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“... in the front line of one-man showmen, along with, say, Michael MacLiammoir, Ruth Draper and Noel Coward. Thus no modern writer can have taken more literally the injunction to ‘read out loud the sentence you have just written’ – except that Keillor has spoken not just an individual sentence or two but the whole story plus a raft of variations tried out ...”

“... contemporary hit – from The Belle of New York, The Merry Widow, Hello Ragtime! or the early Noel Coward revues. Unable to read music, she played the piano by ear in an enjoyably slapdash way, and when she came to stay the house would be filled with the sound of these irresponsible melodies, which worked on one’s spirits like the concept of a cocktail. At ...”

“... wrote an ode to the penis’, or that Edith Sitwell took to her bed for six weeks after Noel Coward put her in a play as Hernia Whittlebot, or that Ibsen three times over a period of twenty years based characters on a ‘fellow poet, novelist and dramatist whose easy self-confidence’ contrasted with his own ‘sense of personal failure’, or that ...”

“... shows was vital war work, and that he could hardly be expected to travel by train. At the time Noël Coward called this ‘selfish, pathetic triviality’, though he later fell foul of the regulations himself. So did Lady Astor, Lord Donegall and the army’s provost marshal, no less. It was a smart move by the authorities to target these figures. It ...”

“... people can be found speaking to each other in the oblique, emotionally constipated tones of a Noël Coward drama. Francesca thinks it smart to imitate African English. The novel has a notably tin ear for human speech. Someone who is clearly not from a Glasgow housing scheme asks: ‘Where is it, somewhere in Walter Pater, where he says that Leonardo ...”

“... only dampens the impact. There are famous lyricists who get a headmaster’s lashing – one is Noël Coward and another is Lorenz Hart. Sondheim is brilliant on Coward – ‘brittle and sentimental’, he says, and then adds: ‘condescending’. He allows that Coward has ...”

“... shocking her daughter. In my favourite incident, Maria, the third sister, discusses romance with Noël Coward on the deck of an ocean-liner. He calls her ‘ducky’ and lets her know ‘that our lives are rather like the cresting waves, with highs and lows, that the moon illumines the night as emotion brings a glorious flame into our hearts. But what ...”

“... men of my acquaintance dialling their phones, to take me out to the Stork Club, or 21, or a Noel Coward opening! Me, to be stuck in a loony bin with a contingent of bulging old biddies.There are times when one thinks of Sylvia Plath – fellow contest-winner and bathing beauty, vivid diarist, world conqueror – without the breakdowns. Millay lived to enjoy ...”

“... One time I called someone a son of a bitch, which must have sounded preposterously foreign and Noël Coward-like. All activity ceased, and I was viciously assaulted by Tommy Grumulia and Anthony Delvecchio. Boys are formed by the playgrounds they come from. Ours was violent, noisy and profane, somewhat operatic in the Italian manner. But there were no ...”

“... about ‘his short and hairless body’ and a passion for silk underwear. Oh, and he got on with Noël Coward. In his foreword, Matthew Parris insists that ‘Bloch is very, very careful to distinguish between rumour, report and incontrovertible fact,’ which is true to the extent that, when Bloch has no evidence to back up his assertions, he usually ...”

“... on each other and the quality of the conversation at the various occasions she’d attended (‘Noël was making eminent playwright conversation to leading lady ... He should be used as a cabaret and not as a guest ... the deserts of pomposity between the oases of wit are too vast’); the look of delight on George Wigg’s face when Debo Devonshire asked ...”

“... his lively introduction to the Penguin Classics edition, quotes Fleming’s friend and neighbour Noël Coward on the subject of Honeychile Rider’s world-famous bottom, ‘almost as firm and rounded as a boy’s’: ‘I know we are all becoming progressively more broadminded nowadays but really, old chap, what could you have been thinking of?’ In a ...”

“... first seductive bars of “La Paloma” ’, we may hear not only Firbank, but the rhythms of Noel Coward, ‘in a bar at the Piccolo Marina’, where life came to Mrs ...”

“... here out of 24, with the list headed by the Duke of Westminster. (‘It always is,’ as Noel Coward almost put it.) The present Duke clocks in at £4200 million – not bad for a lad who left Harrow with two 0-Levels. There are ten other Harrovians in the list, compared with 78 Etonians. ‘By a curious trick of statistics,’ the editors ...”

“... desks. Singapore’s climate is even more extraordinary than it appears to have been when Noel Coward was putting up at Raffles Hotel. The Master remarked of a downpour: ‘I recognised it as rain only because I knew it couldn’t possibly be anything else.’ Ah, Singapore! How hard it is to stay the pen from scribbling the ‘colony’, if only by way of ...”