heritage Centre Manager (John part to write an original sketch, poem/verse, prose passage or Adams) on 01524 735165 or email: sdo@carnforth- scene for a play in the style of Noël Coward. station.co.uk They must be prepared to perform this piece at the The Exhibition will take place in the Bateman Gallery at celebratory event. More details on this on-line including the station’s Heritage Centre and will include a self-running copyright limitations and future use of the entries. video commentary on the film Brief Encounter by Barry Day, Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors for this posters and artefacts from the collection of the Noël Coward competition we are offering a prize of £1,000 for the winning Estate, some seen at the Star Quality exhibition in New York. piece that will be chosen from the four finalists at the A range of Coward CDs will also be available from the celebratory event next year (2014). Heritage Centre Shop at discount prices during the run of the Exhibition. See Page 19 for an essay competition in Play Pictorial The venue can be viewed online at: carnforthstation.co.uk. on Noël Coward, that took place in 1932!

- 2- Forthcoming Events UK COWARD BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

As promised this year mirrors the practice of the past - so many have asked it to be kept so... The Annual General Meeting will take place at The Noël Coward Theatre, timings as follow: The Noël Coward Theatre Friday 13th December Coffee 10.45am AGM 11.15am Adrian Wright

Followed by... Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Flower-Laying Ceremony 12.15pm Drinks in the Theatre’s Rotunda 12.30pm Lunch - Grand Salon (recently re-furbished!) 1.00pm. Cabaret with Coffee 2.30pm

Ticket price for drinks, 3-course lunch with wine, water & coffee PLUS cabaret is... £85

A reservation form for the event is included and will be available online and in the November edition of Home Chat. Helen McDermott Celebrity Guest As always it is impossible to tell you exactly who our celebrity guest will be for the flower-laying, as commitments for theatre artists can change rapidly. The person who has agreed to be there, barring other commitments, is an extremely well-known stage and TV actor. It could be... Such fun! Annual Lunch Cabaret The cabaret spot this year goes to: “Two of Norfolk’s brightest personalities who lift a glass to the genius of Noël Coward in this kaleidoscopically entertaining celebration of his songs, including many not heard since they were first performed. The best known face is appearing on: of Anglia TV, Helen McDermott has remained a favourite on stage and in Michael Law cabaret. Adrian Wright has long been a darling of the critics: ‘Words fail me!’ (Fur and Feather). They are joined by pianist Annette Jude and are determined Friday 20th September to disprove Noël’s famous dictum ‘Very flat, Norfolk’ ” The Pheasantry, As you can tell from this promotional text we are in for a fun-time at this Pizza Express, 152-154 Kings Road, London year’s Annual Lunch. SW3 4UT As well as being a consummate performer, Adrian Wright is an established (doors open at 7pm/performance from author and a world authority on the British Musical Theatre of the 1950s and 8.30pm) 60s. He has made countless appearances on stage, national TV and Radio and Tickets £20: 08456 027 017 (opt. 8) released several CDs of songs. He also owns and manages Must Close Saturday NB NCS DISCOUNT £17.50 Records, an independent record company that has been responsible for ensuring that the legacy of British Musical Theatre continues to thrive and meet its Sunday 29th September - 3pm to 4.15pm public. Adrian is renowned for his humour - as dry as a well-olive-d Martini. The Friends Meeting House, Helen Mcdermott is considered a ‘regional treasure’ in East Anglia from her Ship Street, Brighton BN1 1AF wonderful appearances as a TV presenter with the tested ability to apply her dry Tickets £10 on the door or please telephone humour in a way that is understood by adults but flies over the heads of younger 0845 370 0178 watchers! Her grandparents were renowned music hall artists and apart from her NB NCS DISCOUNT £8 TV work she has worked on stages everywhere as a cabaret performer. They have chosen extracts from their latest regional concert tour that include Sunday 20th October at 3pm rarely performed and unrecorded songs from Waiting in the Wings and Words Huntingdon Hall, Crowngate Worcester, and Music including ‘The Hall of Fame’ - not to be missed! WR1 3LD Tickets: 01905 611427 £14 Details of their regional concert tour can be seen on the NCS website: (£12 Concessions) noëlcoward.net - 3- Smallhythe Our thanks to all those who came to the NCS event at Smallhythe - a great afternoon in the Kentish sun

On a glorious afternoon some 55 members made their way to Smallhythe for the NCS event held in the wonderful Barn Theatre of Ellen Terry managed so well by the National Trust volunteers and their Events Organiser for the region Katie Shaw. Julian Clary agreed to be interviewed about his home, The Old Manor - half of Goldenhurst, Noël’s Kent farmhouse home, and all of the work he has done in restoring the house. Albert, one of Julian’s dogs was in attendance as we watched a collection of home movie clips shot by Noël and Jeffery Holmesdale (Lord Amherst) of visitors to the house. The interview gave Julian an opportunity to talk about what he has done at the house, his research into Noël’s life and work and the background to his novel Briefs Encountered. A break for tea in the sunshine on the lawns outside the thatched Barn Theatre allowed members to talk to Julian informally and enjoy meeting our other guests: Richard Stirling of Evergreen Theatrical Productions, Adrian Slade and his wife (Adrian manages the Estate of his late brother the composer and writer of musicals, Julian Slade) and Suzanne Slater one of Noël’s orphan’s who attended the Actors Orphanage during his time as President.

A huge thank you to all who attended! John Knowles

Julian Clary and ‘Valerie’ at The Old Manor NCS members at Smallhythe

NCS members, Julian Clary and ‘Albert’ at Smallhythe

- 4- Private Lives Chichester success at the Gielgud

One sometimes wonders whether the thirst for Coward revivals will ever be quenched! For the man who, slightly tongue in cheek perhaps, claimed he did not expect to be remembered, his works seem destined to fill theatres across the world on stages both humble and grand. In the last decade and a half since his Centenary year, Noël’s immortal soul will have seen Private Lives: with Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman (West End - 2001/2002, Broadway - 2002); with Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen (West End - 2010) Paul Goss (Broadway - 2011); and now with Anna Chancellor and Toby Stephens (Chichester Festival Theatre - 2010, West End - 2013, Broadway - who knows!) In earlier times it has been the most perfect, powerful, theatrical vehicle for Noël and his childhood friend Gertrude Lawrence, and the ultimate setting for a final round in the emotional combat between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton - who should have perfectly mirrored the on-stage lives of Amanda and Elyot but, if accounts are to be believed, allowed themselves to forget that and the audience as well. The classic revival that marked ‘Dad’s Renaissance,’ as Noël called it, in 1963 was hugely successful, as was John Gielgud’s production of the play with Robert Stephens and Maggie Smith in 1972. In Coward’s Centenary year, 1999, a revival at the National Theatre, starred Anton Lesser as Elyot and Juliet Stevenson as Amanda, directed by Philip Franks. In the past the play has been chastised by critics as light or of little substance but it continues to bite with audiences who regularly suspend disbelief at the possibility of two divorced people ending up on their honeymoons with their second spouses in neighbouring balconied rooms at the same hotel in France at the same time! What follows is both humorous and should be morally upsetting, as the two main characters play out their ‘surprise meeting’ on the balconies overlooking the sea and in a bohemian flat in Paris, exploring the love/hate turmoil of those who cannot bear to be together or apart. Their newly espoused partners act as the voice of the common man for most of the play but in the end succumb to what becomes the normal emotional tone of the comedy, unmindful that the main protagonists, the enzymes of their unhappiness, are creeping away in mock horror, suitcases in hand. There must be something, for those who have sat through so many performances of this classic play, that keeps us all returning to our seats. Anna Chancellor and Toby Stephens Apart from the setting, every version does seem to be so different and I always swear that there are lines spoken that I have never heard before. On this occasion the play was noticeably shorter, sharper and with a pace that felt better adapted for today’s West End stage. Its gestation period at the Minerva at The Chichester Festival Theatre was sold out before many of us realised it was on. It won many plaudits there from the press. How well would it translate from the ‘in the round’ setting of the Minerva to the classic proscenium stage at the Gielgud? Well translate it did and with the judicious joining of the first and second Acts, fuelled by a mouth-dropping scenery switch, rolled on from Deauville to Paris without a moment’s pause. The result was that the emotional rollercoaster kept going and added much more resonance to a second Act that in past productions I have found could become rather tedious, as the focus moves from sofa to drinks to piano to sofa to drinks to gramophone to drinks to breaking shellac and so on. The pace here was ideal, supporting the passion of the piece and in some way gave the thwarted second partners greater freedom and presence. The third Act following the sole intermission Our thanks to Denys Robinson for organising and although it felt shorter and had some real punch in it. the NCS event and to a cast who deserve our The play was certainly not rushed and felt comfortably contemporary. applause at every level! A truly great production! Those of us who went on the NCS outing to the show had the benefit of meeting the cast in the bar - they all came and stayed, despite other John Knowles commitments and were very relaxed and involved with us.

