Hay Fever (Modern Classics)

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Fiddler on the Roof / Ethel Merman / Richard Rodgers / The Theatre Guild-American Theatre Society (1972) For the midsummer madness to have an impact, we need to have a contrasting sense of normality, an aspect underplayed in Dominic Hill’s Lyceum/Citizens co-production. Every time Charlie Archer’s Simon and Rosemary Boyle’s Sorel explain what an unconventional family they have, it feels like being told: “You don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps.” Without a clear idea of the conventions they’re breaking, we only have their word for it that their manner is untoward.

With Ace of Clubs (1949) Coward sought to be up-to-date, with the setting of a contemporary Soho nightclub. It did better than its three predecessors, running for 211 performances, but Coward wrote, "I am furious about Ace of Clubs not being a real smash and I have come to the conclusion that if they don't care for first rate music, lyrics, dialogue and performance they can stuff it up their collective arses and go and see [Ivor Novello's] King's Rhapsody". [177] He reverted, without success, to a romantic historical setting for After the Ball (1954 – 188 performances). His last two musicals were premiered on Broadway rather than in London. Sail Away (1961) with a setting on a modern cruise ship ran for 167 performances in New York and then 252 in London. [178] For his last and least successful musical, Coward reverted to Ruritanian royalty in The Girl Who Came to Supper (1963), which closed after 112 performances in New York and has never been staged in London. [179] One day ... a little advertisement appeared in the Daily Mirror.... It stated that a talented boy of attractive appearance was required by a Miss Lila Field to appear in her production of an all-children fairy play: The Goldfish. This seemed to dispose of all argument. I was a talented boy, God knows, and, when washed and smarmed down a bit, passably attractive. There appeared to be no earthly reason why Miss Lila Field shouldn't jump at me, and we both believed that she would be a fool indeed to miss such a magnificent opportunity. [9] Coward (left) with Lydia Bilbrook and Charles Hawtrey, 1911 In fact, some of his greatest achievements lay in the stories he told during the conflict. Coward penned the script for one of the most moving films ever made, Brief Encounter; scripted, co-directed and starred in the earnestly patriotic megahit In Which We Serve, and wrote one of his most enduring stage comedies, Blithe Spirit, about a writer plagued by ghosts of his dead wives. Our procedures and the technology we use have appropriate safe guards in place to keep information as secure as possible.

Broadcast

Coward, Noël (1998). Barry Day (ed.). Coward: The Complete Lyrics. London: Methuen. ISBN 978-0-413-73230-9.

Coward continued to perform during most of the First World War, appearing at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1916 in The Happy Family [17] and on tour with Amy Brandon Thomas's company in Charley's Aunt. In 1917, he appeared in The Saving Grace, a comedy produced by Hawtrey. Coward recalled in his memoirs, "My part was reasonably large and I was really quite good in it, owing to the kindness and care of Hawtrey's direction. He took endless trouble with me ... and taught me during those two short weeks many technical points of comedy acting which I use to this day." [21] a b Hastings, Chris. "Winston Churchill vetoed Coward knighthood", Telegraph.co.uk, 3 November 2007, accessed 4 January 2009

Noël Coward: BBC Radio Drama Collection

When you hear the words Noël Coward, they probably conjure a certain idea: an elegant, well-spoken English gentleman, in a dressing gown, waving a cigarette holder or a glass of champagne, dripping acerbic little one-liners. Maybe you know his songs – from comic ditties like Mad Dogs and Englishmen to songbook classics like Mad About the Boy. Or his plays, those witty, sparkling comedies still considered box-office gold, like Private Lives, Hay Fever and Blithe Spirit. Herbert, Ian, ed. (1977). Who's Who in the Theatre (sixteenthed.). London and Detroit: Pitman Publishing and Gale Research. ISBN 978-0-273-00163-8. Like the great actor she is, however, Dench turns this to her advantage. She shows Coward's Judith affecting the role of a rural hostess and getting it subtly wrong. We first see her in a rakish, Napoleonic garden hat that clashes with her clumping gumboots. Trying to entice the flannelled fool she has invited for the weekend, she spreadeagles herself over the sofa announcing: "I've just been pruning the calceolarias." It is the gulf between the over-studied lines and the inappropriate theatrical gesture that makes this a sublime moment.

