by Noel Coward
Awash with whisky to strengthen his will, pink and pompous and auguring ill
Sir Michael entered the Brompton Grill,
The first of his blunt-nosed bullets smacked past me into the wall
But as far as I understood him, no sets were needed at all
And the cost of a date in Dublin, lad, was more than a village hall.
He huffed on his pipe and he puffed on his pipe to make his meaning plain
“It's all been done on a shoe-string, Son, and it's got to be done again
We've reaped red yield from the amateur field, we don't need tired old pros
To tell us of props and scenery and teach us the way it goes.
Two understudies! Good God, what next? You can't do that there ‘ere!
Think how we opened in Stratford, Fred, with a guinea pig playing hear,”
Now flashes the Coward rapier. Now Webster goes into attack.
But he huffs on his pipe and he puffs on his pipe and moodily mumbles back,
“I didn't come here to be shouted at”—and the Master's pistols crack.
They aren't the sort of bullets, my lad, I'd care to riddle my skin
But Redgrave squats like a pink blancmange and lets them all come in,
While Sadoffi the sloe-eyed slave-boy, sits, as small as a safety pin.
Now Webster counters with [Donald] Wolfit. From the Master's thunderous front
There's less and less of the “darling boy” and more of “the silly cunt”.
Now Webster smites on the table, the Master shoots from the hip:
Is Redgrave stuck on a ha'porth of tar, or does he care for the ship?
Well, he doesn't want fingers wagged at him, he offers, pouting his lip.
To it again go the valiant twain. The flames are shooting higher
I cancel my order for brandy, lad, in case they should set it on fire.
And one by one the guests go home, and the worn-out waiters retire,
(It's cut and thrust, it's “I won't”—“You must”
It's the ring of steel, it's a Catherine wheel
It's “Listen to me” and “Be damned to you”
It's Coward blazing and Webster too.
Another volley, you'd think, would do it
But Redgrave holds, like a pinkish suet
Stolidly, sludgily, sitting through it.)
Into the flash and fury, into the smoke and flame
Into the reddened arena, the last of the waiters came
The time was long past midnight, they'd told him to bring the bill
But it's quite a risk in a row so brisk to worry about the till
And he'II tell the tale till he's old and stale of the flight that was fought to the kill
Of the bright sharp words that pierced like swords and the wounds that bled with a will
Of Webster's fist, and Sir Michael pissed, and the Master standing still
Elegant, cold and glorious
Superb but scarcely victorious
Flicking the blood from his finger tips in the wreck of the Brompton Grill,
And what is the end of the story? There isn't an end to tell
(Slip me a couple of codeine, lad, these bruises hurt like hell)
And I don't regret the passion and I wouldn't forego the pain
Except for one tiny point, lad,—it's all got to happen again.
So fill me another glass, lad, and help me upstairs to my bed
I shall rest, and faith I shall need it—there's Dublin and breakers ahead.
There's another fight to be fought, I fear, by the side of the Irish sea
A situation to save, boy
With Sadoffi the sloe-eyed slave-boy,
With that pink Red-dig-his-own-grave-boy
And the Master
And Webster
And me.
•
BEFORE ANY MAJOR VENTURE, Noël was in the habit of taking himself off on a holiday, and this time was no exception. This time he set off on the Road to Morocco.
To Coley:
Once in the plane found I had no less than three babies under 2 years old, all of whom screamed incessantly. I plugged my ears, took off my Guccis and tipped my seat back and it wouldn't come up again. No one could do anything about it, so I lay flat on my back, racked with cramp until we arrived at Tangier!
He arrived to find “a violent wind, grey skies and extreme cold” and a host whose “wild old garden [was] filled with shrieking birds, barking dogs, snarling monkeys and gasping goldfish.”
One day he braved the elements and lay out on the sand when “a strange gentleman came up, sat down next to me and played delicately with my left tittie without so much as a avec votrepermission! Really!”
