A MAGAZINE ABOUT THE LIFE AND WORK OF SIR NOËL COWARD • MAY 2012 News and views of the Star Quality exhibition - and the ‘Noël Coward in New York’ festival. GOLDENHURST LunEch wnith cJuoliaun Cnlatry eatr Geodldenhurst and a review of his recently-published novel ‘Briefs Encountered’. Noël Coward at ‘Look Out’ - Firefly, Jamaica PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE INTERNATIONAL NOËL COWARD SOCIETY - 1- www.noëlcoward.net hat an amazing month March was! Apart from reasonable weather, two of the most significant events for me marked an early opening of Spring EDITORIAL long before an Easter chick was a wink in a cockerel’s eye. Out of the blue came a charming invitation from Julian Clary for the officers of the Society to visit The Old Manor - but forever Goldenhurst in the eye of the Coward faithful - for lunch and a celebration of the completed renovation of Noël’s country retreat in Kent and the publication of Julian’s novel Briefs Encountered. As Daniel Massey said once about an invitation to Noël’s for lunch, “Well, you don’t turn that down!” And we didn’t! More on the visit in this edition. The climax of the month was the opening of Star Quality - The World of Noël Coward at the Lincoln Center in New York. This exhibition has been rightly trumpeted in Home Chat for the past few editions and the result did not let the herald down. This really is an impressive achievement. As a result of an initial partnership between the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (NYPL) and The Noël Coward Foundation (NCF) the idea was born - and together with other partners - the exhibition was created. The whole exhibition owes much to the working relationship between the NYPL and NCF and the commitment of Jacqueline Z. Davis (Executive Director NYPL for the Performing Arts), Alan Brodie (Chair of The Noël Coward Foundation) but most of all to its curator Brad Rosenstein. Rosy Runciman assisted Brad in the later stages of assembling the exhibition and Barry Day and Geoffrey Johnson were both major supporters of the exhibition and organisers of the ensuing Noël Coward Festival that runs for most of the year in New York. My thanks also go to our own Ken Starrett who provided members with additional information on access and timings of events and NCS support - in so many ways the NCS provides an active and eager audience for Coward activities, productions and events provided by the NCF and independent theatre and arts groups in New York. The opening event of the exhibition on Sunday 11th March featured guests Elaine Stritch and Tammy Grimes and provided a platform for a welcome from the NYC Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, with a Mayoral Declaration that March 11 would from now on be known as Noël Coward Day . Lastly we hope we have improved on some of the layout issues that affected the last issue. My thanks to those who wrote in expressing concern about how difficult it was to read some of the back page of the last edition and that for some the small font size used in the credits under photographs in the piece on Peace In Our Time proved almost impossible to read. Let’s hope this edition fares better on this front! John Knowles CONTENTS Briefs Encountered - Review 13 Editorial 2 Australia Revisited 14 The Grand Tour 3 Ben Stock in Noël & Gertie 18 Star Quality The World of Noël Coward 4 Society Evening at the Café de Paris 19 A Curator’s Notes on Star Quality 5 A Chance Not To Be Missed! 21 All the Fun of the Coward Festival 6 O-Kay With Noël 22 Noël Coward Cabaret Award Winner 8 Jeffery Holmesdale on Gladys Calthrop 24 Maria Aitken Noël Coward at Juilliard 9 Lean and Clean 26 The Vortex in Chicago 10 LuckyOrphan and more . 