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The Letters of Noël Coward
Edited by Barry Day
Methuen Drama £25
580 pages
Dateline: 26th November, 2007
This massive and beautifully produced volume is genuinely revealing
about the life and work of a man who has achieved iconic status. Thanks
to the efforts of its editor, the American Barry Day, this is far more
than a mere series of letters from and to Coward. Mr Day goes to tremendous
trouble to set them in context.
Though largely compiled chronologically, there are threads that run
through the book, especially the close relationships that the star shared
with his mother Violet and his extended "family" of assistants.
There are also short interludes that focus in depth on correspondence
with specific subjects such as Gertrude Lawrence and Marlene Dietrich.
These days, if you were to ask the average playgoer to tell you what
they knew of the man, the odds are that they would identify the writer
of Private Lives or possibly the posh bloke in The Italian
Job (Michael Caine era).
The Letters prove that he was far more, a writer, singer, composer
and actor of rare talent as well as a socialite and celebrity who grew
up in Teddington but made the West End his natural home from an early
age, with Broadway and film to follow.
He may have been a child prodigy, acting professionally as soon as
he became a teenager and having plays produced in the West End in his
early twenties, but success took a little longer to arrive. Indeed,
despite relatively good times in the early years, he was so exhausted
as to need a rest cure long before his thirtieth birthday.
However, a far better tonic was public and critical acclaim and these
arrived in the years from 1928 when he was still aged under 30 and,
despite the crashing of world stock markets, had a major transatlantic
hit with the operetta Bitter Sweet.
Noël Coward was certainly a prolific writer, as the length of
this fascinating book demonstrates. He also moved in eclectic, if generally
snobbish, circles exchanging letters with such diverse characters beyond
the theatre as Earl "Dickie" Mountbatten (the subject of In
Which We Serve and a string-puller extraordinaire), The Queen
Mother, Lawrence of Arabia (as T.E.Shaw) and Ian Fleming.
In addition to his art, Coward was devoted to travelling, with a liking
for hot climates that led him to make a second home in Jamaica. He went
all over the place not only in peace time but during the war.
Undoubtedly the most unexpected section of the book covers the early
years of the Second World War. The public image is of a man who, like
so many others, deserted his country for the safety of the United States.
As his letters prove, the truth was very different since Coward was
in the States acting as a spy for his country and using his persona
as a genial duffer for cover.
This is surely the stuff of drama and it can only be a matter of time
before someone writes a play or film about Noël Coward the spy.
It could also have supporting characters including not only his 'M',
"Little Bill" Stephenson who became A Man Called Intrepid
but a bevy of stars including Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Leslie Howard,
Cary Grant and David Niven.
Coward later more publicly redeemed himself when he wrote, directed
and starred in In Which We Serve, a film that spoke to a beleaguered
country and its overseas friends like no other.
Post-war, the heady successes disappeared but Coward bounced back as
both a cabaret star and then on the small screen. Throughout, the letters
honestly record his feelings, generally of pleasure at highs and bemusement
at lows.
Pleasingly, Coward enjoyed a renaissance in the 1960s, initiated by
a close friend, Lord Olivier, who chose him to be the first living writer
to be produced by the National Theatre and even persuaded him to direct
the stellar cast in Hay Fever. A belated knighthood soon followed
to cap a fantastic career.
The Letters give a well-rounded portrait of the man as well
as the icon. The close relationship with his mother (they addressed
each other as Snoop and Snig!) lasted for five and a half decades. He
also cared deeply for his extended family of assistants whom he loved
and trusted implicitly. The feelings were mutual, to the extent that
they happily addressed him as "Master".
Beyond that, there were the working colleagues, such as the Lunts and
Oliviers, Terence Rattigan and Binkie Beaumont with whom he so often
fought and made up; and then there were the men and boys with whom he
enjoyed relationships, usually only vaguely alluded to.
This builds a picture of a hard-working, sometimes flawed, genius who
thankfully recorded so much of his life and thought in this now all
but defunct form.
If a reviewer is allowed to enthuse about a single exchange, the rapprochement
reached between two men who at first seem candidates to become sworn
enemies, the graceful representative of old school values Coward and
angry young John Osborne is as close to epistolary perfection as one
could hope to read.
The Letters of Noël Coward is such a big book that, having
got it home in hardback form, few will have the muscles to take it out
again. At the fireside or in bed, this easy and flowing volume will
give the greatest pleasure, not to mention tremendous value for money.
Throughout, the pages are graced with appropriate photographs and images
that set the letters into context. All involved with this readable and
informative volume can be proud of their achievement.
Philip Fisher
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