A Marvellous Party – A streamed revue celebrating Noël Coward

A Marvellous Party – A streamed revue celebrating Noël Coward.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

“Star quality – I don’t know what it means but I have it.” Noël Coward never knowingly undersold himself and his bon mots were legendary.

The genius of The Master was in evidence throughout this classy fundraiser for Acting For Others and its American equivalent with an eye-popping cast freely giving their considerable best to a blissful hour that passed all too quickly.

When you’ve got Stephen Fry, Derek Jacobi, Robert Lindsay, Bebe Neuwirth and Alan Cumming (among other wondrous talents) and three great Dames, Patricia Routledge, Emma Thompson and Judi Dench, on the team, a marvellous party is guaranteed.

To hear our glorious language and Sir Noel’s golden words spoken so beautifully by Jacobi, Kate Burton and Cush Jumbo – that was a treat in itself.

From Fry’s sweet introduction to Dame Patricia bringing the curtain down with ‘I’ve Been To A Marvellous Party’ complete with chuckles and burps, it was five-star quality all the way.

‘Marvellous Party’, from the 1938 revue Set To Music, was the joyous number the now 91-year-old sang in Cowardy Custard at the Mermaid in 1972, and it couldn’t have been better than this.

Coward’s trenchant wit was ever present and it must have been difficult to choose which of his 300 songs to include. Jacobi voiced the young actor starting out from humble beginnings in Teddington while Lindsay as the older Noël chipped in with the best lines – “Television is for appearing on, not for watching” – as Coward himself would have done.

Coward even rewrote The Vortex, embellishing the role of Nicky with the best lines as he was going to play it himself. On the rare occasions during the West End and Broadway runs of that controversial play when he was unable to do it, an understudy by the name of John Gielgud filled in! Whatever happened to him?

The duologue from The Vortex, written when he was 25 in 1924, was electric in the hands of Lia Williams as the ageing society beauty mother, and Josh James as son Nicky, a composer-pianist planning to marry in order to cover up uncertainties about his sexuality. Called “the most decadent play of our time” by one theatre critic, it was ahead of its time in its frankness.

So much to enjoy, not least Kate Royal’s soaring soprano in her ‘Room With a View’ duet with Julian Ovenden, Dame Emma in top form in her Mrs Mallory monologue, Indira Varma’s reflective ‘I am No Good at Love’ and Cumming’s ‘Me and The Girls’ solo.

Some of Coward’s written work, not surprisingly, sounds dated now but his wit remains timeless. It was Fry’s spoken ‘A Bar in the Piccola Marina’ and Neuwirth’s ‘Why Do the Wrong People Travel?’ from Sail Away, the last musical for which Coward wrote both book and music, that most tickled the funnybone.

‘Piccola Marina’ is a hoot from start to finish with rich widow Mrs Wentworth-Brewster living the high life in Capri after her dull husband’s early demise. And who but Coward could have rhymed Wentworth-Brewster with “abruptly goosed her”? Truly, the Master.

There were more fine contributions from Kristine Nielsen, Montego Glover and Giles Terera and a quick appearance from Dame Judi with an anecdote about Coward and his potent after-shave. Robert Scott and Rob Berman played the music.

The show – most of the performers recorded their contribution from home – was lovingly stitched together by director Rob Gill and editor Gwyn Moxham, making plenty of use of black-and-white footage of the man himself and the between-the-wars London that he lit up in a flamboyant career that spanned six decades.

Playwright, composer, actor, director, singer, raconteur, poet, short-storyteller, producer, painter, bon viveur, wit… you don’t get too many Noël Cowards to the pound. As he once quipped: “I am a tremendously talented man and there’s no point in denying it.” We shall not see his like again.

Jeremy Chapman