- 5- Relative Values Theatre Royal Bath Productions Directed by Trevor Nunn A Review from the performance at The Master at his best the Richmond Theatre From Geoffrey Johnson A Review from Paddy Briggs One might assume that just another revival of a Noël Coward light comedy to appear on the current theatre scene would not The best compliment I can pay the Theatre Royal Bath’s new really be a matter for the usual rejoicing. To my great pleasure, production of Noël Coward’s Relative Values is that it made me Sir Noël’s seldom produced Relative Values is an outstanding realise for the first time what a very good play it is. It has not rediscovered treasure and a real winner in the hands of brilliant been frequently produced - certainly compared with the great director Trevor Nunn. plays from the 1930s. But in fact I think that there is a case to Never professionally produced on Broadway but premiered be made for Relative Values to be Coward’s masterpiece. The in 1951 at London’s Savoy Theatre with Gladys Cooper, Judy reason is the brilliance of the plot and the dialogue and the Campbell, and Angela Badderley in leading roles, it is rather a strength of the characters. Coward wrote “Upstairs Downstairs” mystery why it has not been revived very often long before type drama long before that TV series and he had a gift for the now. characterisation of the Toffs as well as the Servants which was Granted that the play deals with the Countess of exemplary. In Relative Values we have all the nuances of class Marshwood’s discovery that her maid’s common sister, an handled in a subtle and hilarious way. We also have the American film star, is on the verge of marrying her son, Sir addition of cross Atlantic culture clash with the appearance of John, and is a sly thrust at the English class system - it was, of the Errol Flynn like “Don Lucas” and his past lover “Miranda course, shortly before the angry young men brought their plays Frayle” – a Hollywood star. to the attention of audiences who were use to more complacent The spectrum of class runs from the vacuous “Earl of and traditional fare. Still it was a success (477 performances) Marshwood” and his mother Felicity the Dowager Countess at and admired for the usual Coward unique style, wit, and range one end through to Mrs Moxton (Moxie) who is Felicity’s of character. Lady’s maid. There is also Crestwell the Butler who in Rory Right now, both in England and the U.S., it seems we are Bremner’s excellent portrayal has a foot in both camps. When very fascinated by the English class structure. This, perhaps is he is talking to the Family, Crestwell is all carefully modulated encouraged today by the overwhelming success of television’s Received Pronunciation English. When he talks with Moxie or Downton Abbey of another British period. Alice the Maid he reverts to his natural voice with its East End Who cannot help being engrossed with life above and vowels. For Bremner this comes naturally of course and his below the stairs in a stately English home? performance in his first straight play is very good. Crestwell is This rare and special revival of Relative Values is of very rather Jeeves-like and the other characters in the Play are high calibre. Patricia Hodge as Felicity, Countess of distinctly Wodehousian as well. As indeed is the plot. Marshwood, gives a perfect performance. Her comedy style The vacuous Earl wants to marry the cunning and ebullient and timing are wonderful as she sets exactly the right film star. The family – especially Felicity (a magnificent aristocratic tone throughout the evening’s hilarity. She has a performance by Patricia Hodge) wants to stop this. As does outstanding sense of Coward comedy. Moxie not least because she has discovered that Ms Frayle is Other excellent performances include Caroline Quentin as her long-lost sister. This set up has the potential for farce but in the anxious but still very humorous maid, Moxie, Rory fact whilst it is light and frothy comedy it never quite leaves the Bremner as the perfect but un-clichéd butler, Crestwell, and realms of believability in Coward’s sure hands. Caroline Katherine Kingsley as Moxie’s sister, Miranda, who has ‘gone Quentin’s Moxie is a fine observation of someone comfortable Hollywood’ in a terrible and unreal way. in her sphere but also quite capable of becoming genteel in a The rest of the supporting cast is excellent and right on slightly Eliza Doolittle sort of way when the plot requires it. I target throughout the play. enjoyed Katherine Kingsley’s Miranda as well – this is the one Geoffrey Johnson part which borders on caricature and Kingsley brings it off well. I suppose if you take Noël Coward, add Trevor Nunn to direct, include professional actors of the quality of Hodge and Quentin and sprinkle in a touch of Rory Bremner you should be en route to a success. This production is certainly that. But more than that it feels like a new Coward discovery and one that is as assured in construction and style as it is possible to be. In this very modern production there is also a deliciously camp Steven Pacey to enjoy as Felicity’s nephew Peter. Whether it was intended by Coward that this role should be Gay (in the modern sense) rather than just Gay (in the sense that Coward’s era used the word) I’m not sure. But it works – as does everything in this well-paced, witty and eye-opening production. The Master would have approved. Paddy Briggs

- 6- Michael Law - Easy to Love A review by Dominic Vlasto

Ruth Leon writes at the start of the sleeve notes to this CD that “Michael Law is a sort of miracle – a musician and historian with the energy not only to identify what has been lacking in our cultural life but to fill it. His performances reproduce nearly a century of music which would otherwise be lost.” This is perhaps bordering on excessive hyperbole, but there is no hyperbole in what follows: “His own playing and singing displays his impeccable taste and infallible sense of what an audience is hungry for – fine music, brilliantly but not aggressively performed. It is though he is inviting us to enjoy what he loves, no pressure, no insistence, and along the way he is surreptitiously teaching us about a world that we might have forgotten.” Michael Law’s new CD is a recording of a live performance at London’s The Pheasantry early in 2013, and is a mix of songs by Kern, Maybe not a lot of Coward for the £12 you’ll Berlin, Porter, Gershwin and Coward. Coward material is only six tracks have to spend on the CD; but, as I said before, out of 20; but for my Desert Island Disc I’d sooner have anything of this whatever the limitations this is, stylistically general genre performed so exquisitely by Michael than an entire CD of speaking, definitely a CD for selection for the Desert Coward, however rare, in the hands of a less painstaking musician. Island. Or anywhere else. Go order a copy of it at It’s not the first time that Michael Law has recorded Coward – some www.pdo.org.uk. readers will remember the 1999 Piccadilly Dance Orchestra release of ‘A Marvellous Party’ (TER CDVIR 8333) which featured Coward numbers Dominic Vlasto ‘Nina’ and ‘I’ll Follow My Secret Heart’. Both numbers are reprised here, in slightly different clothes. I was particularly impressed with Michael Law Michael’s rendition of ‘Nina’, which I remember thinking a trifle lacking in energy on the earlier recording. Michael has picked up the tempo here, Easy to Love and reverted to rather more staccato Hackforth-type accompaniment figurations, which work particularly well in the coda, and because the Music Tracks: words have energy and clarity throughout, it works very, very well – as a recording, that is. I can’t say anything about the impact and 1) I Won’t Dance (Jerome Kern/Oscar characterization of the live performance because I haven’t seen it, but Hammerstein, judging from the applause his audience certainly enjoyed it, though you Dorothy Fields, Otto Harbach, Jimmy McHugh) would not know from their lack of response/laughter during the 2) A Room with a View (Noël Coward) performance that they were there at all. Perhaps that evening’s audience 3) There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner were asked to be unresponsive on account of the fact that it was being (Noël Coward) recorded. If so, it was a very clever thing to have set up, because it makes 4) Change Partners (Irving Berlin) for so much better recorded enjoyment for the long-term. 5) Easy To Love (Cole Porter) From the opening notes of the opening track (an arrangement inspired 6) I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket by Carroll Gibbons of Kern’s ‘I Won’t Dance’) we are so convincingly (Irving Berlin) back in the musical sound-world of between-the-wars light music 7) Experiment / How Could We Be Wrong? accompaniment you could almost be listening to an extremely well- (Cole Porter) preserved recording from the HMV archives. The most “archival” of the 8 I Love Paris/C’est Magnifique (Cole Porter) Coward tracks is his 1925 ‘We Must All Be Very Kind to Auntie Jessie’, 9) I Wonder What Happened To Him which has been a favourite trouvaille of Michael’s for some years now. (Noël Coward) I’ve seen Michael perform this one, and know that the comparatively 10) It’s De-Lovely (Cole Porter) bland, singing-rather-than-over-speaking approach works well here. 11) Just One of Those Things (Cole Porter) Michael’s capturing of the essential style of both the vocal melody and 12) Lady Be Good (George and Ira Gershwin) the accompaniment works so well that this instantly becomes a sort of 13) After You – Who? / Night And Day archival yardstick, easily trumping the three or four other recordings of (Cole Porter) this song that have been made and by which all others will be measured. 14) Swanee (George Gershwin / Irving Caesar) The specific Coward tracks on this CD are: ‘A Room With a View’ 15) Symphony (very pleasant, but perhaps slightly disconcertingly in-and-out of rhythm, (Allstone / André Tabet / Roger Bernstein. though with a delicious keychange into the final phrase and a nod to Elsie English lyrics by Jack Lawrence) April’s original accompaniment at the end), ‘There Are Bad Times Just 16 They All Laughed (George and Ira Gershwin) Around the Corner’ (a slightly lame-sounding “Hooray, hooray, hooray!” 17) We Must All Be Very Kind To Aunty Jessie bothers me slightly – he didn’t sound excited at all!), ‘I Wonder What (Noël Coward) Happened to Him?’ (nicely-paced and clear, but perhaps he tries to sing it 18) What’ll I Do? (Irving Berlin) a bit too much? I think this should mostly be just words spoken/acted to 19) Nina (from Argentina) (Noël Coward) the simplest chordal accompaniment), ‘We Must All Be Very Kind…’, 20) I’ll Follow My Secret Heart (Noël Coward) ‘Nina’ and ‘I’ll Follow My Secret Heart’.