Since Tangier was known to be an international focus of the gay universe, it is surprising Noël was surprised.
He moved on to Marrakech: “Marrakech is really beautiful and very much half as Golders Green. The Moroccans are most sweet but only wish for one thing, which alas I am unable to provide. However, affection is what counts.”
He was invited to a “grand lunch party … where everyone started every sentence with est-ce-que vousavez vu—or lu—as the case may be. We had Arab food—cous-cous, etc., in fact, damp mutton but very atmospheric, dear.”
The food in this hotel is lethal. I was served last night with a black rubber turd which was laughingly listed on the menu as steak au poivre, I sent it back with zpuce in its oreille [a flea in its ear].
I have no more news … I am sick of my holiday, anyhow, and shall come whirling home.
•
THERE WAS ONE other important issue to trouble his mind that holiday season—a cable from Lornie telling him that her doctors had informed her she must have her left breast removed as soon as possible. While telling himself that he was confident that she would come through it, he was deeply concerned and wrote to Coley: “Be firm with Lornie. She must not be guided by second-rate doctors, she must have the best of everything.”
On this occasion his confidence was justified. Lornie recovered and kept the “family” together for another seven years.
•
WAITING IN THE WINGS opened at the Duke of York's Theatre on September 7 and suffered what was by now the fate of anything Noël put on in the United Kingdom. The critics abused it; the public loved it. Arguably, the size of the play's natural public may have been limited, and undoubtedly the critics deterred many of them from coming, but there was general agreement in the theatrical community that the play deserved a respectable run.
Early in the new year the warning signs were too clear to ignore. Webster wrote:
January 4th 1961
Well, Master dear,
It looks perilously as if nous avons eu le at the Duke of York's. As you know, I've been bothered for quite a while about the patient's general health. The slow drag of bad notices does begin to tell in the end— people just haven't got it into their heads that they need bother. And it is such a HELL of a bother nowadays—pink zones and cars being towed away right and left and pouring bloody rain and all imaginable discomforts. Let's stay home and watch the Telly.
Oh—almost forgot. Would you like me to vet the prompt copy which is being done for French's edition? Or will you? You know how stage managers always put in the most idiotic things—devices to which one has been driven by some particular and desperate necessity—and leave out the really important “sign-post” directions. Under the first head, would you like some of her lines restored to Almina? She makes absolutely no sense at the moment. I don't mean Mary. She makes a lot. Has taken to saying everyone else's lines with them; or so I'm told; she has an uncanny way of never doing it while I'm there, even though she can't possibly know I am! The show has stayed in good shape—a bit of sledge-hammering from time to time; I told Una [Venning] she was too slow and she said “You mean it needs more bite?” and I said “Good God, no! You have the bite of a mastiff; but the gnashing of teeth makes such a noise that I can
't hear the line.” This went well. With Blaney.
PEGGY
Waiting in the Wings closed after its 188th performance.
•
BY CHRISTMAS, Noël was back in Jamaica and preparing to rise above a visit from Clifton Webb, whose mother, Mabelle, had recently died. As Noël wrote to Joyce, when the visit was safely over:
Poor Clifton, not smiling at grief—Oh dear, no—fairly bellowing at grief. Every meticulous detail of Maybelle's [sic] timely demise is etched firmly on our minds from the little strokey thing to the last rites including the laying out of the corpse and the last-minute putting on of the earrings which had been forgotten. You will be glad to hear that she looked very beautiful and peaceful and not contorted with cackling rage. We have now become accustomed to the whole process. First, long anecdotes about the deaths of various friends, leading inevitably to Maybelle and then floods of tears and we all gaze at each other in a wild surmise. He is making an effort to snap out of it but the basic truth of the matter is that he's enjoying the wallowing. He doesn't know this, of course, but it is a leetle bit trying. After all she was 91—on paper—and she has been on the gaga side for ages.