At the age of 73, Coward died at his home, Firefly Estate, in Jamaica on 26 March 1973 of heart failure [50] and was buried three days later on the brow of Firefly Hill, overlooking the north coast of the island. [119] A memorial service was held in St Martin-in-the-Fields in London on 29 May 1973, for which the Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, wrote and delivered a poem in Coward's honour, [n 10] John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier read verse and Yehudi Menuhin played Bach. On 28 March 1984 a memorial stone was unveiled by the Queen Mother in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. Thanked by Coward's partner, Graham Payn, for attending, the Queen Mother replied, "I came because he was my friend." [121] So begins a series of outrageous events and conversations that call have differing, and sometimes conflicting, outcomes. But the main outcome is that all four of the visitors become somewhat disenchanted with the Bliss household and want to return to London at the earliest possible moment. And they eventually do so, surreptitiously and without informing the Bliss family, who carry on between themselves much as they began. A nice change for you, I suppose, after all those dreary plays," said the lady next to me. She was right in that Hay Fever offers pleasurable escape, but watching Lindsay Posner's amusing revival I found myself wondering why, 90 years after it was written, Noël Coward's comedy still proves so astonishingly durable. I suspect it is because it combines astute observation with ironclad technique. In 1914, when Coward was fourteen, he became the protégé and probably the lover of Philip Streatfeild, a society painter. [18] Streatfeild introduced him to Mrs Astley Cooper and her high society friends. [n 2] Streatfeild died from tuberculosis in 1915, but Mrs Astley Cooper continued to encourage her late friend's protégé, who remained a frequent guest at her estate, Hambleton Hall in Rutland. [20]When World War Two began, the deeply patriotic Coward attempted to atone for missing the first one – bothering everyone, up to and including Churchill, for a job. He ended up with several: spying for an underground new secret service, running a propaganda department in France, attempting to stealthily influence important Americans to support Britain and enter the war, even holding meetings in President Roosevelt's bedroom. Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore / Irving Berlin / W. McNeil Lowry (1963) When Charles Condomine invites a medium to hold a s?ance at his country house, he anticipates little more than some harmless fakery. Instead, he gets a ghostly visitation from his dead first wife, rather to the chagrin of his very much alive second one... In his profession, Coward was widely admired and loved for his generosity and kindness to those who fell on hard times. Stories are told of the unobtrusive way in which he relieved the needs or paid the debts of old theatrical acquaintances who had no claim on him. [50] From 1934 until 1956, Coward was the president of the Actors Orphanage, which was supported by the theatrical industry. In that capacity, he befriended the young Peter Collinson, who was in the care of the orphanage. He became Collinson's godfather and helped him to get started in show business. When Collinson was a successful director, he invited Coward to play a role in The Italian Job. Graham Payn also played a small role in the film. [138] Coward in his home in Switzerland in 1972 At the outbreak of the Second World War, Coward volunteered for war work, running the British propaganda office in Paris. He also worked with the Secret Service, seeking to use his influence to persuade the American public and government to help Britain. Coward won an Academy Honorary Award in 1943 for his naval film drama In Which We Serve and was knighted in 1970. In the 1950s he achieved fresh success as a cabaret performer, performing his own songs, such as " Mad Dogs and Englishmen", " London Pride", and " I Went to a Marvellous Party".

Love film and TV? Join BBC Culture Film and TV Club on Facebook, a community for cinephiles all over the world. The play was broadcast on radio in 1937 in both the US ( CBS Radio) and Britain ( BBC radio, with Marie Tempest in her original stage role.) [31] In later BBC radio adaptations, Judith has been played by Athene Seyler (1952), Peggy Ashcroft (1971), and Judi Dench (1993). [67]Actors' Equity Association / A Moon for the Misbegotten / Candide / Peter Cook and Dudley Moore / Harold Friedlander / Bette Midler / Liza Minnelli / Theatre Development Fund / John F. Wharton (1974) Coward maintained close friendships with many women, including the actress and author Esmé Wynne-Tyson, his first collaborator and constant correspondent; Gladys Calthrop, who designed sets and costumes for many of his works; his secretary and close confidante Lorn Loraine; the actresses Gertrude Lawrence, Joyce Carey and Judy Campbell; and "his loyal and lifelong amitié amoureuse", Marlene Dietrich. [137]