Oct2010_Home Chat 04/10/2010 09:15 Page 1 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE NOËL COWARD SOCIETY OCTOBER 2010 President: HRH The Duke of Kent Vice Presidents: Barry Day OBE • Stephen Fry Tammy Grimes • Penelope Keith CBE Graham Payn and Jack Wilson’s wife (Princess) Natasha Paley watch Noël Coward play at Blue Harbour Siân Phillips & Rodney Bewes in UK Coward Celebrations Paley Center and the Gershwin in New York Design For Living s Autumn’s dampness creeps through the air of the Waiting in the Wings UK and the Fall sends leaves to the pavement in the A US it is a welcome again to the annual celebrations of her life in the theatre and meet NCS members. This will be Noël Coward’s birthday and the AGM of the Society. We followed by our Annual Lunch that will take place at The include a booking form for the range of events in the UK and Garrick Club where Siân will join us. the details of both events in the UK and the US. The actor Rodney Bewes has agreed to act as our Garrick Club Sponsor Member for the luncheon and will also join us. EVENTS IN THE US For those who have not been before, The Garrick is a We are pleased to inform you that on: wonderful setting for our annual lunch. The visit will include Saturday afternoon, December 11th at 2:00 PM, a a short tour of some of the rooms that contain art works screening of a special program devoted to Noël Coward will depicting thespians from the past. Our guests include our take place at The Paley Center for Media in New York City. immediate Past-Chairman Barbara Longford . This will be followed by a reception to "meet and greet" All of this makes for an exciting day in London’s theatre your fellow Society members. The cost of this event is district. Start the day with coffee at the Noël Coward Theatre $5.00. and finish with the same beverage in the ultimate Actors’ On Sunday afternoon, December 12th at 1:30 PM at the club. Theatre Hall of Fame in the Gershwin Theatre we will be The luncheon menu will be available in our December having our annual flower-laying ceremony at the statue of issue, being published early in mid-November so that Noël Coward. Special guests will help to celebrate members have all the documentation they need for the AGM. Coward's 111th birthday. Following the flower-laying ceremony we will be having SPECIAL OFFER FOR THIS our annual luncheon at the Manhattan Club at Rosie DEFINING RECORDING OF O'Grady's (52nd Street at 7th Avenue) at 2:30 PM. Luncheon NOËL COWARD’S will be followed by special entertainment. Mark your calendars now for these events! Complete details and CONVERSATION PIECE information will be sent to members in early November. Until then, should you have questions, please contact Ken BARGAIN PRICE OF £6.50 Starrett at [email protected] or at 212/877-4259. We look forwrad to having you join us. This price includes package and EVENTS IN THE UK postage to UK and abroad . In the UK the Annual General meeting will take place on To get your copy contact Stephen Greenman by email at: Saturday 18th December at the Noël Coward Theatre [email protected] or write to: (10.15 am for 10.45 am) moving to the Flower-Laying ceremony at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (11.45 am for Stephen Greenman, 64 Morant Street, London, E14 8EL, UK 12.00 noon) when the distinguished actress Siân Phillips will lay flowers on the statue of Sir Noël Coward, talk about WHY NOT ASK A FRIEND TO JOIN THE NOËL COWARD SOCIETY? - see the back page for details... Oct2010_Home Chat 04/10/2010 09:16 Page 2 CONVERSATION PIECE “conversation piece - n. an object that arouses comment by its novelty; a painting of a number of people engaged in their usual pastimes, etc; a play in which the dialogue is as important as the action ” o says Chambers dictionary; and one is tempted to think that the first of those definitions is the one that would Sseem best to apply to Coward’s Conversation Piece . But considering Conversation Piece merely as a “novelty” falls a long way short of doing justice to Coward’s achievement in this, possibly the least-known of all his musical scores. One is forced to admit that even for a dedicated Coward music enthusiast there is much composition in this score that is difficult to pin down as separately memorable numbers: goodish chunks of music including two Prologues and an Opening, ‘Brighton Parade’, ‘The Gardens’ (twice) and Louis Haywood, Noël Coward and Yvonne Printemps in the original London production of Conversation Piece portions of two Finales comprise scenes where the music