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When Private Lives premiered in London in 1930, Noël Coward said that he wanted to stage a show replete with “cocktails, repartee, and irreverent allusions to copulation.” He started with a tantalizing premise: a comedy of manners that tells the story of Amanda (played by Freya Cunningham) and Eleanor (Jhanie Fender), divorced lovers who find […]
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Noël Coward’s Private Lives is part screwball comedy, part investigation of the nature of love and passion, which this version at St. Hilda’s aims to emphasise. The 1930s comedy of manners follows a divorced couple, Amanda and Victoria, who end up at the same hotel as each other, staying there with their new partners, Sybil […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮ Noel Coward’s Semi-Monde running at the Oxford Playhouse this week, is a delightful romp through the opulence and extravagance of Paris in the roaring twenties. Beneath a façade of calculated politesse is a world of bitching, gossip, and scandal, appealing to the secret voyeur within each member of the audience. We watch with mingled […]
Continue ReadingSurprises abound in Semi-Monde, a delightfully dishonest comedy by Noel Coward on at The Playhouse this term. Concerned with the comings-and-goings of almost thirty characters at the Hôtel Ritz, Paris, Semi-Monde oozes 1920s excess and opulence. The numerous back-and-forths between the characters are pithy and charming, while the script often has several conversations going on […]
Continue ReadingAs someone great* once said: “One of the best things about literature is the way that it enables you to travel to foreign lands without ever needing to leave your seat.” Jonathan Kent’s revival of Private Lives, Noël Coward’s infamous comedy of manners, certainly delivers as promised on this front. The play transports the audience from […]
Continue ReadingOn the sun-drenched quad of Brasenose College, the Pimms is being poured and Cole Porter’s ‘Let’s Do It’ provides the perfect back-drop to the sparkling comedy that is Noël Coward’s Hay Fever, one of the plays being staged during the Brasenose Arts Week. The setting is simple: one stage dominated by a large, green sofa which is well […]
Continue ReadingThe Trinity Players have made a clearly popular choice in taking two of Noel Coward’s short plays to the Fringe this year – the performance I saw was almost sold out. However, the choice is also interesting; plays from Tonight at 8:30 are usually performed not in pairs but in trinities (see what I did […]
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