This first volume in the Coward Collection contains four plays written within a two year period when Coward
and the century were still in their 20s. The volume is introduced by Sheridan Morley,
Coward’s first biographer.
Hay Fever, a comedy of bad
manners, concerns a weekend with friends of the Bliss family, who have
all been invited independently for a weekend at their country house
near Maidenhead. The Vortex
was a controversial drama in its time, introducing drug-addiction onto
the stage at a time when alcoholism was barely mentioned. Fallen Angels, which is written for two star actresses
was described as ‘degenerate’, ‘vile’, ‘obscene’, ‘shocking’ – the
second half of the play is entirely taken up with an alcoholic duologue
between the two women. Easy Virtue is an elegant, laconic tribute to a
lost world of drawing-room dramas, no other writer went more directly
to the jugular of that moralistic, tight-lipped but fundamentally
hypocritical 20s society.
“He is simply a phenomenon, and one that is unlikely to occur ever
again in theatre history” Terence Rattigan
