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The Essential Noël Coward Compendium
Edited by Barry Day
Methuen Drama £16 99
374 pages
Dateline: 22nd November, 2009
This latest offering from Methuen Drama offers proof, if it were needed,
that Noël Coward is at the very least one of the most versatile
performing artists that has ever been seen, heard, read and listened
to.
Within The Essential Noël Coward Compendium there are samples
of most of the different ways in which The Master worked. We have pieces
from diaries and letters, extracts from plays, films and the one novel,
Pomp and Circumstance, and, in addition, songs, verse and a complete
short story, What Mad Pursuit. All that is missing are the performances
as actor, singer and cabaret artiste and music from the songs.
In that the publishing house has already produced most of the items
in this book in another form, there might be a question as to the need
for yet another homage to Noël Coward. In reality, although some
devotees will have spent hundreds of pounds on collecting the complete
works, many other enthusiasts might welcome a single volume containing
the essence of what made this man great.
Methuen Drama would also be gambling that anybody who reads The
Essential Noël Coward Compendium will be tempted to try out
some of his other work, either on stage, in a recording or on the page.
This reviewer is certainly tempted to have a longer look at the short
stories and Pomp and Circumstance.
In addition, there are some previously unpublished pieces including
a witty self-satire Design for Rehearsing that takes us beyond
Design for Living, and the almost unknown and delightfully bitchy
Age Cannot Wither, first performed in New York with a dream cast
of Sally Ann Howes, Hayley Mills and Rosemary Harris,
Most people though, will turn to the old favourites and Barry Day has
done a good job in choosing characteristic sections from such favourites
as The Vortex, Private Lives, Hay Fever and Blithe
Spirit.
Having got that far, the hope is that readers will then dip into the
lesser-known works and discover hidden delights amongst the songs, although
many of those are legendary. There is also the verse of which this reader's
favourite was Social Grace, a playwright's pained remembrance
of the admiring dolts whom he was obliged to humour throughout a long
and generally successful career.
Barry Day, who has effectively taken a Masters in the Master, such
is his encyclopaedic knowledge, ensures that everything is put into
context. He is never afraid to mix media where a diary extract might
be helpful to explain the thought process that led to the writing of,
say, a play.
Day has been helped by his publishers who clearly wished to present
an attractive and desirable book to the public in time for Christmas.
However, while the glossy paper quality is all that one can hope for
and the photos and illustrations add greatly to the effect, it may have
been a mistake to publish the book as a large format trade paperback
rather than putting on hard covers, for, despite taking the greatest
care, most readers will find that long before they have finished reading
The Essential Noël Coward Compendium shows signs of what
one might politely described as "tiredness".
Even so, for anyone that does not have a large Coward library or for
someone searching for a gift to present to a friend or relative with
a relatively sophisticated sense of humour, this should be a very popular
choice.
Philip Fisher
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