10% off all books and free delivery over £50
Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks.

Collected Plays

View All Editions (3)

The selected edition of this book is not available to buy right now.
Add To Wishlist
Write A Review

About

Collected Plays Synopsis

Volume Four of Noël Coward's plays contains a selection of Coward'splays from the thirties and forties which includes Blithe Spirit, acomedy that centres around the spirit medium Madame Arcati. The playthat mocks sudden death was produced at precisely the moment when bombswere bringing it to Britain "I shall ever be grateful, for the almostpsychic gift that enabled me to write Blithe Spiritin five days duringone of the darkest years of the war." The play was for years thelongest-running comedy in the history of British theatre. PresentLaughterfollows 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 aneducated peacock. It is a comedy about the 'theatricals' that Noël bestknew and loved, and was originally a star vehicle for himself. It isthe closest to an autobiographical play that Coward ever wrote.

ThisHappy Breedis a saga of a lower middle-class family; and three shorterpieces fromTonight at 8.30 - is a farce set in the South of France,and serves as an oblique tribute to Frederick Lonsdale; The AstonishedHeartis about the decay of a psychiatrist's mind through personalsexual obsession. Red Peppers, which closes the volume, was a cynicaltribute to the lost music halls of the First World War.

About This Edition

ISBN: 9780413461209
Publication date:
Author: Noël Coward
Publisher: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama an imprint of A&C Black
Format: Paperback
Pagination: 481 pages
Series: Methuen World Classics.
Genres: Plays, playscripts
Literary studies: plays and playwrights