- 7- NOTES FROM NEW YORK Ken Starrett provides the latest news from the USA Fallen Angels The staunch dignified husbands, played by Jeffrey M. Bender and Ned Noyes, have the right sharpness and extract In 1923 while Noël Coward was appearing eight times a week laughs from many small bits of business, as they face the in the revue, London Calling! he managed to dash off two play problem with their wives. Keeping things moving and - Fallen Angels and The Vortex. For the next two years, both of somewhat on an even keel is the maid Saunders, a sterling these plays made the rounds of London managers’ offices and comic creation played with clipped ease and confidence by generated little interest. Before Fallen Angels was eventually Allison Mackie. When Maurice the former lover of the wives produced in London in 1925, both Hay Fever and Easy Virtue finally shows up he is amazingly slick and clever. The actor had been written and The Vortex produced, followed by his first Michael Sharon got every laugh from the small role at the end revue, On With The Dance. Busy man !! In spite of a of the play that ties up the plot. There is a strong chemistry lackluster critical reception to the original production of Fallen among this company of actors. The close rapport between Angels starring Tallulah Bankhead and Edna Best, it managed them creates a really tight ensemble 158 performances. The Broadway production in 1927 starring On meeting the company back stage it was interesting to Fay Bainter and Estelle Winwood fared no better critically and find out that none of them knew each other or had ever worked closed after 36 performances. The last revival on Broadway together before the first day of rehearsal. Of all of them, only was in 1956 starring Nancy Walker and Margaret Phillips. Ms. Mackie had ever done a Coward play. Most are relatively Fallen Angels has never quite achieved the popularity of his new to this repertory company, with the exception of later plays and consequently it is rarely produced. Jeffery M. Bender who is enjoying his fourteenth season Hopefully the production at the Shakespeare Company in here. Madison, New Jersey will change that. One of the most highly regarded classical companies in the country, their production of Fallen Angels is absolutely first rate. The New York Times said … “it is a singular treat to see this tale of two naughty wives, which is rarely revived. It may not be the playwright’s supreme accomplishment, but his nascent genius is obvious.” The roles of Julia Sterroll and Jane Banbury are, without question, star vehicles and carry practically the full weight of the play. As they are both anticipating the visit of a man they were both intimate with in the years before their marriages, the tension and nerves build to an absolutely hysterical drunk scene in the second act. This is all happening while their husbands are away for a golfing weekend. The roles of Julia and Jane are played, respectively, by Julie Jesneck and Melissa Miller. Both actresses have stunning comic timing and the necessary energy to sustain Melissa Michael Jeffery M. Allison Ned Ken these large roles. Miller Sharon Bender Mackie Noyes Starrett PHOTO: David K. Manion

This production was directed by Matthew Arbour whose credits include such plays as The Little Foxes and The Rivals. He clearly understands Coward and invests the smooth fast pace, with many inventive small touches such as Julia’s horrified reaction to the light tinkling of the servants bell when she is suffering from a hangover, or the maid off- handedly playing classical music on the piano while the doorbell is ringing. The designer Charles Corcoran has come up with a striking set that is certainly appropriate for the flavor and period of this Coward play. Many subtle accents such as picture frames and mirrors are carefully done in the Art Deco style. Martha Bromelmeier’s costumes are stylishly 1920s – the ladies in their cloche hats and the gentlemen in knickers for their golfing weekend – Julie Jesnek, Melissa Miller and Allison Mackie without being comic clichés.This production PHOTO: Gerry Goodstein/Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey certainly proved to be a delightful comic gem, especially for those in the audience discovering it for the first time. - 8- delighted. The next play followed with no intermission. At the Tonight At 8:30 final fade out the stage crew swiftly evolved the Gilpin living room into a Victorian parlour, for the play Family Album. The nine one-act plays Noël Coward wrote in 1935 under the This play is a small musical that tells the story of the umbrella title, Tonight At 8:30 continue to be very popular with members of the Featherways family dealing with the death of today’s audiences. Usually the plays are presented in groups of their father. Mr. Jones is Jasper who is the stabilizing brother three in a single evening. A production which commenced on of the family and Ms. Danner is Lavinia, the spinster daughter July 17th at the historic John Drew Theater in East Hampton, who cared for the father. The old family retainer, Burrows (Mr. New York starred Blythe Danner and Simon Jones in Hands Milligan) who is quite deaf, manages to deal with the family’s Across The Sea, the infrequently performed, Family Album, and wishes. At one point a trunk containing family mementos is the popular, Red Peppers. The evening was deftly directed by opened. An old music box provides us with one of the loveliest Tony Walton who has been honored with an Oscar, Tony and an songs Coward ever wrote called ‘Hearts and Flowers.’ Other Emmy and many other awards for his distinguished work in the things from the trunk bring back fond childhood memories. theatre and films. A Tony- Award winning actress Ms. Danner After the matter of the will is settled and everyone is enjoying is no stranger to Coward’s plays having played Elvira on their special moments, director Tony Walton added a nice touch Broadway in a revival of Blithe Spirit in 1987, and several by ending the play with the beautiful Coward song ‘Where Are Coward plays at Williamstown, Massachusetts. Mr. Jones has The Song We Sung?’ many Coward credits including having starred on Broadway in Following intermission the audience was treated to the Private Lives, Waiting In The Wings, and Blithe Spirit with popular Red Peppers. Ms. Danner and Mr. Jones open the play Angela Lansbury. The other actors in the company were as George and Lily Pepper performing the hilarious ‘Has Delphi Harrington, James Lawson, Tuck Milligan Gerard Anybody Seen Our Ship?’ The play involves the squabbles Doyle, Kate Mueth and Tina Jones. All of them have solid between the Peppers and the musical director (Mr. Miligan), credits, especially Ms. Harrington,who has done a great many the producer (Mr. Doyle), another performer on the bill, Mabel Coward plays. Grace (Ms. Harrington), and with each other. The actors had Hands Across The Sea deals with two bewildered travellers, great fun with this play and the audience enjoyed it immensely. Mr. and Mrs. Wadhurst, who are thrown into the midst of a At the end of the play following the disastrous finish to the very social household and are victims of mistaken identity. Ms. final song ‘Two Men About Town’ the entire cast joins George Danner with much energy is the social butterfly, Lady Maureen and Lily for curtain calls, accompanied by a wonderful Gilpin, who aided by her friend Clare (Ms. Harrington) keeps rendition of ‘London Pride’ – nice finish to a lovely evening. things spinning. Mr. Jones plays her husband, a Commander in In the plays presented this evening, it was wonderful to see the Royal Navy, and with proper military decorum manages to actors playing such a range of roles. Coward always enjoyed keep up with the frustrations of the plot. The audience was giving actors a chance to show their versatility. The scenery for the evening was, for the most part, functional pieces of furniture moved about to suit the action of the play. Some flats in the background would reverse to change a room. Hans Christian Anderson used to cut out paper figures he would use to tell us stories. Coward loved this fact and used refer to the characters and these plays as “my little cutouts.” In deference to Coward’s feeling, the proscenium framing the stage was many black and white cut out figures. In the center of the frame at the top was a caricature of Coward with wings (done by Tony Walton) looking down on the whole proceedings. Best Play

On June 9th when the annual Tony Awards were presented, the award for Best Play of the Year went to Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang. One of the producers of this play is NCS member, M. Kilburg Reedy. We are happy to congratulate her on this award and wish her much continued success with the play. Personal Note

Last March I had an accident slipping on the ice, which was follow by four very long months in recovery. During that time I received phone calls, e-mails and get-well cards from many of you. I am deeply touched and sincerely thank all of you for your kind thoughts and good wishes. Happily, I am nearly fully recovered. I hope that you are enjoying a pleasant summer. All my best wishes, Ken Starrett - 9- The Other Coward Part two of our look at Coward’s work for the Actors’ Orphanage

In the last edition of Home Chat we gave members an in-depth view of one of Noël’s regular commitments to raising funds for his much loved Actors’ Orphanage where he presided for so many years. Martin Phillips of Samuel French has provided these press photographs, some showing Noël in the days when Sir Gerald du Maurier was President. The notes attached to them are quoted from the accompanying press clippings and notes.

“One of theatrelands biggest social events of the year is the Theatrical Garden Party at Roehampton in aid of the Actors’ Orphanage, when all the stars of stage and screen lend their aid to this good cause. This year’s event (29th June 1948) sees Noël Coward and Margaret Lockwood, looking very smart in her black and white taffeta suit, the jacket of which featured three collars and a three-tiered basque, try their hands at the coconut shy today.”

The Programme for the Theatrical Garden Party in 1938 Provided by Lance Salway

Ed. A photograph of the members of the cast of The Grand Giggle a regular dramatic feature at the Garden Parties. Here we see Edmund Gwen, Sir Gerald du Maurier (leaning on the ladder), Binnie Hale (on the ladder) and Noël Coward, in mock-dramatic pose.

- 10 - “Noël Coward, who succeeded the late Gerald du Maurier as President of the Actors’ Orphanage organised a special attraction called “An Informal Concert” for the Theatrical Garden Party, which is being held today (Monday) in the Queen Mary Gardens, Regents Park. The photograph shows Mr. Noël Coward (right) with Mr. Robert Montgomery, the film star from Hollywood, between rehearsals for their show this morning.” (Ed. Photograph taken in 1935).

“Leading actors and actresses in unexpected roles helped to make yesterday’s Theatrical Garden Party (12th June 1929) in the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, a rollicking success. The murder scene in a thrilling drama produced by Sir Gerald du Maurier. Left to Right: Mr. A. Gattey, Noël Coward, Mr. F. Volpi, Miss Norah “Theatrical Garden Party in Regent’s Park (9th June 1936) Swinburne and the ‘Fishing for Champagne’ producer.” The Theatrical Garden Party took place today at Regent’s Park. The picture shows Mr.. Noël Coward, (the organiser), and Miss Miriam Hopkins, the famous actress, fishing for champagne.” FUNDRAISING AT GOLDENHURST

Susannah Slater provides memories of a fundraising event at Goldenhurst on 26th August 1984 when Dulcie Grey and Michael Denison unveiled a plaque in memory of Sir Noël Coward. The programme for the day included Celebrity guests, A Procession of Vintage Rolls Royces, Marching Band, City of Canterbury Band, Crafts and Pony Rides and a Poetry Corner with local actress Miss Olwen Griffiths author of Walking Your Way. Moira Lister and Joyce Redfern were also at the event. In the evening in the marquee there was a show called,

Dulcie Grey and Michael Denison

Where Are The Songs We Sung “featuring the words and music of Sir Noël Coward.” This was performed by the Lissenden singers from London and one of the beneficiaries the Aldington Amateur Dramatic Society.

