20 Dec Noel Coward

Noel Coward demonstrated his razor-sharp wit in more than fifty plays, plus songs, essays and three volumes of autobiography. Many of his plays are still in the popular repertoire, including Hay Fever (1925), Private Lives (1930), Design for Living (1933) and Blithe Spirit (1941). Private Lives (1931), Design for Living (1933) and Blithe Spirit (1945) were all successfully adapted as movies. Brief Encounter (1945), arguably the greatest ever romantic drama, was adapted from a one-act play by Coward, who co-produced the film and worked closely with the young director, David Lean. Although he didn’t appear on-screen in many films, who can forget Coward’s wry performance as Mr Bridger in The Italian Job (1969) opposite Michael Caine? A literary tour of England might take in London’s Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where there’s a statue of Coward in the foyer, and Westminster Abbey, where there’s a memorial stone in the south choir aisle. In Teddington, southwest London, where Coward was born in 1899, there’s a bust in the Library.