Peter Viney's Blog

Based on the play by Noël Coward
Adapted by Paul Rattigan and Michel Walker
Directed by Eric Styles

CAST
Julie Andrews – Felicity Marshwood, Dowager Countess
Edward Atterton – Nigel Marshwood, Earl of Marshwood
William Baldwin – Don Lucas, American movie star
Colin Firth – Peter Ingleton, Felicity’s cousin
Stephen Fry- Frederick Creswell, the butler
Sophie Thompson – Dora ‘Moxie’ Moxton, lady’s maid
Jeanne Tripplehorn – Miranda Frayl, Hollywood actress

The rest of the cast are film only roles, not in the play.

SEE ALSO: Relative Values by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal

It’s a quarter of a century old, but it popped up on the top row on Netflix last night, and we thought we’d give it a go. We saw the play at Bath in 2013, also with a stellar cast: Patricia Hodge as Lady Marchwood, Caroline Quentin as Moxie, and Rory Bremner as Creswell, the butler. It’s clichéd, and not Noël Coward’s best work, but it is entertaining.

The stage play has a small cast of seven, and all takes place in one drawing room. The film has stuck to the early 50s setting (though not specifically 1951) and added locations and characters, particularly a pair of comic housemaids observing the action with jaws dropped.

Briefly. Lady Marchwood (Julie Andrews) has her cousin Peter (Colin Firth) staying with her. They are expecting the return of her son, Nigel (Edward Atterton), now the Earl, with his glamorous Hollywood film star fiancée, Miranda Frayl (Jeanne Tripplehorn). Moxie, the ladies maid (Sophie Thompson ), has been with Lady Marchwood for twenty years. Moxie realises that Miranda is her long lost sister (over 20 years ago) and says she must leave at once. Lady Marchwood cannot exist without her.

She is persuaded to stay with the assistance of cunning Creswell (who had worked it all out) and to tell Nigel that she’s no longer an employee, as she has inherited some money so is now a family friend. She will dress up in fine clothes, do her hair and hope that that Miranda won’t recognize her.

There are three ‘adults’ – Lady Marchwood, her gay cousin and confidante, Peter, and Creswell the butler. Colin Firth is playing the Noël Coward role, suave, sophisticated, worldly wise and inclined to playing the piano. Creswell (Stephen Fry) is also worldly wise, intelligent and scheming to help the family. For Stephen Fry it’s not any stretch at all from his early 1990s role as Jeeves in Jeeves and Wooster. It’s the same character.

Then there are the three ‘children.’ Miranda is being pursued by co-star and ex-lover Don Lucas (William Baldwin) who wants to get her back. Nigel is a chinless wonder. Lady Marchwood realizes that Nigel is being taken for a ride for his title, and when Don Lucas turns up, she invites him to stay with impeccable grace. The best scenes are Moxie getting drunk and pretending to be a wealthy lady. Miranda starts telling wild tales of her poverty-stricken English childhood, all lies, and Moxie stands up and reveals all. This also reveals that Miranda must be older than she claims.

The film is lavish … it was all filmed on the Isle of Man, though that might be for tax reasons as much as ocations. We now have scenes in bedrooms, hallway, below stairs, the gardens, by the swimming pool. They add a scene of Don Lucas in a cowboy movie in Hollywood, deciding to leave and pursue Miranda. He leaves in a Boeing Stratocruiser with lounge chairs and no seatbelts, but arrives in either a DC7 or Britannia. The planes in the air are stock footage, and in those days a Hollywood flight would stop more than once on its way to London, certainly on the East Coast, then probably Gander and Shannon. There’s attention to cars. Nigel has a Jaguar XK120. Don Lucas appears in an old MG. Personally, I’d have given him an American car. Crowds of girl guides wait breathlessly outside the stately home gates. Maids and air stewardesses swoon at Don Lucas.

I go on at length in the play review about the casual racism in the original play. It has all been eradicated. The play runs to two and a half hours. The film is shorter and snappier.

It has an excellent cast, is filmed smoothly in good settings. It’s lightweight, as is the play, but it’s a good one for a cold and wet afternoon in front of a TV.

PLAYS BY NÖEL COWARD

• Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal 2010 (Alison Steadman)
• Blithe Spirit, by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal 2019 (Jennifer Saunders)
• Blithe Spirit FILM 2021 (Judi Dench)
• Fallen Angels, by Noël Coward, Salisbury Playhouse
• Hay Fever by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal
• Relative Values by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal
• Relative Values by Noël Coward, FILM version 2000
• This Happy Breed by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal
• Present Laughter, by  Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal, 2003 Rik Mayall (retrospective)
• Present Laughter by Noël Coward, Bath Theatre Royal 2106, Samuel West
• Present Laughter by Noël Coward, Chichester 2018, Rufus Hound
• Present Laughter by Noël Coward, Old Vic 2019, Andrew Scott
• Private Lives by Noël Coward, Nigel Havers Theatre Company, 2021, Chichester
• Private Lives, by Noël Coward, Donmar Warehouse, London 2023
• Noël Coward’s Brief Encounter, by Emma Rice, Salisbury Playhouse, 2023
• The Vortex, by Noël Coward, Chichester Festival Theatre 2023