On display was “Memorabilia of Sir Noël Coward, His Friends and Associates’ with items supplied by The Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson Theatre Collection.”

Michael Denison and Dulcie Grey (3rd from left) with other guests. - 12 - Speaking of Noël Coward the Alan Farley Interviews Introduced by Dominic Vlasto This is the first of a series of pieces which will appear over Sheridan Morley (1984 & 1989), José Ferrer (1986), Peter several forthcoming editions of Home Chat, featuring Matz (1986), Joe Layton (1987), Graham Payn (1987 & 1994), transcripts of interviews conducted by Alan Farley, in pursuit of Geoffrey Johnson (1987), Joe Mitchenson (1987), Helene Pons his 30-year series of radio programmes for KALW Radio, San (1988), Charles Castle & Stanley Hall (1988), Evelyn Laye Francisco about Noël Coward and his work, with many actors, (1989), Mary Ellis (1989), Joyce Carey (1989), Alan Strachan musicians and administrators who had worked closely with (1989), Norman Hackforth (1990), Wendy Toye (1990), Judy Coward. Campbell (1990), Elaine Stritch (1991), Moira Lister (1991), A collection of interviews – then known as Conversations Ned Sherrin (1993), Don Seawell (1993), Philip Hoare (1993 & about Coward – was first transcribed in the late 1990s by 1995), Peter Greenwell (1995), Harry Allan Towers (1996), Alan’s San Franciscan friend Ron Lazar. At the time, Alan and Terry Castle (1996) and Joan Sutherland (1998). myself were hard at work finalizing the information for what To commemorate Alan Farley’s extraordinary lifetime would become the Coward Music Index. The collection of contribution to the study and promotion of Coward’s work, Ron interview transcripts provided a rich vein of practical Lazar has now decided to publish Speaking of Coward on line. observational details about Coward’s work, and occasional The book will be published through AuthorHouse.com and surprising revelations about the origin or original performance made available through Amazon.com and several other of pieces of Coward’s music and lyrics, and many small details prominent online merchants. The proceeds will go to the from the interviews found their way into both the Music Index copyright holder, National Public Radio, KALW, San and, following our attendance at the 1999 Noël Coward Francisco. Ron Lazar will donate fifty copies to the NCS to be Conference at Birmingham University, into the piece on used to raise funds for the Society . Coward’s music included in the post-conference volume Look At the same time, NCS feels that we should highlight and Back in Pleasure, - The Potency of Cheap Music (Methuen, celebrate Alan’s work in a series of Home Chat articles 2000). extracted from the most important of these interviews. Alan’s impressive range of interviewees were met and recorded in London, San Francisco, Hollywood, New York, This is the first of our series of perhaps six articles, most of Switzerland, and many other places in the UK including Kent which will probably contain extracts from more than one and Sussex, as opportunity allowed. I think it is worth giving interview. an idea of the more significant interviewees here:

PM:“He came to my apartment to audition me, which I thought Peter Matz was nice. I knew Noël Coward the playwright, I knew about the plays and so forth, but I had no idea about his songs – that English Music Hall comedy thing was completely new to me. Interviewed by Alan Farley, Somehow I guess he sensed that. “He came into my apartment and said, “Well, do you know the May 23, 1986 ‘Trolley Song’ – can you play it in the key of B?” Some keys are very difficult to play and you seldom play in the key of B – all sharps and that kind of thing. So I said, “Well, it’s kind of As the song says, “Let’s start at the very beginning…” Well, at weird, but I’ll try”. And he said, “Very fast”, and started least with one of the very earliest interviews, with the singing in that great funny voice, “In my high starched collar, accompanist and orchestrator Peter Matz in 1986. This in my high top boots”—a Judy Garland song – flying through transcript had been particularly useful to me in the preparation the song. So, I caught up with him on the piano, and he sort of of The Potency of Cheap Music in 1999. It was clear that in looked down at the keyboard and then he asked me to play one this instance – it is a fifty-minute interview - that there is way or two other things which were American film-type songs or more than enough for a single-interview article. What follows show tunes which I knew. below is really no more that heavily edited extracts, to which an occasional word of editorial comment/explanation is added “And then he said, “Can you be in Los Angeles tomorrow?” I [in square brackets]. said, “Yeah, I guess so.” And he said, “Fine, I’ll be at Clifton Webb’s house. We’ll start rehearsing.” It turned out we had Peter Matz (1929-2002) was aged 26 when he was very like ten days – no time at all! And [at Clifton Webb’s House] suddenly launched into one of the most surprising and long- he started teaching me, not only his songs, but this whole style lasting successes of his career, taking on the accompaniments of playing them. I don’t know if he ever thought of himself as and music arrangements for Coward’s cabaret act at Las Vegas a teacher [but] he was a great director. He made me learn very at rather less than three weeks notice, following the refusal of forcefully that this was about comedy performance, and a the US authorities to grant a work permit to Coward’s UK couple of times he screamed, “Don’t play [i.e. don’t let the accompanist Norman Hackforth. Matz starts by remembering music cover the words] when I’m making a joke!”, and I their initial meeting in New York in mid-May 1955:

- 13 - gradually saw that this was a whole other kind of music.

“At night I was working on the orchestrations, and began to get a picture of where we would need the orchestra. What it boiled down to was, the orchestra would play an introduction and get the thing started, and then mostly it would be just the piano and the drum and the bass maybe [for the main part of the song], and then maybe the orchestra would play an interlude and then an ending – I didn’t really do full-blown orchestrations. But they did sound good! It was a good band in Las Vegas. I was too young and too dumb to be frightened by all this. I didn’t realize how important it all was. And, of course, the truth is that it was a tremendously important thing in his life, but I didn’t know this. For me it was just a job in Vegas, and it was great!

AF: “Now, it was recorded…how many sessions, how many shows were recorded, do you remember?

PM: “I seem to recall it was three nights, and two shows a night, so [Columbia Records] probably taped or actually recorded six shows.

AF: “I was in a record store just the other day and they said they could still sell as many copies of that album today as ever… and listen to this from Coward’s Diaries: “Peter Matz knows more about the range of various instruments and the potentialities of different combinations than anyone of any age I have ever met in England.” Amazing. Pete Matz

PM: “That’s nice; but actually he did work in England with a guy who is a marvelous, marvelous orchestrator and composer, Wally Stott, who is now limitation of what you know about music, so Angela Morley and one of the leading composers of film music out in he tended after a point to repeat certain California [Angela Morley/Wally Stott died in 2009]. I think Noël was just harmonic and melodic things. But he wasn’t being nice to me. One thing is true, though: he hadn’t had experience of that closed off to modern music. And if kind of hot dance band, a typical Las Vegas show band with saxophones and something was needed [for the show he was many trumpets and trombones – that was kind of new to him. So my facility working on], he’d sit at the piano and with that combination probably surprised him. And, of course, it’s a high- compose a few bars and say, “Did you get energy combination, that nightclub band thing. that? Someone write that down. That’ll do for the transition” – he was quite comfortable AF: “Then later that year there was the TV special [Together With Music, doing that. CBS TV 1955] with Mary Martin, then the following year the recording session in New York. AF: “Then, a couple of years later, you had a sort of falling-out over his ballet PM: “We rehearsed a lot for the TV special with Mary because it was live – London Morning? an hour-and-a-half live! Unbelievable in these days of videotape to think of that. [Noël and I] rehearsed in New York to start with, then I went and joined PM: “The falling-out was basically about him in Jamaica, which was wonderful. He liked to write in the mornings – he the money! He felt that our relationship was would be in his study and I would be in my little guest area [working on the such that I should still work for him on the orchestrations]. Then we would all meet for lunch, and rehearse all afternoon. same basis as before, which was rather small- The material for the show evolved there. Mary was determined to sing scale; but the fact is that I was doing pretty something in her “real” soprano voice, and they argued about that. In the end well in TV by then, and to stop and go and do he gave in and let her do ‘Un Bel Di’ from Puccini’s Madam Butterfly. Noël’s project [in London] would have been a serious financial drop. I was married and had AF: “You mean, that the skit they did was based on fact? one small kid, you know how these things are… and I think to be really honest, I didn’t PM: “Exactly. He took the argument and turned it into a comic sketch event have the passion about doing the work that he as part of the show… wanted. There seemed to be a lot of loose I remember the Jamaica trip as being really fun. I had a violent crush on Mary, ends, and I finally had to say, “Noël, I don’t so I was trying to get to her in the swimming pool! I remember being just in think I can do it”. He was very upset. It awe of the level of the work that was going on and feeling that something kind seemed to him that I was being disloyal. of historical was happening. AF: “But then you worked with him AF: “Was all his work done away in his study? again on Sail Away?

