In the 1920s and 1930s Noël Coward mastered and defined the art of the revue sketch - short and often topical or satirical stage pieces, many of which were a lead-in to his famous songs. He wrote these sketches for the top revues of the 1920s and 1930s, including London Calling! (1923) and Cochrane's Revue of 1931. This volume collects Coward's best and most witty pieces, including Rain Before Seven, the only sketch he performed with Gertrude Lawrence, and the hilarious parody, Some Other Private Lives, in which Coward burlesques his own famous play, Private Lives. Also included are short one-act plays never before published. The collection includes an Introduction by Coward scholar Barry Day, setting the work in the context of its time and its dramatic form. A forgotten area of Coward's writing is now back in print.

In the 1920s and 1930s Noël Coward mastered and defined the art of the revue sketch - short and often topical or satirical stage pieces, many of which were a lead-in to his famous songs. He wrote these sketches for the top revues of the 1920s and 1930s, including London Calling! (1923) and Cochrane's Revue of 1931. This volume collects Coward's best and most witty pieces, including Rain Before Seven, the only sketch he performed with Gertrude Lawrence, and the hilarious parody, Some Other Private Lives, in which Coward burlesques his own famous play, Private Lives. Also included are short one-act plays never before published. The collection includes an Introduction by Coward scholar Barry Day, setting the work in the context of its time and its dramatic form. A forgotten area of Coward's writing is now back in print.

Although Noël Coward's work as playwright, songwriter and actor has long been celebrated, his contributions to the British musical have largely been forgotten. Selected Musical Plays by Noël Coward: A Critical Anthology rectifies this omission from the musical theatre landscape, demonstrating how Coward's adaptability, creativity, and myriad of styles is imitated in the incredible musicals he authored. From flop shows at Drury Lane with Mary Martin through to his Broadway hits with Elaine Stritch, this anthology chronicles the variety of styles written by Coward, from revue to musical comedy to operetta. The works in this volume provide a contemporary critical introduction that illustrates the breadth and depth of his work, and highlighting the diverse identities of the collaborators and performers with whom he worked. Though the style of these works varies, they are linked together by his creative thread, and his ability to craft barbed and witty observations of his social world. A timely portrait of Coward's oeuvre and its lasting influence on the wider world of the British musical, Selected Musical Plays by Noël Coward contains previously unpublished musical plays by a central figure in theatre history, collected together with critical apparatus for students, scholars, and fans.

"Anecdotal and evincing a strong point of view, [this] book covers not only the shows and their authors but the personalities as well--W.S. Gilbert trying out his stagings on a toy theatre, Ivor Novello going to jail for abusing wartime gas rationing during World War II, fabled producer C.B. Cochran coming to a most shocking demise for a man whose very name meant 'classy, carefree entertainment.' ... Mordden is the preeminent historian of the form, and his book will be required reading for readers of all walks, from the most casual of musical theater goers to musical theater buffs to students and scholars of the form"--

London West End revue constituted a particular response to mounting social, political, and cultural insecurities over Britain’s status and position at the beginning of the twentieth century. Insecurities regarding Britain’s colonial rule as exemplified in Ireland and elsewhere, were compounded by growing demands for social reform across the country — the call for women’s emancipation, the growth of the labour, and the trade union movements all created a climate of mounting disillusion. Revue correlated the immediacy of this uncertain world, through a fragmented vocabulary of performance placing satire, parody, social commentary, and critique at its core and found popularity in reflecting and responding to the variations of the new lived experiences. Multidisciplinary in its creation and realisation, revue incorporated dance, music, design, theatre, and film appropriating pre-modern theatre forms, techniques, and styles such as burlesque, music hall, pantomime, minstrelsy, and pierrot. Experimenting with narrative and expressions of speech, movement, design, and sound, revue displayed ambivalent representations that reflected social and cultural negotiations of previously essentialised identities in the modern world. Part of a wide and diverse cultural space at the beginning of the twentieth century it was acknowledged both by the intellectual avant-garde and the workers theatre movement not only as a reflexive action, but also as an evolving dynamic multidisciplinary performance model, which was highly influential across British culture. Revue displaced the romanticism of musical comedy by combining a satirical listless detachment with a defiant sophistication that articulated a fading British hegemonic sensibility, a cultural expression of a fragile and changing social and political order.

Full of witicisms, bons mots, and hidden gems from private papers.