Coward's class
Charles Spencer
T'm writing this in my dressing-gown. I lwish I could say it was an exquisite silk creation of the kind once worn by Noel Coward, but it is in fact a cheap-and-nasty polyester number from M & S, with an alarming stain where I spilled a mug of mercifully lukewarm coffee.
Coward, of course, would also have sported a cravat and probably a Turkish cigarette in an elegant holder. I've got my treasured Grateful Dead T-shirt on underneath and am chugging away, as always, on a Golden Virginia roll-up, Frankly, I'd never have cut the mustard in swell society in the 1930s.
Nevertheless, that is the subject of this month's column. Regular readers may recall that last month 1 was extolling the delights of Music Hall Memories, a glorious collection of comic songs from the great days of the variety stage. But if you order the disc from Telegraph Music Direct (0870 164 6465) it comes with a companion volume, In Town Tonight, featuring 25 theatre and cabaret songs recorded between 1927 and 1941. The pair cost a ridiculously cheap £7.99.
Though it features a host of other talents, it is of course Noel Coward who makes the strongest impression here. He was at the height of his success, dominating the British stage as writer, director, actor and, not least, as the only British songwriter who could rival the likes of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and the Gershwins across the Atlantic. Indeed I often think Coward's songs will last longer than his plays. Their wit is so prodigal; their melodies so often sublimely haunting.
You get both sides of his talent here — the sentimental, patriotic 'London Pride', a lovely song to soothe and reassure Londoners facing the terrors of the Blitz, and 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen', which, while celebrating English eccentricity, also feeds the British addiction to laughing at funny foreigners. The malicious glee with which Coward delivers his barbs is alone worth the price of admission.
Coward was a middle-class boy from Teddington, despite the grand and languid gic 'Home Town' and the almost manner. His beautiful, infuriating muse, Existential 'Free', in which they confess to Gertrude Lawrence, claimed that her being as poor as church mice but happier childhood was so impoverished that she than millionaires because they have no was reduced to 'gnawing kippers' heads in worries. If you believe that you'll believe the gutter'. This didn't stop her, however, anything, but the duo almost persuade you from talking, and singing, in an accent that that it's true. There is fine stuff, too, from makes the Mitford girls seem downright Adelaide Hall, who sang for Ellington and common, and she is gloriously caught here was still gigging in her nineties, and the in a performance of one of Coward's great Al Bowlly. He's caught here on rare greatest numbers, 'Someday I'll Find You'. paper records, which to judge from the The collection isn't exclusively devoted astonishing hisses, crackles and screeches to the posh, however, Gracie Fields is in of the disc appear to have ripped them wonderful form in the brilliant 'Walter, selves to shreds even as they played.
Walter', in which she hilariously, and There are also a couple of tracks from poignantly, tries to persuade her useless Jessie Matthews, once one of the brightest man to walk her down the aisle. The stars in the British showbiz firmament, and moment when she gives three cheers for subsequently the voice of Mrs Dale on Mrs leap years (when she can propose to him) Dale's Diary. Listening to her deliciously in a tone of terminal depression is gloriyoung and innocent trills on 'Everything's ously funny. in Rhythm with My Heart' is deeply The older I get, the more I warm to the poignant for me. As a young journalist in sentimental charm of Flanagan and Allen, the 1970s, I interviewed Matthews, when beautifully represented here by the nostalthe former tour de force was forced to tour
in a terrible old thriller. She was one of the vainest and most unpleasant women I have ever met, a bitter old boot who seemed to have kind feelings only for her disgustingly smelly dog.
Still, there is plenty more to cheer you up, including contributions from Beatrice Lillie, Lupino Lane, Florence Desmond, a delightful vocal duo called Flotsam & Jetsam and not least Leslie (Hutch) Hutchinson, a handsome black singer much admired by society ladies, including Lady Mountbatten who notoriously succumbed to his charms.
I've thoroughly enjoyed this stroll back into the melodic mists of time, but promise to return to this column's more normal
fare of sex 'n' drugs 'n' rock roll next month. I leave you with one final thought. The 1930s had Noel Coward; we've got Ben Elton, currently destroying the already tattered reputation of Rod Stewart in the dire new musical, Tonight's the Night. Life really isn't fair, is it?
Charles Spencer is theatre critic of the Daily Telegraph.
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