PM: “No, he was very comfortable working in front of people … he played PM: “It was my first job in the theatre as the piano OK, no wrong notes or anything, but he was limited harmonically… Music Director – I’d had jobs as rehearsal like all of us who compose anything, there are certain things that you fall into pianist, dance music arranger and so forth, that are frequently called ‘style’ but which are really the demonstration of the but it really represented my whole reason for

- 14 - having gone to New York to begin with, so I was thrilled that He was playing in Suite in Three Keys, and we went backstage he asked me. It was a wonderful learning experience. to see him and then met a night or two later and had dinner. Another day we met him for lunch. AF: “What was Elaine Stritch like to work with? He bequeathed me a conductor’s baton – a wonderful silver PM: “Wonderful! Brilliant! Funny! One of the best baton that folds up into a little case. It was given to him by working actors I’ve ever known in my life. I had a chance to some orchestra he went to conduct up north in England many work with her again recently on Musical Comedy Tonight on years before I knew him – would it have been the Liverpool TV. Elaine did a Rodgers and Hart song called ‘To Keep My Philharmonic? – he’d come to guest conduct one of the suites Love Alive’. The first orchestration I wrote we rehearsed with of music from one of his shows, and they presented him with her the day before the show, and she said, “It’s not right. It this baton. He willed that to me, which I thought was quite doesn’t work.” I said, “Wait a minute, we can fix…” She said, wonderful.” “It’s not about fixing. This is wrong!”. I went home and it was late, and I said, “She’s right! God damn it, she’s right.” And I * * * rewrote it, and a new orchestration came in the next morning, and she said, “Now that, I can work with that!”. She’s meticulous. Every word counts. And at the end of it she gave a [Peter Matz died in Los Angeles on August 9th 2002 and was great performance. survived by his second wife Marilynn Lovell Matz, two sons from his first marriage, Zachary and Jonas, and one AF: “Did you spend much time with him aside from just grandson. Home Chat published an obituary in its October working? 2002 edition. The photograph of Peter Matz used both there and for this article was taken by Alan Farley at the time of his PM: “Not an awful lot, but he did spend several evenings 1986 interview.] with me and my ex-wife, Janet. They got along great, and used to argue about all kinds of things – friendly arguments, but he loved to tear into anything. It was the same apartment there, for a while, where he had come to audition me, on East 61st Street; and we visited in Bermuda with him once, which was a wonderful, delightful time. Then when we went to England in 1968 we spent a bit of time together.

An informal photograph probably taken by Cole Lesley after the official photo shoot for the original cover of: ‘Noël Coward at Las Vegas’ shown here on the right

PHOTO: NC Aventales AG

- 15 - A Choice of Coward Lance Salway introduces us to...... A Guide offered by the Granada TV Series of televised Coward plays which includes ‘Noël Coward Talks to Granada’ and his introductions to the individual plays...

NOËL COWARD TALKS TO GRANADA lose your audience. It’s a fatal mistake and when I hear that August 1964 actors have to get in the mood before they go on it is all nonsense. “I don’t like propaganda in art, that’s why I attack very right- What they’ve got to do is to remember their words, project wing or very left-wing plays; anything that smells of them clearly, generally forward in the mouth. They’ve got to propaganda to me spells bad art. So therefore I slightly resent remember not only the five rows of the stalls, they’ve got to it. I like being entertained in the theatre, and I’ve been remember the people in the gallery and without shouting entertained a great deal recently. It gave me a great feeling of they’ve got to appear perfectly intimate and at ease—but every happiness because I love the theatre qua theatre and I haven’t word must be heard all over the theatre. This does justice to the seen such good acting in such a short space of time for a long author and in the long run to themselves as actors.” while. I’ve nothing but admiration and praise for the younger Present Laughter - Monday 10th August at 9.10pm playwrights who really mind about the theatre. I find the thing that irritates me is minding about a political or personal cause “Present Laughter is a flagrant example of what is known in more than the theatre. theatrical parlance as a ‘star vehicle’, which means that, Having been brought up in the theatre I naturally mind although most of the parts in it are good, they are all about the theatre first. And I think maybe that is what has got subservient to the leading part. It is, in fact, the leading part me this reputation for being reactionary. I’m not reactionary that carries the play. about youth. I want them to do well, but I do wish that they Through all the years that the living theatre has existed would learn that playwriting is a craft as well as an art. there has been a great deal of nonsense talked and written about I was brought up in it, both the craft of playwriting and the the iniquities of the ‘star’ system. It has been attacked and craft of acting. I have very little patience with what is known vilified with recurrent fervour by professional critics, amateur as—and is I think being rather overdone—The Method. Every critics, unsuccessful playwrights, unsuccessful actors, over- great star and great actor that I’ve ever known had method. idealistic managers and occasionally, with sublime disregard Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, Ina Claire, Peter Evans, for cause and effect, even by some of the stars themselves. The Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, they all work with method, but only voices not heard in this shrill chorus of condemnation are it is not ‘The’ Method. those of the commercial managers, who possibly to their ‘The’ Method has been bowdlerised. It’s been made into a eternal shame are concerned with paying their rents, their sort of joke and it’s not quite fair because a field of very good staffs, their actors, their authors’ royalties, their production actors has come out of the Actors’ Studio in New York and a expenses and making a reasonable profit. These gentlemen, great many very bad actors too. But that applies to any acting even though their artistic judgment may occasionally falter, school. The thing I think that is wrong about ‘The’ Method is even though their choice of plays may be motivated by the that too much emphasis is placed upon the actor’s view of what hope of financial gain rather than critical esteem, need not be he is doing. The actor is encouraged to talk about himself, to utterly despised. They regard the theatre, rightly to my mind, as think about himself in relation to the part too much. primarily a place of entertainment and they do their best to The way to act is to learn to act technically, to learn your provide the public with what they think it wants. The despised words, to know what the play is about, to think it out in your ‘star’ system to true followers of the drama may appear to be a own mind and then come on and do it—not waste a whole lot shameful compromise, but to a hard working playwright, of the director’s time by saying ‘Should my motivation be believe me, it is frequently a very great comfort. because I was bitten by a rocking horse when I was four?’ Having been a hard working playwright myself for forty- This I think is a bore and I also think it’s a great waste of time. five years I must say fearlessly that on this question I am entirely on the side of the managers. When a new play is In fact, I do not allow it. I don’t like actors to keep coming and produced in one of the smaller more avant- garde theatres with explaining to me how they’re going to do it and what they’re a starless but efficient cast it is almost certain to receive good going to do—that’s their job. If they’ve got the script and have press notices. But as a general rule, unless it happens to be a read it they should know. very remarkable play indeed, this is about all it will get. To me Acting is an art and a craft, it is not a question of a state of good press notices are not enough. If I had ever cared about being. The mistake that many ‘Method’ actors make is that they good press notices I should have shot myself in the early believe that they can give the same degree of emotion at every twenties. performance. This they cannot do, if it is true. It must never, Present Laughter was written with the sensible object of never be true except in rehearsal. The mood must be set, and providing me with a bravura part. It was an enormous success what must be given to the audience is a repeat of what they and I received excellent notices and, to my bewilderment and have originally felt. This must be technically sound and considerable dismay, the play also received excellent notices. accurate. It is no use telling me that when you come on the The very thought of this so unnerved me that I can say no stage you lose yourself in your part — if you lose yourself you more.” - 16 - Blithe Spirit - Monday 17 August at 9.00 pm Chinese illusionist. I’ve always felt that this photograph did me a great deal of harm. Anybody looking at it would conclude at “When I was one-and-twenty I was ambitious, cheerful and once, with a certain justification, that I was a weedy sensualist high-spirited. I had never heard of the death wish and I was in the last stages of physical and moral degeneration and they’d blissfully unaware that I belonged to a dying civilisation. Today better hurry quickly to see me in my play before my inevitable this dubious implication is pitched at me from all directions. demise put that rather macabre pleasure beyond their reach. All Despair is the new religion, the new mode. It is in the books we this was very good for business, temporarily, but after a time it read, in the music we hear and far too often in the plays we see. became tiresome. For many years I was never mentioned in the Well I am no longer one-and-twenty, I still have no pre- press without allusions to cocktail parties, jazz, post-war occupation with the death wish. I am still ambitious, cheerful hysteria and decadence. and I hope not offensively high spirited, and I am still unaware My object in The Vortex was to write a good play with a that I belong to a dying civilisation. If I do there is really whacking good part in it for myself, and I’m thankful to say, nothing to be done about it. So I am going to press on with my with a few modest reservations, that I think I succeeded. It is life as I like living it until I die of natural causes or an atom still, I hope, a good play and it is certainly still a whacking bomb blows me to smithereens. good part. Be that as it may however, that first night in that I knew in my ‘teens that the world was full of hatred, little Everyman Theatre in Hampstead forty years ago, and cruelty, vice, unrequited love, despair, destruction and murder. I another first night the following year at the Henry Miller also knew at the same time that it was filled with kindness, Theatre in New York, were two of the great moments in my pleasure, joy, requited love, fun, excitement, generosity, career for which I shall never cease to be grateful.” laughter and friends. And through all my years I have never changed in my mind the balance of these absurd phenomena. I Design for Living - Monday 31 August at 9.10 pm do become increasingly exasperated, however, when in my own beloved profession everything that I have been brought up and “Design for Living, as a project not as a play, sat patiently at trained to believe in is now decried. the back of my mind for eleven years. It was waiting until Lynn Nowadays a well-constructed play with a beginning and a Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and I had each arrived by different roads middle and an end is despised, and a light comedy whose sole at the exact moment in our careers when we felt we could play purpose is to amuse is dismissed as being trivial and together with a more or less equal chance of success. In the insignificant. Since when has laughter been so insignificant? interim, being old friends, we met and planned and argued and No merriment apparently must be allowed to scratch the set discussed, and parted again. We all three many times knew we grim patina of these dire years. We must all just sit and wait for wanted a play written by me, but we were searching wildly death, or hurry it on according to how we feel. To my mind one through our minds to find three suitable characters on which to of the most efficacious ways of hurrying it on is to sit in the base it. At one moment we were to be foreigners. Lynn a theatre and look at a verbose, ill-constructed play, acted with Eurasian, Alfred a German, and me a Chinese. At another turgid intensity which has received rave notices and is closing moment an acrobatic group, rapping out ali-oops and flicking on Saturday. handkerchiefs at each other. And then there was another idea, Perfection in art is, like anything else, a question of degree. that I should write a play the entire action of which took place All creative artists strive to achieve it within the limits of the in a gigantic bed, and dealt with life and love in the Schnitzler form they have chosen. I must admit, with what must seem to manner. This idea was hilariously discarded after Alfred had be a refreshing gust of modesty, that I have never yet achieved made some suggestions of stage directions which, if faithfully the great play that I have always longed and will always long to followed, would have landed all three of us in jail. Finally write. But I am for ever grateful to the almost psychic gift that when the whole project seemed to have sunk out of sight for enabled me to write Blithe Spirit in five days during one of the ever I received a cable from them in the Argentine, where I darkest years of the war. happened to be at the moment, saying ‘Darling, our Theatre It was not meticulously constructed in advance. In fact only Guild contract is up in June, we shall be free, what about it?’ one day lapsed between its original conception and the moment This not unnaturally made the rest of my South American when I sat down to write it. It fell into my mind and on to the holiday a little distracted. However a month or two later in a manuscript. Six weeks later it was produced and ran in London small Norwegian freight boat sailing from Panama to Los for four and a half years and I am still wondering whether or Angeles suddenly the play germinated in my mind and I wrote not it was important. Only time will tell.” it, and with a sublime disregard of the flamboyant Mexican coast line on the starboard horizon, I set the mise-en-scene The Vortex - Monday 24 August at 9.00 pm firmly in Paris, London and New York. Design for Living as a title is ironic, rather than dogmatic. I “The Vortex was produced on the 25 November 1924, at the never intended for a moment to suggest that the design for Everyman Theatre, Hampstead. It was an immediate success. It living in the play- applied to anyone outside its principal established me both as a playwright and as an actor, which was characters, Gilda, Otto, Leo. These three glib over-articulate very fortunate because up until that time I had not proved amoral creatures force their lives and their problems, impelled myself to be so hot in either capacity. With the success came a chiefly by the impact of their personalities each upon the other. lot of the pleasurable trappings : new suits, a car, silk shirts, They are like moths in a pool of light, unable to tolerate the and an excessive amount of dressing gowns and pyjamas and lonely outer darkness and equally unable to share the light still more extravagant amount of publicity. I was photographed, without constantly colliding and bruising one another’s wings. interviewed, photographed again, in my house, in the park, in The end of the play is equivocal. The three of them are left, as the street, in my dressing- room, at my piano, with my dear old the curtain falls, laughing. Different minds have found different mother, without my dear old mother, and on one occasion reasons for this laughter. Some saw in it an anticipation of sitting up in an over-elaborate bed looking like a heavily doped some sort of triangular carnal frolic. Others with less ribald

