Margins
Coward Plays book cover
Coward Plays
3: Design for Living; Cavalcade; Conversation Piece; Tonight at 8.30 (I); Still Life
1979
First Published
3.80
Average Rating
353
Number of Pages

Part of Series

The third volume of Coward's plays contains some of his best work from the thirties. " Design for Living" - is about a triangular alliance between two men and a woman, based on friends of Coward's, which he waited to write "until she and he and I had arrived by different roads in our careers at a time and a place when we felt we could all three play together with a more or less equal degree of success." "Cavalcade" was Coward's most ambitious stage project, set during the Boer War, which cost 30,000 in its day and which includes scenes of the relief of the sinking of the Titanic and the coming of the Jazz Age. "Conversation Piece "is a musical comedy that Noel wrote for the Parisian star Yvonne Printemps and includes the song "I'll Follow My Secret Heart." Also in the volume are three short plays including "Tonight at 8.30 - Hands Across the Sea," a gentle satire of colonials and London Society; "Still Life "which became the film "Brief Encounter" and "Fumed Oak" a suburban comedy about a 'worm who turns'. The volume is introduced by Sheridan Morley.

Avg Rating
3.80
Number of Ratings
35
5 STARS
34%
4 STARS
26%
3 STARS
29%
2 STARS
9%
1 STARS
3%
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Author

Noel Coward
Noel Coward
Author · 41 books

Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English actor, playwright, and composer of popular music. Among his achievements, he received an Academy Certificate of Merit at the 1943 Academy Awards for "outstanding production achievement for In Which We Serve." Known for his wit, flamboyance, and personal style, his plays and songs achieved new popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, and his work and style continue to influence popular culture. The former Albery Theatre (originally the New Theatre) in London was renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in his honour in 2006.

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