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] 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] The first London revival was in 1933 at the Shaftesbury Theatre with Constance Collier as Judith. [28] In 1941 the piece was revived at the Vaudeville Theatre in a repertory series of English comedies. [29]

Tynan's was the first generation of critics to realise that Coward's plays might enjoy more than ephemeral success. In the 1930s, Cyril Connolly wrote that they were "written in the most topical and perishable way imaginable, the cream in them turns sour overnight". [189] What seemed daring in the 1920s and 1930s came to seem old-fashioned in the 1950s, and Coward never repeated the success of his pre-war plays. [45] By the 1960s, critics began to note that underneath the witty dialogue and the Art Deco glamour of the inter-war years, Coward's best plays also dealt with recognisable people and familiar relationships, with an emotional depth and pathos that had been often overlooked. [190] By the time of his death, The Times was writing of him, "None of the great figures of the English theatre has been more versatile than he", and the paper ranked his plays in "the classical tradition of Congreve, Sheridan, Wilde and Shaw". [50] In late 1999 The Stage ran what it called a "millennium poll" of its readers to name the people from the world of theatre, variety, broadcasting or film who have most influenced the arts and entertainment in Britain: Shakespeare came first, followed by Coward in second place. [191]

Who is in the cast of Patriots?

The play's original production opened in London in 1925 and ran for 337 performances. Coward wrote the piece with Tempest in mind for the central role of Judith. In later productions the part has been played by actresses including Constance Collier, Edith Evans, Constance Cummings, Rosemary Harris, Judi Dench, Geraldine McEwan and Felicity Kendal. Hay Fever has been continually revived in Britain, the US and elsewhere, and has been adapted frequently for radio and television. a b Norton, Richard C. "Coward & Novello", Operetta Research Center, 1 September 2007, accessed 29 November 2015 Fiddler on the Roof / Ethel Merman / Richard Rodgers / The Theatre Guild-American Theatre Society (1972) This Happy Breed is a play by Noël Coward. It was written in 1939 but, because of the outbreak of World War II, it was not staged until 1942, when it was performed on alternating nights with another Coward play, Present Laughter. The two plays later alternated with Coward's Blithe Spirit. The title, a reference to the English people, is a phrase from John of Gaunt's monologue in Act II, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's Richard II. From the age of 14, he had some sort of relationship with 36-year-old artist, Philip Streatfeild – possibly sexual – before Streatfeild died of trench fever in World War One. Coward's other close friend, John Ekins, also died in the war. In 1918, at the age of 18, Coward had a nervous breakdown in an army training camp before seeing any action, and was hospitalised for six weeks.

In Blithe Spirit, Coward played a middle-aged novelist accused of "nauseating" flippancy. It may have been a savage self-portrait – and his next role, a self-obsessed, egotistical actor in Present Laughter in 1942, was certainly the height of Coward-sending-up-Coward. Even Cole Lesley's 1976 biography refers to Coward as "Noel": "...I have also forgone the use of his beloved diaeresis over the 'e' in his name, having no wish to dizzy the eye of the reader." [151] 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] Noël Coward / Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt / New York Shakespeare Festival / Barbra Streisand (1970)Other examples of "Dad's Renaissance" included a 1968 Off-Broadway production of Private Lives at the Theatre de Lys starring Elaine Stritch, Lee Bowman and Betsy von Furstenberg, and directed by Charles Nelson Reilly. Despite this impressive cast, Coward's popularity had risen so high that the theatre poster for the production used an Al Hirschfeld caricature of Coward ( pictured above) [n 9] instead of an image of the production or its stars. The illustration captures how Coward's image had changed by the 1960s: he was no longer seen as the smooth 1930s sophisticate, but as the doyen of the theatre. As The New Statesman wrote in 1964, "Who would have thought the landmarks of the Sixties would include the emergence of Noël Coward as the grand old man of British drama? There he was one morning, flipping verbal tiddlywinks with reporters about "Dad's Renaissance"; the next he was ... beside Forster, T. S. Eliot and the OMs, demonstrably the greatest living English playwright." [112] Time wrote that "in the 60s... his best work, with its inspired inconsequentiality, seemed to exert not only a period charm but charm, period." [1] Death and honours [ edit ] The Noël Coward Theatre McCall, Douglas (2014). Monty Python: A Chronology, 1969–2012. Jefferson: Mc Farland. ISBN 978-0-7864-7811-8. Coward, Noël (1994). Plays, Five. Sheridan Morley (introduction). London: Methuen. ISBN 978-0-413-51740-1.

Coward's fictional South Sea Islands colony, "Samolo", was loosely based on Jamaica, where he had a home; he used it as the setting not only for his novel, but for two plays ( Point Valaine and South Sea Bubble) and a musical ( Pacific 1860). [100] After the first performance in Manchester the reviewer in The Manchester Guardian thought the mixture of farce and impending tragedy "An odd mixture and not untouched by genius of a sort". [43] After the London premiere, Ivor Brown commented in The Observer on the skill with which Coward had treated his potentially difficult subject; he ended his notice, "But here is a new play, a gay play, and one irresistibly propelled into our welcoming hearts by Miss Rutherford's Lady of the Trances, as rapt a servant of the séance as ever had spirits on tap." [44] The London correspondent of The Guardian wrote, "London received Mr Noel Coward's ghoulish farce with loud, though not quite unanimous acclaim. There was a solitary boo – from an annoyed spiritualist, presumably." [45] The Times considered the piece the equal not only of Coward's earlier success Hay Fever but of Wilde's classic comedy The Importance of Being Earnest. [46] There were dissenting views. James Agate thought the play "common", [47] and Graham Greene called it "a weary exhibition of bad taste". [48] Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 July 2020 . Retrieved 6 January 2022. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title ( link) Blithe Spirit has twice been adapted for the cinema. A 1945 film was directed by David Lean, and starred two of the principals from the orig a b c d e Chothia, Jean. "Coward, Noël", The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature, Oxford University Press, 2006. Retrieved 5 April 2020 (subscription required)

Cast & Creatives Highlights

A ‘brilliant, compassionate new play’ (Financial Times) powered by ‘dazzling performances’ (Time Out), don’t miss JohnnyFlynn, MarkGatiss and TuppenceMiddleton as Burton, Gielgud andTaylor. A West End production, directed by Michael Blakemore, opened at the Gielgud Theatre in March 2014, with Charles Edwards as Charles, Janie Dee as Ruth, Jemima Rooper as Elvira and Angela Lansbury as Madame Arcati, and Jones as Dr Bradman as in Blakemore's 2009 Broadway production. It ran until June. [23] Mander, Raymond; Joe Mitchenson (2000) [1957]. Theatrical Companion to Coward. Barry Day and Sheridan Morley (2000 edition, ed.) (seconded.). London: Oberon Books. ISBN 978-1-84002-054-0.