- 17 - imaginations merely saw it as a fairly neat way of bringing the Granada TV Cast: curtain down. I as the author prefer to think that Gilda, Otto Monday 17th August at 9.10pm and Leo are laughing at themselves.” Ruth Helen Cherry The Casts Charles Griffith Jones Madame Arcati Hattie Jacques PRESENT LAUGHTER Dr Bradman Edward Jewesbury Mrs Bradman Coral Fairweather A Comedy. Written in 1939. Edith Ursula Hirst London production 29 Apr. 1943, Haymarket Theatre. Elvira Joanna Dunham THE VORTEX Original Cast:

Daphne Stillington Jennifer Gray A play in three acts. Written in 1923. London production 16 Miss Erikson Molly Johnson Dec. 1924, Royalty Theatre. Fred Billy Thatcher Monica Reed Beryl Measor Original Cast: Garry Essendine Noël Coward Liz Essendine Joyce Carey Preston Claire Keep Roland Maule James Donald Helen Saville Mary Robson Henry Lyppiatt Gerald Case Pauncefort Quentin F. Kinset Peile Morris Dixon Dennis Price Clara Hibbert Millie Sim Joanna Lyppiatt Judy Campbell Florence Lancaster Lilian Braithwaite Lady Saltburn Gwen Floyd Tom Veryan Alan Hollis Nicky Lancaster Noël Coward David Lancaster Bromley Davenport Granada TV Cast: Bunty Mainwaring Molly Kerr Monday 10th August at 9.10pm Bruce Fairlight Ivor Barnard

Daphne Stillington Jennie Linden First American production 16 Sept. 1925, Henry Miller Miss Erikson Ruth Porcher Theatre, New York. Monica Reed Joan Benham Garry Essendine Peter Wyngarde Granada TV Cast: Liz Essendine Ursula Howells Monday 24 August at 9.10pm Roland Maule James Bolam Henry Lyppiatt Edwin Apps Bunty Mainwaring Ann Bell Morris Dixon Danvers Walker Tom Veryan Philip Bond Joanna Lyppiatt Barbara Murray Pauncefort Quentin Tony Bateman Lady Saltburn Jane Eccles Helen Saville Faith Brook Nicky Lancaster Nicholas Pennell Bruce Fairlight Tom Gill BLITHE SPIRIT Clara Hibbert Bernadette Milnes Preston Angela Barrie Florence Lancaster Margaret Johnston An improbable farce in three acts. Written in 1941 First David Lancaster Noël Howlett performed, Opera House, Manchester, 16 June 1941. Later at Piccadilly Theatre, London, 2 July 1941, St James’s Theatre, 23 Mar. 1942. DESIGN FOR LIVING

Original Cast: A comedy. Written in 1932 NewYork production 24 Jan. 1933, Ethel Barrymore Theatre. London production 25 Jan. 1939. Edith Ruth Reeves Haymarket Theatre. Ruth Fay Compton New York London Charles Cecil Parker Gilda Lynn Fontanne Diana Wynyard Dr Bradman Martin Lewis Ernest Campbell Gullan Alan Webb Mrs Bradman Moya Nugent Otto Alfred Lunt Anton Walbrook Madame Arcati Margaret Rutherford Leo Noël Coward Rex Harrison Elvira Kay Hammond Miss Hodge Gladys Henson Dorothy Hamilton Photographer Ward Bishop (Cut in London) Noël Coward adapted the play for a film produced Mr Birbeck Philip Tonge Cyril Wheeler in 1944 with Rex Harrison as Charles and Constance Grace Torrence Ethel Borden Everley Gregg Cummings as Ruth. Helen Carver Phyllis Connard Cathleen Cordell Henry Carver Alan Campbell Ross Landon Matthew Macleary Stennett James Mclntyre

- 18 - Granada TV Cast: Our thanks go toLance Salway for providing a piece that I Monday 31st August at 9.10pm doubt many of us will have seen before.

Gilda Jill Bennett Leo Daniel Massey Otto John Wood Ernest Richard Pearson Miss Hodge Madge White Mr Birbeck Desmond Newling Grace Torrence Stella Bonheur Matthew Benny Nightingale Helen Carver Carol Cleveland Henry Carver Warren Stanhope

An Earlier Essay Competition

With thanks again to Lance Salway here are the published R. P., Barnet; Norman E. Gibbs, Daventry ; BM/ BEFL, High results of the competition in Holborn; “Aldersey,” Oatlands, Weybridge; Mary Lake, Play Pictorial No 368 - of November 1st 1932 Ampthill Square, N.W.I, and the cheque for Five Pounds to The Prize Essay Competition Miss Joan Littlefield. Congratulations to All. Plays and Players, our Sixpenny Illustrated Review, whose motto is “Be Just and Fear Not,” had the happy thought to In nearly every case, the Essays showed a fair insight into invite the public to express their opinions on Noël Coward with Mr. Coward’s work, combined with an admirable gift of a Five Pound bonus for the best essay sent in. The seven score expression. Many of them, however, were written by odd essays were submitted to a fairly intelligent individual, an unqualified admirers and were noticeable more for their experienced dramatist and actor of the past, and he selected enthusiasm than for their judicial quality. half-a-dozen with the intimation that he left to us the invidious A few went to the other extreme, and held but lightly Mr. task of naming the winner. Coward’s gifts as author and composer, but allowing full Taking two nights to sleep on our cogitations, we decided praise as opportunist and producer. eventually on the paper by Miss Joan Littlefield, of Alexandra The essays we have printed in this issue give a general Avenue, N.22. In our announcement in Plays and Players view of Mr. Coward’s career and accomplishment, and on the we reserved the right to print such other of the essays as we whole, are a fairly sound summary of Mr. Coward’s thought proper, and accordingly a guinea will be sent to each of achievements and possibilities. the following :

THE PRIZE ESSAY The majority of his plays have dealt only with a small section of society—cocktail-drinking, unmoral wasters, for the By Joan Littlefield most part—and though the characters are drawn from the life It would perhaps have been better for Noël Coward if he had and with a satire that goes home, they are to the average not been a child of the theatre. He has lived so long in the theatregoer merely figures in a play—the dramatic skill with world of make-believe, has mastered so easily the arts and which they are handled only adding to their unreality. crafts that go to the making of a play, has, in fact, so infallible a For always, however serious his purpose may be, Mr. sense of what is “good theatre” that it is difficult for him to get Coward is too efficient a craftsman to miss a good curtain, or away from the merely theatrical. indeed, the tiniest possibility of dramatic effect. Even in That he is the biggest all-round man of the theatre of his Cavalcade which, together with his unacted Post Mortem, is generation is unquestioned. The man who could create and probably his most significant achievement so far, there have stage such a show as Cavalcade, contrive the felicities of a been moments when his sense of the dramatic and of the revue like Words and Music, compose a Bitter Sweet, and spin possibilities of Drury Lane stage, have run away with him. the thin web of story that was Private Lives into an evening’s The first thing one realises about Cavalcade is that it is entertainment, stands unrivalled to-day in talent and versatility. magnificent “theatre,” and for many people that is its only He has written drama and comedy, devised spectacle and revue, significance. But Mr. Coward meant it to be more than that, composed music that is the very echo of his time ; but though it did, indeed, get into it something of the spirit of the immediate has been obvious from the first that he was a stern moralist, the past, and the piece, which might easily have become bathos, is prophet as well as the historian of the ‘Bright Young Things,’ notable for its restraint and for the economy of means with one, who perhaps more than any figure in England, has which its greatest effects—Queen Victoria’s funeral, for epitomised the tragedy of post-war nerves and post-war futility, instance, and the symbolic treatment of the War years—are he has always been so much of the theatre that people have not achieved. taken him seriously.

