Andrew Scott and Indira Varma at the Old Vic
Photo by Manuel Harlan
027 – Present Laughter by Noël Coward
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Follow the podcast Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | More
Garry Essendine is a star of the London stage with an ego and celebrity lifestyle to match. His social and professional diary is forever full, he enjoys the adulation and frequently amorous attention of his fans, and he employs a retinue of staff to maintain his household and career. But the insistent pressures of his life in the spotlight are taking their toll. His wife has moved out, and although she and his long-serving manager and producer continue to work together to sustain his career, as he passes the age of forty his unrestrained excesses threaten to bring down the entire structure of his professional and personal life.
Garry Essendine’s tussle with fame is the subject of Noël Coward’s classic 3-act, 4-door farce Present Laughter, in which the role of the ego-centrical actor is made in Coward’s own celebrity image. In fact Coward himself played the part in the original production in 1942, and over many revivals since the role has attracted a glittering list of stars who could not resist the flamboyant turn, including most recently Andrew Scott in an Olivier award-winning performance at the Old Vic in 2019.
Noël Coward is of course one of the most famous playwrights and performers in the history of theatre, not only writing and starring in a string of hits such as Hay Fever, Design for Living, Private Lives and Blithe Spirit, but also in the process inventing the image of himself as the consummate gentleman of style and wit, and becoming one of the first truly modern celebrities.
His plays were made in his image, what he labelled light comedies, portraying an artificial, brilliant world of privilege that he imagined and inhabited. It is a world that has certainly vanished for real, as well as from the stage, swept away by drama that reflects then fragmented modern world we live in. So why is his work still revived? What does Present Laughter have to say to 21st century audiences? Or as Coward himself might have put it: does it have to say something, is it not enough that it entertains?
Helping me to address these question, I am joined by a true Coward aficionado, theatrical agent Alan Brodie. Not only does Alan represent the Coward Estate in licensing Coward’s work for publication and performance, he is Chairman of the Noël Coward Foundation which continues Noël Coward’s charitable work by supporting educational and development projects across the Arts.
Alan Brodie
Alan Brodie graduated from Edinburgh University with a combined Arts/Law degree and spent a brief time apprenticing as a lawyer before giving it up and heading to London to work as an assistant for Michael Imison Playwrights. In 1997 he launched his own theatrical agency Alan Brodie Representation Ltd, which works with contemporary playwrights such as Emma Rice, Tim Firth, David Edgar, and Anne Devlin, to name but a few, as well as with authors’ trusts and estates, that include in addition to the Noël Coward Estate some of the greatest names in 20th century drama, such as Terence Rattigan, Thornton Wilder, Bertolt Brecht, Emlyn Williams, Patrick Hamilton, Peter Nichols, C.P.Taylor, and George Kaufman.
Alan is Chairman of The Noël Coward Foundation, a Trustee of Chichester Festival Theatre and an Ambassador for Acting For Others. During the Covid lockdown he produced the Noël Coward online entertainment A Marvellous Party, in aid of Acting For Others (UK) and the Actors Fund (US). He is also organising a major exhibition, Noel Coward: Art & Style, which opens at the Guildhall Art Gallery on June 14.
Recommended Play
Alan recommended Sucker Punch by Roy Williams.
The Footnotes to our episode on Present Laughter include thoughts on the real Garry Essendine, and the morality of the amorous liaisons that they all prosecute.
BECOME A PATRON!
Since I launched The Play Podcast in April 2020, I have managed to eschew any form of advertising or sponsorship, and I would like to continue to produce the podcast without doing so. I therefore invite you to help me to continue to make the podcast by becoming a Patron.
Additional benefits available to Patrons include Footnotes on the plays covered in the podcast, as well as exclusive access to The Play Review.
For details click here
Thank you very much for listening and for your support.
Douglas
057 – Arms and the Man, by George Bernard Shaw
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Follow the podcast Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | Follow the podcast
G.B. Shaw’s Arms and the Man is both a sparkling romantic comedy and a telling satire of love, war and social pretension. It was Shaw’s first public success as a playwright when it premiered in London in 1894, and is currently enjoying an acclaimed revival at the Orange Tree theatre in Richmond, Surrey.
I’m joined by Shaw expert Ivan Wise, who is a previous editor of The Shavian, the journal of the Shaw Society.
056 – Good, by C.P. Taylor
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Follow the podcast Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | Follow the podcast
C.P. Taylor’s powerful, cautionary play Good charts how an ostensibly ‘good’ person can become not just complicit to evil behaviour, but an active participant. Professor John Halder’s creeping moral compromise as he joins the Nazi elite in 1930’s Germany is a disturbing reminder of the dangers of populist political crusades.
The play is currently being revived at the Harold Pinter theatre in London with David Tennant in the role of John Halder, and I’m delighted to be joined by the production’s director, Dominic Cooke, to explore the contemporary resonances of this provocative play.
055 – Spring Awakening, by Frank Wedekind
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Follow the podcast Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | iHeartRadio | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | Follow the podcast
Frank Wedekind’s dark, expressionist play Spring Awakening is a cautionary portrait of adolescent angst and rebellion against oppressive social strictures and family pressures. Its frank depiction of sex and violence remains shocking more than 130 years after it was written, and it is the unlikely source of the award-winning modern musical of the same name.
I’m delighted to be joined by Professor Karen Leeder to explore the contemporary controversies and enduring relevance of this extraordinary play.
0 Comments