Synopsis
Coward Plays 4
$28.99 Published by Methuen
The play that mocks sudden death was produced at precisely the moment when bombs were bringing it to Britain "I shall ever be grateful, for the almost psychic gift that enabled me to write Blithe Spirit in five days during one of the darkest years of the war"
The play was for years the longest-running comedy in the history of British theatre
Present Laughter follows the life of Garry Essendine, a world-weary, middle-aged projection of the dilettante, debonair persona - self-obsessed and dressing-gowned who struts through the play like an educated peacock
It is a comedy about the 'theatricals' that Noël best knew and loved, and was originally a star vehicle for himself
It is the closest to an autobiographical play that Coward ever wrote
This Happy Breed is saga of a lower middle-class family
It also includes three shorter pieces from Tonight at 8.30 ...
Ways and Means - a farce set in the South of France, and serves as an oblique tribute to Frederick Lonsdale
The Astonished Heart - examines the decay of a psychiatrist's mind through personal sexual obsession
Red Peppers - a cynical tribute to the lost music halls of the First World War
"He is simply a phenomenon, and one that is unlikely to occur ever again in theatre history" ~ Terence Rattigan