ArtsNational - Noel Coward: The man behind the mask

Description

“I don’t know what it is, but I’ve got it!” ‘It’ was “star quality”, and the person that had ‘it’ was Noel Coward. On the surface, Coward seemed simply to be an elegant camp man swanning about in a dressing gown who dropped acerbic one liners like cigarette ash from a long cigarette holder, writing plays about bright young things appearing through a set of French windows saying “anyone for tennis?”. In fact, Coward was one of the most versatile cultural figures of the 20th century and his career is the history of 20th century British theatre. Despite his claim to only have a ‘talent to amuse’, like Oscar Wilde, he took his work seriously, & his private & often tumultuous love life enabled him to shine a light on the passion and pain of human relationships and give us in depth observations of class & society! TS Eliot said that there are things that you can learn from Noel Coward that you won’t learn from Shakespeare. Like Shakespeare, some of Coward’s most moving lines are in his poems, which I’ll be sharing in the lecture. Coward said, “I’ll go and see anything so long as it amuses me, or moves me. If it doesn't do either I want to go home. ”So I invite you to join me for this lecture, in the company of Coward, to be amused and moved….