Noël Coward knew just “how potent cheap music is”, as he says in his play Private Lives, but he also understood the power of striking a pose. His sophisticated stage dialogue was always delivered in matching style.
Now admirers of this towering talent – he was acknowledged in his day as “the Master” – will have the chance to see glamorous costumes, designs and props, along with letters and photographs gathered from his long career. A rare collection goes on show in London next month and will feature two of the flamboyant dressing gowns he wore on stage.
“He did love his dressing gowns, at home, as well as when he performed,” said Alan Brodie, chair of the Noël Coward Foundation. “His sense of style was important to him and he was hugely influential, with friendships among the leading names in art and fashion, but he was also, of course, able to make fun of himself.”
Carefully preserved for 60 years, the two silk gowns will be on display in Noël Coward: Art & Style, opening on 14 January at the Guildhall Art Gallery in London. The exhibition celebrates the life and work of a composer, performer and wit who now, appropriately enough perhaps, presents something of a paradox. While his plays and songs, such as Mad Dogs and Englishman, Let’s Do it or London Pride, are redolent of a specific, mannered moment in British culture, they remain hugely popular today.
His tunes are still frequently sung, and in recent years the West End saw productions of two plays – Present Laughter, starring Andrew Scott and Indira Varma, and Private Lives, starring Toby Stephens and Anna Chancellor – winning critical acclaim. Next month, a starry film version of his ghostly domestic comedy, Blithe Spirit, is released.
“For those who have been missing the theatre, this exhibition will be a glimpse of what they’re hoping to see again,” said Brodie. “Coward represents the West End. Every play he wrote, bar two, I think, opened in the West End.”
One of the dressing gowns, in black-and-white spotted silk, comes from the collection of the late theatrical historians Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson and is thought to have been worn when Coward played Gary Essendine, the lead role in Present Laughter, in America in 1958.
“This is a character who deliberately makes fun of himself and of his own love of dressing gowns, and his ex-wife comments on the obsession,” said Brodie.
The second gown, in gold, comes to London via his former American manager and friend Geoffrey Johnson. “We know Coward wore this to perform cabaret in Las Vegas, and he can be seen wearing it in photos with Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Cole Porter and Lauren Bacall,” said Brodie.
Organisers of the exhibition, mounted jointly by City of London Corporation, the Noël Coward Foundation and the Noël Coward Archive Trust, called in a specialist costumier to conserve the gowns. “Luckily, they had been kept well and not been worn a lot, so they were not in bad condition,” said Brodie, adding that one of the most famous costumes associated with Coward’s plays has been especially recreated for display.
“It is a wonderful reconstruction of the white satin frock Gertrude Lawrence wore as Amanda in Private Lives and which went on to be immortalised in Vogue,” said Brodie. Also on show will be Coward’s grey top hat, refurbished for the exhibition by its makers, Lock & Co. Vintage dresses by couturiers Edward Molyneux, Victor Stiebel and Norman Hartnell will set the scene, and the handwritten lyrics of Mad Dogs will be among a display of original sheet music.
“Coward is especially celebrated for his verbal wit, but the exhibition will remind us that his original productions were also visual feasts for their audiences, a vital element of his theatrical world shaped by the extraordinary designers with whom he worked, and his own brilliance as a director,” said the exhibition’s curator, Brad Rosenstein. “These productions had an international influence on fashion and were reflected in Coward’s personal style – from his wardrobe to home decor – and, just like his plays and songs, they still seem fresh, contemporary, and surprising today.”
Brodie points out that, behind all the beguiling visuals, Coward was a man of substance and in touch with normal life. “People sometimes portray him as a snob but he was quite down to earth and not from a wealthy background at all. He left school at 11 and taught himself to speak several languages – so effectively that he was able to perform Present Laughter in French in Paris in 1948.”
Tickets and visitor slots for Noel Coward: Art & Style, which is free and runs into the summer, should be booked in advance at guildhall-art-gallery