- 19 - In it, too, he got away, in the earlier scenes at least, from the Assessing the value of Noël Coward’s achievements in the smart set which occupies too much of his attention, and proved drama, the first essential considerations to examine for that he is capable of understanding the ordinary man as well as criticism are those of a personal nature; his versatility, the the neurotic, and that he can be something more than the quality, the technique, the depths and the realities of his work, mouthpiece of smart sophistication. its design, development and importance in relation to life itself. If to have genius is to recognise the psychological moment Not until these questions have been answered, and one has for writing and producing a given work, then Mr. Coward has it traced something of his career as an actor, and its important in abundance. When people were tired of jazz, he gave them influences, can one fairly determine his claims as Craftsman or Bitter Sweet ; when a wave of patriotism swept the country, Genius. Cavalcade was ready, and so it has always been. Dr. Johnson has it that “where there is no hope, there can be But if one’s definition of genius is of something more than no endeavour.” Coward has had both, and he has succeeded in this, then Mr. Coward has yet to prove that he has depth as well his youth because of his untiring energy and enterprise, his as brilliance. The stuff, I think, is there but unless Mr. Coward strength of will and power of concentration, his opportunism, puts up a stiff fight against his craftsmanship, he will continue his sincerity, and the belief he has always had in himself. Apart to remain the playboy of the West End world. from being an experimentalist, and writing his own way, and fighting against adversity and hostile criticism afterwards, he 4, Alexandra Avenue, N.22. has shaped his work with craftsmanship, having literally grown up in the Theatre. Thus the experience and the insight he CRAFTSMANSHIP is the plain man’s word for all that sums gained in those early years, when he was struggling for success, up the sure and certain building of a labour of love to polished puts him in possession of the technicalities of dramatic fruition. Nothing here of flame and divine uncertainties, of authorship and production itself. passion or of despair, which must accompany the birth of those Coward has written brilliantly and stupidly, loosely and masterpieces delivered to the world at slow difficult intervals. thoughtlessly, hurriedly, implied a great deal without saying To make a decision between these two qualities in the much, created some characters that talk like fools and amuse person of Noël Coward the critic must understand acting, themselves in frivolous absurdities and glorious quarrels, with theatrical production and showmanship, each separately, and a great amount of talk and little action; he has given laughter not be dazzled by the conjunction of the three, possessed in and boredom, some intelligence, but a great deal more inane such large measure by one man. nonsense. About his comedies there is that essential Coward is an “all round “ man of the Theatre, versed in restlessness of atmosphere and that flippancy and independence every branch of his art. that is characteristic of our time. He has upheld ‘Youth,’ but not flattered it; has expressed just what he has felt and thought with Genius or Craftsmanship ? conviction. His candid expressions and indictments and Divine cunning certainly. The inspired knowledge of when satirisations of the ‘Smart Set’ have revealed these people as and how to say the word, to keep a finger on the pulse of the shallow puppets, bored with life generally, but back-biting times and of the temperaments, and to establish eternal contact against each other with malicious delight. with humanity. A genius writes of all types of characters; he understands It is given to him as so few indeed to understand the value and possesses a depth of feeling, and has an extensive of the curb, the gentle jerk that lifts our heads above saccharine knowledge of men and women, and life itself. Genius creates or somnolence. His the hand that drops the acid into the sweet, life, and interprets its finer shades of meaning, both tragic and and tempers the whole. comic. In this light. Coward’s gallery of people and scenes are So it was with Shakespeare and with Dickens. They were restricted, one is conscious of many repetitions in plot and always one of ourselves, endearing themselves to us because of development; one feels the people are set to type, they have no their eternal comradeship. growth, and the plays themselves no real depths, for he has It is not magnificence nor splendour, nor rhetoric that seemingly worked to a formula, and that is not Genius. makes us hail Noël Coward as the supreme craftsman of our Noël Coward, then, is a man of many parts, who is still an theatrical age, that separates him from the impermanence of experimentalist; he is of the Theatre and knows what it others, but that sure brain that understands the mind of the demands, and so he is brilliantly endowed with craftsmanship people, and is content to be one of them. through experience, but his knowledge of life itself is limited. It is always difficult to say “Genius” to men born in our Post Mortem, though, is astonishing proof of what he is capable time. We are noticeably inclined to attribute to the word some of; it vindicates his position, for in this, his most serious abnormal efflorescence of the intelligence, rather than the thin contribution to drama, he shows a greater command of but steady flame of the divine that shines in unexpected places. language, writes with intense creative feeling, and proves how, This artistry of Noël Coward seems to just light this flame. if he so desires, he can write of real vital problems with the It is not always evident, not indeed nearly so often as many same biting satire and flair for burlesque that has been a would unhesitatingly declare; but, at moments when the true distinctive feature of his work throughout Comedy to Revue. note is so splendidly struck, and with so unerring a hand, and Only when he has crowned his glorious prelude with plays of the answering chord is wrung from us, then—then we can character, maturity, and value, can he be acclaimed a Genius ; declare with laughter or with tears, that the link with the divine until then he will remain a doyen of the stage, blazing his trail is surely there, and the master hand at work among us. successfully with craftsmanship, comedy, music, song, and wit, but at the same time developing the seeds of genius that he has, Rosamond Poole, Hadley, Barnet. to take his ultimate place amongst the great and famous.

Norman E. Gibbs, 59, St. James Street, Daventry.

- 20 - That Noël Coward is an accomplished craftsman is beyond The subject of your competition interests me so much, that dispute. In fact, he is a master of several crafts. He has amply although I have not seen by any means all Mr. Coward’s demonstrated his technical ability as actor, producer, dramatist, productions—notably not Cavalcade —I feel I must make my lyric writer and composer of light music. If versatility effort. constituted genius, we could acclaim Mr. Coward without For Noël Coward has at least this feature of genius : he further discussion. makes people think about him, hard and long. Thus we are led to the question: “What is genius ?” The Which leads direct to another consideration. I find one problem has been considered by philosophers and thinks of his work solely from the dramatic point of view. He psychologists since the days of Aristotle, but so far no precise does not preach, he does not teach, he does not scoff, he does definition has been formulated. Fortunately the dictionaries not upbraid. He is the exact antithesis to Mr. Bernard Shaw give at least a hint. They state that genius is intellectual power, who forces his views on life and past history and the present transcends what can be taught, is individual in character, and age into dramatic form, in which they often appear decidedly above all creates original conceptions, forms and expressions. uncomfortable. These suggestions agree with, and to some extent clarify the Mr. Coward has his age at his finger-tips but he does not vague ideas we all have about genius. In their light let us moralise on it, he simply uses it—with consummate examine Mr. Coward’s dramatic compositions, on which craftsmanship. primarily his fame rests. If I am right so far, we are getting very near to the great Mr. Coward’s plays and revues reveal an outstanding sense artist. But before venturing a step farther, I think there is this to of the stage. His situations are skilfully contrived; his dialogue be said. One must always accept the artist’s hypothesis, or is economical and pointed, and can be as occasion requires problem, or call it what you will; there is no true criticism tender, witty or caustic; his characterisation, if it often runs to otherwise. type, is faithfully observed, and at times rises to individual If, on Mr. Coward stating : “I am going to write a play portraiture. His satire is mordant; and though he has been about two spoilt and frivolous people who alternate between credited with a desire to be sensational, his works bear out his excessive love-making and violent quarrelling, and who have claim of a genuinely ethical inspiration. In short, there is little hesitation in coming to blows and rolling about _on the sufficient evidence of Mr. Coward’s intellectual, emotional and floor” — his critic replies— “How disgusting! Why can’t you moral powers. write a pretty play?” that critic is really refusing to enter the Mr. Coward has contributed nothing to dramatic technique, lists. But if his answer is Granted! Now go ahead and let’s see though an experimental tendency may be noted in Post Mortem what you can make of it. If he meets his author on his own and Cavalcade, which are significantly among his most recent ground, and may find that something has been made of it very work. He has been content to use the old forms as a vehicle for subtle and remarkable indeed. the expression of his ideas, for his denunciation of post-war But what more is needed ? —a sense sublime. Of something society and (what is often overlooked) for his condemnation of far more deeply interfused — Something, for which ignoble marital ideals. craftsmanship is only as the scaffolding, and a piquant In other words his work is original in substance but not in modernity only the ornament. Something which has no age, no form. But that it is individual is questionable. He has voiced, date, no nationality, it is so profoundly touching, so deeply however ably, merely the disillusionment common to the human. younger generation; indeed it is precisely in being their This Noël Coward, has to my mind, achieved in one play at mouthpiece that his importance, hitherto, has consisted. One least, and, for me, that one achievement stamps him with looks in vain in Mr. Coward’s plays for that individual note, genius. that peculiar personal quality, that is visible in the plays of There runs through Bitter Sweet a vein of true poetry. The Shaw and Barrie; or, if that comparison is deemed unfair, in the author presents us with a woman who lives so richly, deeply plays of say Dunsany and O’Neill. and courageously, that her life, whatever its events, is worth That Mr. Coward’s success has been exceptional is while. She is of the same temper as Juliet and Desdemona, and obviously no evidence. Equally inconclusive is the imposing there is a passionate glory in the heart of all their stories. output of so young a writer, or the fact that the first two plays This play seemed to me, also, superbly constructed, (I’ll Leave It To You and The Young Idea) were written in the particularly the great scene in the cafe where the lovers are early twenties—a striking achievement. And, be it noted, these locked in a last embrace, and the cold-blooded lecher who has two plays compare not unfavourably with Mr. Coward’s hilled one and widowed the other, looks on, contemptuous and subsequent work. complacent. That is to say that, though his technique has become more I saw it with a friend, herself an artist, and on our firm and mature, his work has not shown that progressive homeward journey she wrote the following on the margin of development in depth and substance which would indicate a her programme, and handed it to me : truer insight and a wider vision. “If I should never paint or write again. Life were not wholly The conclusion, then, is that Mr. Coward’s title to be ranked weariness and pain. Still could I hear the high refrain of bliss. as a genius is “non proven.” But he is only thirty-three. At the And lose myself an hour, in work like this.” same age Barrie had only begun to write for the stage, and Shaw’s first play had yet to be written. In Mr. Coward’s “ALDERSEY,” Oatlands, Weybridge. equipment— his gift for the theatre, his power of satire, his courage, his sincerity and his social conscience—may be First let us consider the difference between the two words discerned, it is reasonable to hope, the true stuff of genius. If Genius and Craftsman. Genius is essentially a spiritual quality, we deny that he is a genius in esse, we salute him as a genius craftsmanship a material one. One must be born a genius, but in posse. craftsmanship can be acquired by careful work and study. BM/BEFL, High Holborn, W.C.I. Genius usually manifests itself, in whatever form it is to take,