27 Goldenhurst Encountered 11 What’s On? 28 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 The Duke of Kent Vice Presidents: Maria Aitken, Barry Day OBE, Stephen Fry, Tammy Grimes, Penelope Keith CBE Organising Committee: Chairman and General Secretary: John H. Knowles, Finance and Resources: Stephen Greenman, Events Organiser: Denys Robinson, Membership : Stephen Duckham, Media and Theatre: Michael Wheatley-Ward, 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: Committee Chairman & General Secretary: John Knowles, 29 Waldemar Avenue, Hellesdon, Norwich, NR6 6TB, UK [email protected] +44 (0) 1603 486 188 Finance & Resources: Stephen Greenman, 64 Morant Street, London, E14 8EL [email protected] 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] - 2- THE GRAND TOUR BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME SATURDAY 30th JUNE 2012 ince announcing this event we have been overwhelmed by the response. Thank you to everyone who has signed up. Additional places can now be made available until the 31st of May, so if you still wish to be part of this special occasion please send your name, address and contact telephone number together with details of which option you would like and the number of people in your party to Stephen Duckham (address on Page 2). Also please enclose a cheque for the full amount made out to ‘The Noël Coward Society.’ OPTION 1 FULL DAY: • Birmingham University visit to view the Noël Coward Collection. Transport leaves from outside New Street Station at 10.30am. • After the University visit there will be Lunch at the Birmingham Hippodrome followed by a Matinee Performance by Birmingham Royal Ballet, programme, interval refreshments with an optional backstage tour after the performance. • £65.00 per person OPTION 2 LUNCH and MATINEE: • Lunch at the Birmingham Hippodrome. Meet at 1.15pm in Foyer. • Matinee Performance by Birmingham Royal Ballet, programme, interval refreshments with an optional backstage tour after the performance. • £55.00 per person OPTION 3 MATINEE: • Meet at 2.15pm in the Foyer. Matinee Performance by Birmingham Royal Ballet, programme, and interval refreshments with an optional backstage tour after the performance. • £35.00 per person THE GRAND TOUR REMINDS US OF NOËL AS A DANCER ith the 2012 revival of The Grand Tour one is reminded that Noël Coward was trained in dance from the age of 8. Although ultimately he was to become in demand all over the world, in his youth, work was sometimes scarce, and exhibition and demonstration dancing were often the source of income. Noël writes in Present Indicative: “In the summer of 1916 Robert Courtneidge engaged me to play a small part in a new musical comedy, The Light Blues, which was to be tried out for tPhlreeaes ew seenksd iyno Cu arredqiuffe, sNt eawncda cshtleq auned t oG: lasgow, before coming to the Shaftesbury TheSaTtrEe.P . H. EN DUCKHAM . The play opened in London wit4h7 t CheO mMaPrkA SofS d CeaOtUh RemT blazoned upon it, and although there were calls for authoNrO aRndF sOeLveKr aSlT pReoEpEleT made speeches, it actually ran only two weeks. COVENTRY Just after this I became, briefly, a professiCoVna1l 3dLaJncer. Not in the true ‘gigolo’ sense, for alas, my adolescence was too apparent, my figure too gangling and coltish to promote evil desire in even the most debauched night- club habitués. I partnered a girl named Eileen Dennis, and we were engaged by the Elysée Restaurant (now the Café de Paris) to appear during dinner and supper. A slow waltz, a tango, and a rather untidy one-step made up our programme. Later, owing to popular demand (from Eileen Dennis’s mother), we introduced a pierrot fantasia for which we changed into cherry-coloured sateen and tulle ruffs. No South African millionaires threw diamond sunbursts at Eileen’s feet. We were neither of us ever invited to appear naked out of pies at private supper parties, in fact the whole engagement from the point of view of worldly experience was decidedly disappointing. ” With thanks to Peter Tod and the Cadbury Research Library : Special Collections, University of Birmingham . - 3- n o i t a d n u o F d r a w o C l ë o N e h T r o f s e l w o n K n h o J : O T O H P tar Quality lies in abundance at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center where Star Quality: The World “Star quality: I don’t know of Noël Coward , a major exhibition focusing on Coward as what it is, but I’ve got it.” playwright; composer; director; stage, screen, cabaret performer; and international celebrity runs thru August 18, 2012 in the Donald and Mary Noël Coward Oenslager Gallery.