Brief Encounter continues at the Watermill Theatre, Bagnor until 13 November 2021. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The Watermill is well and truly back with the sophisticated tranquility for which it is renowned. The glorious intimate auditorium has once again opened its doors following a summer season in its Covid-friendly country […]
Tag Archives | Noel Coward
New Novello-inspired show to close London Song Festival
This year’s London Song Festival will close with a specially commissioned show featuring West End stars and the music of Ivor Novello and Noël Coward. Set on the empty stage of Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 5 September 1939 when all theatres were closed due to the outbreak of the Second World War, Ghost Lights […]
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 […]
Transatlantic party to celebrate Noël Coward
Stage and screen acting royalty Judi Dench and Derek Jacobi are among the stars from both sides of the Atlantic who have recorded contributions to a special fundraising online celebration of the life and times of Noël Coward. Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the legendary writer and actor’s West End debut as a 19-year-old […]
CD Review: Ben Stock Sings Noel Coward
BEN STOCK SINGS NOEL COWARD – Ben Stock (SimG Records – SimGR-CD036) Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Well, this came as a bit of a surprise. I haven’t heard anything to do with Noel Coward since I was involved in a couple of productions of Noel & Gertie back in the […]
Love, Noël: The Songs and Letters of Noël Coward – Irish Repertory Theatre, New York
Love, Noël: The Songs and Letters of Noël Coward continues at the Irish Repertory Theatre, New York, until 25 August 2019. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Two pillars of New York’s cabaret scene, singer/pianist Steve Ross and singer-actress KT Sullivan, combine to offer some 90 enchanting minutes or so of vintage […]
More Coward: Stefan Bednarczyk – The Pheasantry
More Coward: Stefan Bednarczyk at The Pheasantry, London. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ It is 66 years since Noel Coward wrote the wickedly prophetic ‘There are Bad Times Just Around the Corner’ but in these dark Brexit days the bitingly witty words could not be more timely. The redoubtable Stefan Bednarczyk brought his […]
Gary Williams: A Swingin’ Christmas – Live At Zédel
Gary Williams: A Swingin’ Christmas continues at Live at Zédel, London until 23 December 2018. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ It just would not be Christmas without Gary Williams kicking off the festivities at the Crazy Coqs. The opening number ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ contains the line “Have a party tonight” and a […]
Tonight at 8:30 – Jermyn Street Theatre
Tonight at 8:30 continues at the Jermyn Street Theatre, London until 20 May 2018. Star rating: four stars ★★★★☆ Nothing embodies the breadth and depth of Noël Coward’s writing abilities quite like Tonight at 8:30, his cycle of ten one-act plays designed to be performed in repertory by the same company over three evenings. From the steamy heat […]
Travels With My Aunt – Minerva Theatre, Chichester
Travels With My Aunt continues at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester until 4 June. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ For the first of its musicals this season, Chichester Festival Theatre has looked to the combined and proven talents of composer George Stiles and lyricist Anthony Drewe, along with book writers Ron Cowen and Daniel […]
CD Review – Cowards in the Wings – Helen McDermott and Adrian Wright
COWARDS IN THE WINGS – Helen McDermott and Adrian Wright (Must Close Saturday Records – MCSR 3053) This is a very difficult review for me to write for two reasons: I’m not a huge fan of Noel Coward material sung by other people and I have a huge respect for Adrian Wright who knows more […]
Janie Dee – Dee-Licious, Lightful and Lovely! – Crazy Coqs
Janie Dee performs her show Dee-Licious, Lightful and Lovely! at the Crazy Coqs until 14 March. Star rating: 5 stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Last night a packed audience filled with showbiz personalities was treated to a masterclass in cabaret perfection. The multi-talented Janie Dee entertained, enthralled and enchanted her many fans with glorious singing as well as amusing […]
Anna Bergman – You‘re All the World to Me – Crazy Coqs
Anna Bergman: You’re All the World to Me continues at the Crazy Coqs, London, until 18 October. Crazy Coqs regulars are not often treated to a bit of Puccini as an encore, but when American soprano Anna Bergman comes to town, you get the full multi-lingual package, from West Side Story, Rodgers and Hart, a Neapolitan love song […]
Alistair McGowan & Charlotte Page – Sincerely Noel – Crazy Coqs
Alistair McGowan & Charlotte Page perform Sincerely Noel at the Crazy Coqs, London until 13 September. This charming, funny, sad, romantic, poignant homage to The Master by impressionist and actor Alistair McGowan and his actress-opera singer wife Charlotte Page highlights the many-sided genius of Noel Coward in an unusual mix of song, drama and poetry which delights from start to finish. There are the old favourites, of course, […]
Writer, composer and lyricist Sandy Wilson – we pay tribute
Writer-composer-lyricist SANDY WILSON died last month at the age of 90. Michael Darvell pays tribute to an extraordinary man of the British theatre and the one show of his that has been perennially popular for more than 60 years. The fact that Sandy Wilson, who has died aged 90, had his greatest hit, The Boy Friend, in the […]
Stefan Bednarczyk returns to Crazy Coqs with Noel Coward cabaret
Described as ‘one of the most important interpreters of Coward that we have’, Stefan Bednarczyk returns to the Crazy Coqs this week with his Noel Coward show (concentrating on Coward during the war and post-war years, but also including Coward’s works from the 1920s and ’30s as well as some of his lesser-known songs). There […]
I Went to a Marvellous Party – Cafe de Paris, London
I Went to a Marvellous Party at the Cafe de Paris, London. Like Noel Coward I too went to a marvellous party and the theme of the party was the Master himself – for it was his words and music that formed the cabaret. His play, Blithe Spirit, has enjoyed a successful run in the West End with […]
The Great British Musicals in Concert – London Hippodrome
The Great British Musicals in Concert was performed at the Matcham Room at the London Hippodrome. Who better to host an evening dedicated to the best of British musical theatre than Nicholas Parsons, himself a performer in some of the featured shows more than 50 years ago? “Do I know these shows?” he asked. “I was […]
Ace of Clubs – Union Theatre
Ace of Clubs continues at the Union Theatre, London until 31 May. The titular Ace of Clubs in Noel Coward’s 1950 musical is a gritty Soho dive ripe with busty showgirls and patronised by gangsters and sailors – a long way from the genteel country house settings of Coward’s more popular pre-war shows. Could this […]
Jeff Harnar – Crazy Coqs
Jeff Harnar performs Does This Song Make Me Look Fat? at the Crazy Coqs, London, until 1 March. With his dapper charm and New York polish, Jeff Harnar was always a cabaret singer who made the game look easy, but the eye-catchingly named Does This Song Make Me Look Fat? show he brings with him […]
