Noel Coward

In praise of Londoners

17 June 2023 9:00 am

Southampton, Long Island ‘Why, oh why, do the wrong people travel?’ sang Noël Coward back in the early 1960s. Lucky…

The art of the witty riposte

9 April 2022 9:00 am

One hundred or so years ago, a down-in-the-dumps Joseph Roth wrote to Stefan Zweig: ‘The barbarians have taken over.’ Later…

The acting is very Scooby-Doo: Blithe Spirit reviewed

16 January 2021 9:00 am

The comedy Blithe Spiritwas written by Noël Coward in 1941. It is, essentially, about a séance going wrong and a…

The power of cheap music: pop podcast round-up

13 June 2020 9:00 am

Noël Coward was so right that his words have become a cliché: it is indeed extraordinary how potent cheap music…

War and plague have menaced theatres before, but rarely on this scale

28 March 2020 9:00 am

War and plague have menaced theatres before, but rarely on this scale, says Lloyd Evans

Enclosure act: Es Devlin’s terrific set for The Hunt at the Almeida

A crowd-pleasing pantomime: Present Laughter at the Old Vic reviewed

6 July 2019 9:00 am

Present Laughter introduces us to a chic, louche and highly successful theatrical globetrotter, Garry Essendine, whose riotous social life is…

A poster from the 1930s advertising Shanghai

'Wicked old Paris of the Orient': a portrait of 1930s Shanghai

4 June 2016 9:00 am

Here’s the Mandarin for ooh-la-la! As Taras Grescoe, a respected Canadian writer of nonfiction, shows in this marvellous, microscopically descriptive…

Donald Trump is an awkward ginger snob – and he owes me £20

7 May 2016 9:00 am

I am no admirer of Donald Trump — not because he is a doomsayer and professional patriot but because he…

Leading the party, two brilliant showmen: Kenneth Branagh (Ralph) and Rob Brydon (Brian) in ‘The Painkillers’

Slapstick enthusiasts will love this Branagh and Brydon farce: The Painkillers reviewed

2 April 2016 9:00 am

Sir Ken’s excellent West End residency continues with a sugar-rich confection. Sean Foley has adapted and updated an elderly French farce…

Orson Welles: ‘I started at the top and worked my way down’

Homage to awesome Welles on his centenary

12 December 2015 9:00 am

One day in May 1948 in the Frascati hills southeast of Rome, Orson Welles took his new secretary, Rita Ribolla,…

Without a word of advice, Paul Methuen set me free

29 October 2015 9:00 am

At the time he will barely have noticed me. In his mid-forties and (to me at 18) middle-aged, he was…

Playing it cool: Nicole Kidman as Rosalind Franklin

Nicole Kidman is upstaged by everyone - even the set: Photograph 51 at the Noel Coward reviewed

26 September 2015 8:00 am

Michael Grandage’s latest show is about an old snap. Geneticists regard the X-ray of the hydrated ‘B’ form of DNA…

James Bond's secret: he's Jamaican

9 August 2014 9:00 am

Lewis Jones on Ian Fleming’s Jamaican retreat and the inspiration it provided for the Bond novels

The Guardian didn’t much like Noel Coward’s Relative Values – but you will

3 May 2014 9:00 am

Cripes. How did I get that one wrong? A few issues back I blithely predicted that Harry Hill’s musical I…