Review: COWARDY, COWARDY CUSTARD at The Arch, Holden Street Theatres

Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Thursday 16th May 2024.

Noël Coward was one of the most popular playwrights of the 1930s and 40s. Best known for long-form comedies, such as Blithe Spirit and Design for Living, he also wrote a series of short one-act pieces under the general heading of Tonight at 8:30. Cowardy, Cowardy Custard is presented by Holden Street Theatres.

Peter Goers, a longtime fan of Coward, has chosen two of those plays for a season at Holden Street. When I arrived on the opening night, I looked at the audience. I would say that the median age of that audience was the oldest of any so far at Holden Street. Coward's popularity faded in the late 1950s. This is attributed to the arrival of kitchen sink dramas, such as Look Back in Anger, but he was also celebrating a lifestyle that was gone forever. Britain had changed fundamentally after the Second World War. This presents a problem when it comes to staging or attending his plays. The cultural references are such an important part of the social milieu; they are now, for so many people, completely unintelligible. We are closer to Shakespeare than we are to Coward. I am lucky to have been born at the start of the '50s in England, so I grew up with a sense of Noel Coward's work and the society within which he wrote. He was the darling of these ‘Bright Young Things’, moving among them with a witty quip or a memorable song. He watched them carefully, and made affectionate use of their foibles and vocabularies in his plays. Oh, yes, he made fun of them, and with them. Why not? There was so much fun to be found.

Let us take the second of the plays first, Hands Across the Sea. Back in the 1930s, it was common for upper-class Brits to travel to the colonies, to take a slow boat to China, to go to Java to visit their friends and relations, who owned and ran rubber plantations, for example. As they were sailing between ports of call they would meet people sailing the other way and they would hand out, willy-nilly, invitations like “Next time you're in London do drop by for dinner. We must catch up.” That is the situation in Hands Across the Sea. A couple, played by Geoff Revell and Rebecca Kemp, are shown by Walters, the maid, played by Milly Bollen, into an elegant room in the home of Lord and Lady Gilpin, on such an invitation. When their hosts arrive, they are almost completely ignored. Lord Peter, played by John Doherty, is a commander in the Royal Navy, and Lady Maureen, played by Martha Lott, Piggie to her friends, is a social butterfly. She is accompanied by the Honourable Clare Wedderburn, played by Helen Jeffries in an outstandingly gorgeous blue frock, and Lieutenant Commander Alistair Corbett, known as Ally, played by David Archidiaco. They hold polished conversations. While their nominal hosts and friends carry out their own little rituals, the visitors are tied down by politeness. Indeed, in the case of the wife sitting on the couch, she is frequently tied down by the telephone cord, for this is a time when telephones were also tied down. She gets clambered over, while maintaining a completely stoic attitude. Her husband, sitting on a low chair, is almost completely silent. There is no conversation into which he can involve himself.

The joy of this performance isn't in the brittle dialogue, it’s in the physical comedy. A young man, played by Christopher Cordeaux, has arrived carrying a large cardboard tube of naval blueprints. His first challenge involves getting it through the door into the main room. His second challenge is juggling it while doing lots of other things. Take careful note of Geoff Revell. He says almost nothing but such is his control over individual facial muscles he can comment on everything. He is a joy to watch. Some way into the action, it dawns on Piggie that her visitors are not the expected Rawlingsons, but another couple altogether, and she then has to find out, tactfully, who they really are. Does it really matter? There is a wonderful sense of ensemble in the cast, with a great sense of the style of the period. It’s not camp, not camp at all; it’s Coward.

The first of the two plays, Red Peppers, takes place in a rundown Palace of Varieties, a Music Hall. These are the dying days of vaudeville. A couple, George and Lily Pepper, played by Geoff Revel and Martha Lott, are on stage. Their show consists of two dance routines interspersed with really corny jokes. I got the one about the dog and the fruit salts, and was the only person in the audience who did. For this show, and for Coward to perform with Gertrude Lawrence, he wrote one of his most memorable songs, Has Anybody Seen Our Ship, the Saucy Ship Peculiar, and the lesser known, Men About Town, when the Peppers return dressed as elegant gents.

We see them performing and then we find them in the dressing room. They've been together as a married couple performing for a very long time, and they're tired. They are tired of each other as well as the job that they're doing and their dressing room fills with recriminations. They know their time is past, they see the competition from movies and radio. They are friends with Alf, played by Christopher Cordeaux, the backstage boy who is happy to run their errands, for food, beer, and cigarettes. But they have a problem with Bert Bentley, played by David O’Brien, the musical director who conducts the pit orchestra. They don't like his tempi. They argue with him. He's a drunk. David O'Brien does what he can with an uncomfortable role.

Mr Edwards, the theatre manager, played by Brian Wellington, intervenes as there have been complaints about the noise. His performance is so tight in the jaw it's almost a caricature of a character who would be far more effective if he spoke slightly more naturally.

Into this comes Mabel Grace, played by Rebecca Kemp, a famous tragedian in the last days of her career, demanding that the Peppers keep the noise down. It's only a couple of minutes, but she really makes an impact.

There is a lot to value in these shorter works of Coward, but the cultural limitations are strong. Peter Goers’s affectionate and effective directing shows them to fine advantage.  There are others in this collection, and I would certainly travel down to Holden Street over the next few years to see this company present them.