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Coward Plays Noel Coward

Coward Plays By Noel Coward

Coward Plays by Noel Coward


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Condition - Well Read
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Summary

Volume Four of Noel Coward's plays contains a selection of Coward's plays from the thirties and forties.

Coward Plays Summary

Coward Plays: v.4: "Blithe Spirit", "Present Laughter", "This Happy Breed", "Tonight at 8.30" (ll) by Noel Coward

Volume Four of Noel Coward's plays contains a selection of Coward's plays from the thirties and forties which includes Blithe Spirit, a comedy that centres around the spirit medium Madame Arcati. 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 Noel 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 a saga of a lower middle-class family; and three shorter pieces fromTonight at 8.3 0 - is a farce set in the South of France, and serves as an oblique tribute to Frederick Lonsdale; The Astonished Heart is about the decay of a psychiatrist's mind through personal sexual obsession. Red Peppers, which closes the volume, was a cynical tribute to the lost music halls of the First World War.

About Noel Coward

Noel Coward made his name as a playwright with The Vortex (1924), in which he also appeared. His numerous other successful plays included Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, and Blithe Spirit. During the war he wrote screenplays such as Brief Encounter (1944) and This Happy Breed (1942). His volumes of verse, autobiography and letters have all been published to acclaim by Methuen Drama. Coward was knighted in 1970 and died three years later in Jamaica.

Table of Contents

Blithe Spirit; Present Laughter; This Happy Breed; Tonight at 8.30 (ii)

Additional information

GOR002291100
9780413461209
0413461203
Coward Plays: v.4: "Blithe Spirit", "Present Laughter", "This Happy Breed", "Tonight at 8.30" (ll) by Noel Coward
Used - Well Read
Paperback
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
1979-09-06
512
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book. We do our best to provide good quality books for you to read, but there is no escaping the fact that it has been owned and read by someone else previously. Therefore it will show signs of wear and may be an ex library book

Customer Reviews - Coward Plays