Then, later that same holiday:
Blanche [Blackwell] gave a birthday party for me—small and beautifully done until the last part when [she] had organized fireworks. Some careless Jamaican cunt had laid three large rockets on the terrace wall faring the guests and the house. These were ignited by a spark and went off. The chaos was indescribable. One rocket head missed my head by inches and embedded itself in the eaves. If it had hit me, I should have been blinded for life or killed! This little episode not unnaturally put a damper on the soiree. Everyone behaved well but there was controlled panic in the air. Poor Blanche has had nightmares ever since.
His current stay also focused for a while on some of the disillusion he was beginning to feel:
December 23rd, 1960
Very privately, darling Lornie, I have taken against Jamaica in a big way. I am grimly determined to sell Blue Harbour as soon as I possibly can and, eventually, Firefly too. The atmosphere of the whole island has changed … the lovely feeling of peace and isolation has almost entirely vanished. In future I shall take my sunshine holidays on board slow ships going to far off places and not be tied down to paying a lot of ungrateful sods thousands of pounds a year for nothing.
•
EARLY 1961 FOUND Noël getting down to the hard work of completing the musical that he had been toying with for some time. By now he had dispensed with Mrs. Wentworth Brewster and jettisoned the original plot of Later Than Spring, It was now to be called Sail Away and to be a vehicle for Kay Thompson.
On January 13 he wrote to Lornie from Jamaica:
I really am working like mad on Sail Away, I am really very excited about it. The first act is complete and I am now nearly halfway through the second. The characters have all come to life and I am really enjoying it. It was a wonderful idea having the different stories to carry through and so far I have managed to keep up the interest in all of them. I have done some lovely new songs and lyrics. Of my old stuff I am only using “Changing World,” “This Is a Night for Lovers” and “Sail Away”. Kay Thompson's part, Mimi Paragon, the cruise hostess, has come out marvelously. She ought to make the suecess of her life. I have no particular fears because, unlike hater Than Spring, I know where I'm going and the shape of the whole thing is clear in my mind.
The first act in nine scenes, is entirely the ship, finishing with the arrival in Europe and Gibraltar rising out of the sea. The second is a series of different places: Tangier, Naples, Athens, Venice, etc., interspersed with deck scenes in One, so that the set changes can be done easily. I intend to have it roughly finished by the beginning of February; have some auditions in New York and spend from March to June polishing the outstanding music and lyrics. The formula is wonderful because one can cut a scene entirely and substitute another without spoiling the general structure.
Back in London, Waiting in the Wings was faltering and would close a month later. Pomp and Circumstance, Noël's one and only novel to be published, had had an equally lukewarm reception in England.
I am, of course, bitterly sad about Wings. I suspect the long range effect of those vile notices have something to do with it. I think it is a minor miracle that we have got five months out of it. It is no use expecting that I shall ever get good notices in England, at least not until I am in my dotage, or act in a movie. But in the long run time will tell. After all Pomp was dismissed with faint praise, whereas in America it has had raves. As it is on the Best Seller lists in both countries I can't complain. (Oh yes, I can)
… Kay may appear in a week or so. Except for the sadness about Wings I am as happy as a bee and feel tremendously well!
And a few weeks later: “My creative genius has been churning away. I think you will be pleased with Sail Away. I've purposely left the script loose with unfinished gaps, because the filling up of these will depend on the personalities I encounter at auditions. I have written some really lovely new songs.”
He was also having second thoughts about his second thoughts on Jamaica.
I'm hating leaving, actually, it has been lovely this time, much lovelier than I thought it was going to be at the beginning. There is no doubt about it. This place has a strange and very potent magic for me. I also seem to be able to do more work here in less time than anywhere else. It's the lovely long mornings that count. I am adoring the squeals of the Press boys but jolly cross with the idiotic public for letting me down over Wings. They ought to have more sense. Darling old Pompers is climbing higher and higher up all the Best Seller lists in America. It has already sold over 28,000, which is apparently fairly remarkable.
I have no more news except that my white owl said last night as it flew by—”What's happened to that silly old Twat who lives in Mil-ner Street, SW3?”