is “merely” part of the atmosphere, a background (albeit as Piece has recently been addressed by NCS member Adrian important a background as the décor) to movement and Wright. Alert readers will recall an interview with him in our dialogue, which means that there is a strong element of ballet June 2010 issue at the time of the launch of his new book on music in this score, music as a stylistic mise-en-scène , at the the twentieth century British musical theatre, ‘A Tanner’s expense (some might argue) of memorable songs with words. Worth of Tune’. (The book is available at www.amazon.com When we do get songs with words, they are all of and has a complete chapter on Coward’s various musical memorably high standard. ‘I’ll Follow My Secret Heart’, the shows.) More to the point here was Adrian’s record company’s principal waltz love-song number (whose miraculous (Must Close Saturday Records) 2007 reissue of the 1951 studio composition complete and from nowhere, late at night at recording of Conversation Piece starring Lily Pons, a young Goldenhurst after weeks of agonised searching for inspiration, Richard Burton and Noël Coward himself. and in an unfamiliar key, is a well-known story) was thought The CD comes with Adrian’s exceptionally informative and by Benny Green to be possibly “ the loveliest of all Coward’s educational sleeve notes, and all of what follows my byline is pieces, the perfect marriage of words and music … which taken verbatim from that source. As a resource for the Coward transcends its environment, its time and place, to become one enthusiast this could hardly be bettered. NCS has sometimes of the great standard songs of the modern era ”. Personally I made supportive investments in re-publishing projects of this prefer, as somehow musically more satisfying still, the second nature, and was pleased to be able to do so in this instance. of the score’s waltz love-songs, ‘Nevermore’. Neither of these The Society is now able to offer copies of the MCSR pieces is more than slight, the bare minimum of a 32-bar Conversation Piece CD, more or less at cost price, to our refrain after the usual (sometimes lengthy) preamble, but it’s membership. May I urge all readers who have stayed with me understandable that the less positive emotions of ‘Nevermore’ so far to take advantage of the offer? You will not be were never going to out-compete the more positive tone of the disappointed, one ought to be more familiar with the music of principal song. this enigmatic and neglected score, and such an opportunity There are other very worthwhile and memorable pieces in will probably not occur again! the score of Conversation Piece , including ‘Melanie’s Aria’ (‘Plus de Coeur Discret’) and two classic comedy concerted Dominic Vlasto numbers, ‘There’s Always Something Fishy About the French’ and ‘Regency Rakes’, the latter of which has certainly suffered From Adrian Wright’s sleeve-notes for MCSR 3039 from having lyrics specific to a group and as such was never able to come through into a more general, solo performance Apart from its outstanding waltz song, Conversation Piece arena, like so much of Coward’s other great comedy material. is not one of Coward’s best scores; indeed, the very title of the (I once saw ‘Regency Rakes’ performed, as illustration of part play suggests this may be so; we are here to talk, as much as to of a historical narrative, by a quartette of schoolboys; they sing. It is of course rooted absolutely in that world of Bitter obviously adored the wit of the material and entered all too Sweet , the realm of Operetta (even if here and there are revue- convincingly into their rôles as debauched rakes, somehow like moments in the songs). [James] Agate was not the only making the life of a roué an instantly attractive career option!) critic to suggest that Coward had played the same trick twice, Enough of the obvious excuses for things being but it was a lesson that Coward was slow to learn. His next inadequately well-known. Fortunately for us, this lack of musical, Operette (1938), blatantly staked his claim to the knowledge and sensible critical comment on Conversation same old territory by its title… Page 2 Oct2010_Home Chat 04/10/2010 09:16 Page 3 The Brighton of Conversation Piece is, of course, Regency, performance, a female star or two and some set-piece stage and it may be that Conversation Piece allows us a glimpse over engineering), a success that outstripped anything Coward the garden wall at that pre-Victorian world of pimps, coquettes, achieved in musical theatre.