- 21 - early in life, whereas it takes at least several years of hard work if more erratic, is guided by intuition, his ideas come from to attain any marked degree of proficiency as a craftsman. inspiration and his imagination is unbounded. He must, of With Noël Coward, it seems that he has never had much necessity, learn the technical side of his work in order to carry thought outside the theatre, and his career as an actor began at out his ideas, but having once acquired it, it takes second place the age of ten. His musical talent was also quickly shown, and in his mind, to be called on when required. he is said to have been able to play any piece of music that he The work of Noël Coward, especially during the last year or had happened to hear, with his own improvisations and two, shows an ever-growing power of versatility and variations, without being able to read a note of music. He has imagination. Bitter Sweet, Private Lives, Cavalcade, and Words been, it appears a playwright, if not a composer, from his and Music, are linked only by his characteristic music. The first earliest childhood. three, although so different in character, have the same virtue of It has been said that the extraordinary success of his plays being real. Their characters are real people, with whom one may lie, not so much, perhaps, in the virtue of the plays laughed and wept in sympathy. The delicate crinoline romance themselves, as in his uncanny sense of knowing exactly the of Bitter Sweet, with its haunting music, which took the hearts right type of play to produce at a particular moment. Given that of its audience back to those bygone days and ways, Private this is so, a clever craftsman who knew his public and had a Lives brought them right up to date, yet in both the reality was sound knowledge of psychology, might be able to achieve this there and it was certainly there in the living pages of history once or twice, but to keep a finger on the pulse of the theatre- that was Cavalcade. Words and Music, as a revue naturally going people and know at any time and without error, whether differs in the quality of its reality, yet the polished satire is none they will be m a romantic, patriotic, cynical or just willing-to- the less, rather painfully perhaps true. be- amused frame of mind in say, next December, needs the Can there be any doubt that Noël Coward possesses a depth intuitive perception of the genius. of understanding, a quickness of perception, a natural gift of Another distinction between the two—a craftsman, forced satire and dramatic art impossible for even a brilliant craftsman to rely on his acquired knowledge, and at best that is limited, to acquire, and belong only to those of whom we speak as a tends to develop a “one track” mind. Having brought to genius. perfection certain ideas, he is often content to use them again and again in varying forms, his imagination thus becomes Mary Lake, “Greengates,” 20, Ampthill Square, N.W.I. dulled and hîs work stereotyped. On the other hand the genius, Brenda Bantock recalls a You and Yours... treasured memory sparked Items from NCS Members by ‘Lady in the Dark

Dear John Knowles, A coincidence of events returned me in memory to New York, when at the age of 12 I, among several other evacuees then under the auspices of the Edwin Gould Foundation, was taken to see Gertrude Lawrence and Danny Kaye in Lady in the Dark on Broadway. The memorable performances by Gertrude Lawrence and the then emerging star Danny Kaye have enabled me to remember the Kurt Weil melodies and the Gershwin lyrics over these many years. I often wondered why Lady in the Dark had not been re-visited more often on air when on 2nd June on the Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs, the retiring Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King requested Jenny’s yearning fantasy... ‘My Ship Has Sails...’ The following day Granville and I received Home Chat with the article featuring the Broadway show and much more concerning Noël Coward. It was Noël who, with his committee of kind and concerned fellow actors and acresses, had made it possible for children in their care to evacuate to New York during the War years and then, as an added gift, enabled us to see several other excellent productions. This photograph has been sent in by Susannah Slater and shows Donald Sinden unveiling the commemorative plaque to mark Sincerely, Noël Coward’s birthplace at 131, Waldegrave Road, Teddington where Noël’s family had been living since 1883. Brenda Bantock

- 22 - NCS REUNION IN SARASOTA

NCS members Jim Griffith and Bobi Sanderson held a reunion and dinner for past NCS Chairman Barbara Longford and her husband Patrick, with Douglas Gordon and Michael Chen in attendance at their home in Sarasota. Ken Starrett joined the party through an online conference call as he was unable to attend in person - for reasons that are explained elsewhere in this month’s Home Chat. The dinner adopted the theme of Coward songs with:

Cavalcade, Sail Away, Nina and World Weary.

Other guests included: Dean and Barbara Bock, David Coyle, John and Alida DeJongh, Jack Denison, Taylor and Corrine French, Nancy Gross, Ellen Harrison, Marian Kessler, Fran Knight, John Markham, Fred and Pictured here from Left to Right are: Molly Moffat, Tom Monaghan, Michael Chen, Jim Griffiths, Barbara Longford, Douglas Gordon, Bobi Sanderson Bill Murtagh and Madge and Patrick Longford in Sarasota. Stapleton.

Home Chat is a magazine produced by The Noël Coward Society, funded through the generosity of The Noël Coward Foundation.

Noël Coward Ltd. Chairman: Robert Gardiner Directors: Denys Robinson, Stephen Greenman and John Knowles, Company Secretary: Graham Martin.

The Noël Coward Society: President: HRH Prince Edward The Duke of Kent GCMG GCVO Vice Presidents: Maria Aitken, Barry Day OBE, Stephen Fry, Tammy Grimes, Penelope Keith CBE

Organising Committee: Chairman: Denys Robinson; General Secretary: John H. Knowles; Resources: Stephen Greenman; Membership: Stephen Duckham, Media and Theatre Representative: Michael Wheatley-Ward; Events: Denys Robinson, Geoffrey Skinner and Peter Tod; North American Director: Ken Starrett; US West Coast Liaison: Kathy Williams; NCS in Australia: Kerry Hailstone; NCS in France: Hélène Catsiapis

Home Chat: Editor: John H. Knowles, US NCS news: Ken Starrett, Publication and Distribution: Stephen Greenman Assistant Editors and Proofing: Kathy Williams and Ken Starrett, Music correspondent: Dominic Vlasto. Details of productions and events are as received, with our thanks, from: Samuel French (Play Publishers and Author’s Representatives), Ken Starrett (US), Alan Brodie Representation (Professional Productions), NCS members and theatre companies. NCS website: www.noëlcoward.net Unless otherwise stated all images and text are copyright to NC Aventales AG

Key Addresses: General enquiries: John Knowles, 29 Waldemar Avenue, Hellesdon, Norwich, NR6 6TB, UK johnknowles@noëlcoward.net +44 (0) 1603 486 188 Finance & Resources: Stephen Greenman, 64 Morant Street, London, E14 8EL stephengreenman@noëlcoward.net Events Secretaries: Denys Robinson [email protected] and Geoffrey Skinner [email protected] Membership Secretary: Stephen Duckham, 47 Compass Court, Norfolk Street, Coventry,West Midlands, CV1 3LJ [email protected] +44 (0) 2476 229 502 Media and Theatre: Michael Wheatley-Ward, Chandos House, 14 Vale Square, Ramsgate, Kent CT11 9DF [email protected]

North American Director: Ken Starrett, 49 West 68th Street, Apt 1 R New York, New York, 10023, USA [email protected] US West Coast Liaison: Kathy Williams, 141 Stonegate Road, Portola Valley, California 94028-7648 USA kathywilliams@noëlcoward.net NCS in Australia: Kerry Hailstone, 10A Westall Street, Hyde Park, South Australia, 5061 Australia [email protected] NCS in France: Hélène Catsiapis, 115, Boulevard de Port-Royal F-75014 Paris, France [email protected]

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