In February he left for New York to audition. Safely back in Jamaica, he reported:
Firefly Hill
Sunday March 19th
Darling, Darling Lornie,
There is so much to tell you that I don't know where to begin. I have had four strenuous weeks in New York full of complications, frustrations, excitements, business discussions, auditions and what not, and here I am again at dear Firefly feeling absolutely splendid and full of piss and vinegar. In fact I have never felt so well for many years and I put it all down to two drinks a day, if that, and a carefully observed diet and a very great deal of natural vitality. This will be a long letter so put on your four-eyes, throw away your truss and get yourself into a receptive Tolstoi mood …
Kay Thompson, for whom I had written the part of Mimi Paragon, raved enthusiastically about the whole thing and then said she couldn't do it because she had a “thing” about appearing on Broadway. As she is on the barmy side anyhow, this did not unduly depress me and I at once contacted Elaine Stritch in Hollywood who agreed to do it sight unseen if her Television series finished in time.
I then engaged a handsome young man of six foot four with a truly glorious voice [James Hurst] who is understudying the lead in Tammy Grimes's show [The Unsinkable Molly Brown}. He, I am convinced, is a great find as he is comparatively unknown on Broadway. So we didn't do badly. Meanwhile I was asked if I would give an audition of the score to eight formidable ladies who organize “Theatre Parties” because, if they like it, it would ensure a big advance. I agreed, reluctantly, to do this and had the forethought to invite a Mr. Jack Small, the very tough representative of the Shuberts to be present also. Well, they all crowded into my apartment and sat about on each other's laps looking like a lot of Helen Hokinson harpies. Within about ten minutes I had got them fairly gobbling out of my hand and the principal one of them asked for thirty dates then and there which, in a big theatre will amount to a quarter of a million dollars. Better still, Mr. Small went out of his mind and has guaranteed me the Shubert Theatre, which is in a marvelous position, and a promise of the Winter Garden,
if it is free by the time I want it, which it probably will be. He also, on behalf of the Shuberts, offered to put up half the backing. This, although gratifying, I viewed with slight dismay, because I do not want the Shuberts frigging about in the management on account of them being notorious for penny pinching. However, it was a step in the right direction.
I contacted Kitty Carlisle, who I knew had the right warm quality although her actual singing wasn't up to much. The next day Kitty auditioned and was completely charming and we were all delighted. The next day, however, she telephoned in tears to say that she couldn't do it after all because Moss Hart, her husband, had already had two heart attacks and they had just bought a new gracious home in Palm Springs and that her whole life would be disrupted. Against such irrefutable logic there was no argument, although I could have wished she could have told me that before wasting ten days of my time and giving the audition.
So there we were with Time's winged chariot bouncing along and still no leading lady. And then I heard of a woman called Jean Fenn who had sung at the Met and the City Center in opera and was a reasonably good actress as well as being a fine singer. I immediately telephoned her in California and so she flew to New York and gave an audition. She turned out to be tall, elegant, quite beautiful in a Nordic way and with one of the most thrilling voices I have ever heard. She led off with “Vissi D'arte” from Tosca and before she got to D'Arte I knew we were home. She is also longing to do a show on Broadway and seemed unassuming and sweet with no nonsense about her. So that's another find and I am absolutely delighted about her because she and James Hurst will make such lovely noises together that the more serious side of the score will be taken care of. I also interviewed a young man called Joe Layton who is the best of the up and coming choreographers and he is apparently available … Choreography in an American Musical is of the utmost importance and, having seen some of his work, I know he is the boy for me.
After all these goings on Roger came to me and asked me to ask Chappells to put up some money for the show. This irritated me slightly because as I am providing the music, book and lyrics and direction I don't see why I should shop around for money into the bargain. However I interviewed Max and Louis Dreyfus who said they had never backed a show before but that for me they would break their rule and put up a third. They were, in fact, absolutely staunch as they always have been with me.