Noel Coward Collected Plays

The plays in this volume demonstrate the extraordinary skill and versatility Coward's writing achieved in the late 1920s. The volume contains his best-loved classic, Private Lives, which was an immeditate hit when it was first staged in 1930. Coward's sparkling dialogue and repartee have ensured the play's popularity ever since. Of Bitter-Sweet in 1929 Noël Coward wrote that it was "a musical that gave me more complete satisfaction than anything else I had yet written. Not especially on acount of its dialogue or its lyrics or its music or its production but as a whole." The Marquise is an "eighteenth century comedy" filled with maids and duels, whilst Post-Mortem is a vilification of war that contains some of Coward's most powerful writing.

This volume brings together Coward's celebrated verse, from snappy epigrams to seven-hundred-line short stories such as 'P&O 1930' and 'Not Yet the Dodo'; from moving war-time encounters to satirical barbs at familiar Coward targets; and from personal reminiscences to occasional verse such as his tribute to Ivor Novello or his counter-attack on Graham Greene. Includes an introduction by Martin Tickner and Coward's long-time companion, Graham Payn.

"The plays vary tremendously in genre. Noel Coward (1899-1973) is today best recalled for his sparkling yet acidic comedies, and PLAY PARADE offers three of the best: HAY FEVER, DESIGN FOR LIVING, and the truly brilliant PRIVATE LIVES. But Coward did not confine his work to comedy alone; although often witty, THE VORTEX was a scandalous drama in its day, BITTER SWEET a sad and nostalgic operetta, and CAVALCADE one of the most successful serious dramas of the early 20th Century. While some clearly play better on the stage than they read on the page, each is in its own way both remarkable and remarkably memorable."--Amazon.com