Hay Fever (Modern Classics)

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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. Rosemary Harris / Marin Mazzie / Terrence McNally / Sonny Tilders and Creature Technology Company / Jason Michael Webb / Harold Wheeler (2019) The play ran for a month (and was Coward's first play seen in America), [27] after which Coward returned to acting in works by other writers, starring as Ralph in The Knight of the Burning Pestle in Birmingham and then London. [32] He did not enjoy the role, finding Francis Beaumont and his sometime collaborator John Fletcher "two of the dullest Elizabethan writers ever known... I had a very, very long part, but I was very, very bad at it". [33] Nevertheless, The Manchester Guardian thought that Coward got the best out of the role, [34] and The Times called the play "the jolliest thing in London". [35] In 1920, at the age of 20, Coward starred in his own play, the light comedy I'll Leave It to You. After a three-week run in Manchester it opened in London at the New Theatre (renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in 2006), his first full-length play in the West End. [27] Neville Cardus's praise in The Manchester Guardian was grudging. [28] Notices for the London production were mixed, but encouraging. [29] The Observer commented, "Mr Coward... has a sense of comedy, and if he can overcome a tendency to smartness, he will probably produce a good play one of these days." [30] The Times, on the other hand, was enthusiastic: "It is a remarkable piece of work from so young a head – spontaneous, light, and always 'brainy'." [31] Coward in The Knight of the Burning Pestle in 1920

Cheryl Crawford / Equity Liberty Theatre / Barry Manilow / National Theatre of the Deaf / Diana Ross / Lily Tomlin (1977) Gilbert, Jenny. " Hay Fever, Duke of York's Theatre", The Arts Desk, 12 May 2015; and " Hay Fever starring Felicity Kendal transfers to West End", WhatsOnStage, 15 January 2015 All that does mean that even though you are the most successful person in the world, you never rest easy," posits Thompson. "I think he felt like an outsider more or less his whole life." A 1985 production at the Music Box Theatre in New York had a cast including Mia Dillon as Sorel, Robert Joy as Simon, Barbara Bryne as Clara, Rosemary Harris as Judith, Roy Dotrice as David, Campbell Scott as Sandy, Carolyn Seymour as Myra, Charles Kimbrough as Richard, and Deborah Rush. [46] Other [ edit ]The pathologically self-absorbed Blisses invite a quartet of hapless guests for the week-end : a career diplomat, a predatory society girl, a conventional sporty chap and a sweet-natured flapper. The guests turn out to be cannon fodder in the family’s ongoing solipsistic fantasies. The sociopathic hosts are briefly in-credulous when their guests creep away after breakfast. Coward "wraps this flippant humour around himself like a shield – it's not only disguise but protection," he adds. And when you look at Coward's early years, you see why he might want that armour: they are ripe with grief and guilt. 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. Sending marketing communications relating to shows, events and offers, bookings and ways to support The Mill at Sonning Theatre.

He soon became more cautious about overdoing the flamboyance, advising Cecil Beaton to tone down his outfits: "It is important not to let the public have a loophole to lampoon you." [159] However, Coward was happy to generate publicity from his lifestyle. [160] In 1969 he told Time magazine, "I acted up like crazy. I did everything that was expected of me. Part of the job." Time concluded, "Coward's greatest single gift has not been writing or composing, not acting or directing, but projecting a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise." [1]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] Leonard Bernstein / Carol Burnett / Rex Harrison / The National Theatre Company of Great Britain / The Negro Ensemble Company (1969) Why", asked Coward, "am I always expected to wear a dressing-gown, smoke cigarettes in a long holder and say 'Darling, how wonderful'?" [152] The answer lay in Coward's assiduous cultivation of a carefully crafted image. As a suburban boy who had been taken up by the upper classes he rapidly acquired the taste for high life: "I am determined to travel through life first class." [153] He first wore a dressing gown onstage in The Vortex and used the fashion in several of his other famous plays, including Private Lives and Present Laughter. [154] [155] George Walden identifies him as a modern dandy. [156] In connection with the National Theatre's 2008 exhibition, The Independent commented, "His famous silk, polka-dot dressing gown and elegant cigarette holder both seem to belong to another era. But 2008 is proving to be the year that Britain falls in love with Noël Coward all over again." [126] Coward is of the generation that came out of the First World War and the global pandemic of the Spanish Flu, and thought that the future was deeply bleak, with another war on the horizon," says Soden. A comedy concerning a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship

Coward's music, writings, characteristic voice and style have been widely parodied and imitated, for instance in Monty Python, [196] Round the Horne, [197] and Privates on Parade. [198] Coward has frequently been depicted as a character in plays, [199] [200] films, television and radio shows, for example, in the 1968 Julie Andrews film Star! (in which Coward was portrayed by his godson, Daniel Massey), [201] the BBC sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart [202] and a BBC Radio 4 series written by Marcy Kahan in which Coward was dramatised as a detective in Design For Murder (2000), A Bullet at Balmain's (2003) and Death at the Desert Inn (2005), and as a spy in Blithe Spy (2002) and Our Man In Jamaica (2007), with Malcolm Sinclair playing Coward in each. [203] On stage, characters based on Coward have included Beverly Carlton in the 1939 Broadway play The Man Who Came to Dinner. [204] A play about the friendship between Coward and Dietrich, called Lunch with Marlene, by Chris Burgess, ran at the New End Theatre in 2008. The second act presents a musical revue, including Coward songs such as "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans". [205] In Circumstances where we are relying on your consent to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your concent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We advise you if this is the case at the you withdraw your consent.

The play covers a 20-year period from June 1919, when the Gibbons family move into their new home near London's Clapham Common, to when they move out in June 1939. Ambassadors Theatre", The Daily Telegraph, 9 June 1928, p. 8; and "Criterion Theatre", The Daily Telegraph, 8 September 1925, p. 12 By the end of the 1960s, Coward developed arteriosclerosis and, during the run of Suite in Three Keys, he struggled with bouts of memory loss. [113] This also affected his work in The Italian Job, and he retired from acting immediately afterwards. [114] Coward was knighted in 1970, [115] and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. [116] He received a Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 1970. [117] In 1972, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by the University of Sussex. [118] Coward's first contributions to revue were in 1922, writing most of the songs and some of the sketches in André Charlot's London Calling!. This was before his first major success as a playwright and actor, in The Vortex, written the following year and staged in 1924. The revue contained only one song that features prominently in the Noël Coward Society's list of his most popular numbers – "Parisian Pierrot", sung by Gertrude Lawrence. [54] His other early revues, On With the Dance (1925) and This Year of Grace (1928) were liked by the press and public, and contained several songs that have remained well known, including "Dance, Little Lady", "Poor Little Rich Girl" and "A Room With a View". [54] [180] Words and Music (1932) and its Broadway successor Set to Music (1939) included "Mad About the Boy", "Mad Dogs and Englishmen", "Marvellous Party" and "The Party's Over Now". [54]

The best-known plays of Coward's middle period, the late 1930s and the 40s, Present Laughter, This Happy Breed and Blithe Spirit are more traditional in construction and less unconventional in content. Coward toured them throughout Britain during the Second World War, and the first and third of them are frequently revived in Britain and the US. [170] Evangeline Julia Marshall, eccentric society hostess (1854–1944), married Clement Paston Astley Cooper, grandson of Sir Astley Paston Cooper, on 10 July 1877. She inherited Hambleton Hall from her brother Walter Marshall on his death in 1899, and there she entertained rising talents in the artistic world, including, in addition to Coward, the painter Philip Streatfeild, [4] the conductor Malcolm Sargent, [5] and the writer Charles Scott Moncrieff, who dedicated his translation of Proust's Swann's Way to her. [6] When staying with the Astley Coopers, Coward kept careful notes of what his hostess said and how she said it, and much of the dialogue for Hay Fever (and other early Coward plays) appears to be derived directly from these notes. [7] She said she went to his plays "because it amuses me to hear my remarks put into the mouths of actors". [8] Nevertheless, his own views sometimes surfaced in his plays: both Cavalcade and This Happy Breed are, in the words of the playwright David Edgar, "overtly Conservative political plays written in the Brechtian epic manner." [147] In religion, Coward was agnostic. He wrote of his views, "Do I believe in God? I can't say No and I can't say Yes, To me it's anybody's guess." [148] [n 11] Encouraged by his ambitious mother, who sent him to a dance academy in London, [7] Coward's first professional engagement was in January 1911 as Prince Mussel in the children's play The Goldfish. [8] In Present Indicative, his first volume of memoirs, Coward wrote: Wynne-Tyson, Jon (2004). Finding the Words: A Publishing Life. Norwich: Michael Russell. ISBN 978-0-85955-287-5.George Abbott / Richard Burton / Circle in the Square Theatre / Thomas H. Fitzgerald / Mathilde Pincus (1976) 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] refuse entry of and use on the premises of any camera or any from of audio or visual recording equipment