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Waiting for a Coward show to open near you? Need something diverting to while away the hours? Here are a few new offerings by or about Noel Coward, including a pair of new works by local members of the Noël Coward Society.
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The Complete Verse of Noel Coward 
edited by Barry Day
The prolific Barry Day has provided a companion to his earlier anthologies of Coward's work, this time collecting Coward's verse, found in a variety of sources: three volumes published in Coward's lifetime, excerpts from Not Yet the Dodo, plus previously unpublished material Coward sent to family and friends.
Reviewing this book, Roger Lewis in the Daily Mail, September 30, 2011, writes of the verse:
...the plums in this book are the jaunty verse letters (often ribald) that Coward composed as 'a means of communication' with his close friends during the war - Cole Lesley, his biographer, Graham Payn, his partner, Gladys Calthrop, the stage designer, Joyce Carey, the actress, and Clemence Dane, a sculptress.
Another recipient was his indefatigable mother: 'While sleigh-bells rang and Christmas roses flowered / She gave birth triumphantly to Master Noel Coward,' he reminded her when she was eighty.
Read this gem on Kindle right now, or order the hardcover edition.
Complete Verse on Amazon
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Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise 
by Sam Irvin
Noël Coward and Cole Porter wrote musicals for her!
And who among us has not longed to be like Ms Thompson's most famous creation: Eloise, living in The Plaza, ordering up three of everything from Room Service to sooth shattered nerves?
Singer, actress, composer, arranger, and author Kay Thompson appears on the cover of the November 11, 2011 issue of Home Chat; Coward is embracing her fondly as they sit on a wall at Goldenhurst.
Writes Sam Irvin:
"There's quite a bit about Noel in my book -- including a photo of them together at the party Kay threw for him at the Sherry-Netherland to celebrate his knighthood."
Kay worked with absolutely everyone, and was friends with the greats, including Noël. Not only is there quite a bit about Noël in this book, there's also a ton of fun, gossip, and a fabulous anecdotal history of 20th-century radio, theatre, and film.
For a wealth of additional fascinating details on Kay, see: web site for Kay Thompson
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Biography and Autobiography by NCS Members
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Radclyffe Hall: A Life in the Writing 
by Richard Dellamora
Professor Dellamora's recent book about author Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943) -- a literary and West End friend of Noël Coward -- deconstructs Hall's life through the prism of her prose and poetry. By no means "light reading," this multi-layered biography presents a fascinating look at a highly-controversial literary figure.
"In detailing Hall's explorations of the self, Dellamora is the first seriously to consider their contexts in Freudian psychoanalysis as understood in England in the 1920s. As important, he uncovers Hall's involvement with other modes of speculative psychology, including Spiritualism, Theosophy, and an eclectic brand of Christian and Buddhist mysticism. Dellamora's Hall is a woman of complex accommodations, able to reconcile her marriage to Troubridge with her passionate affairs with other women, and her experimental approach to gender and sexuality with her conservative politics and Catholicism." (University of Pennsylvania Press)
Richard Dellamora is Visiting Professor in the department of English at UCLA and Professor Emeritus of English and Cultural Studies at Trent University in Canada. He is the author of Friendship's Bonds: Democracy and the Novel in Victorian England and editor of Postmodern Apocalypse: Theory and Cultural Practice at the End, both available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Radclyffe Hall on Amazon
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Deeply Superficial
by Michael Menzies
Available April 10, 2012, this memoir weaves together recollections from author Menzies' life and his obsession with Coward and to Marlene Dietrich, whom he idealized as a lad: his fantasy was that they are his "real" parents.
From pre-publication notes:
Deeply Superficial is a tribute to Menzies's four "parents": Clive and Mary Menzies, who guided his early years and allowed him the freedom to indulge his imagination, and Coward and Dietrich who gave him the inspiration to "above all, behave exquisitely"....
Michael has lived all over the world, and has worked with rock 'n roll promoter Bill Graham, impresario Sol Hurok, choreographer Agnes de Mille, Broadway Producer Saint-Subber, and in film with the de Laurentiis family.
Deeply Superficial on Amazon
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