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Noël Coward was born in 1899 in Teddington, Middlesex. He made his name as a playwright with The Vortex (1924), in which he also appeared. His numerous other successful plays included Fallen Angels (1925), Hay Fever (1925), Private Lives (1933), Design for Living (1933) and Blithe Spirit (1941). During the war he wrote screenplays such as Brief Encounter (1944) and In Which We Serve (1942). In the fifties he began a new career as a cabaret entertainer. He published volumes of verse and a novel (Pomp and Circumstance, 1960), two volumes of autobiography and four volumes of short stories: To Step Aside (1939), Star Quality (1951), Pretty Polly Barlow (1964) and Bon Voyage (1967). He was knighted in 1970 and died three years later in Jamaica. MICHAEL BILLINGTON is a theatre critic and has written several biographies of well-known playwrights. Having worked as a publicist and director for Lincoln Theatre Company in the 1960s, he was employed by The Times newspaper as a theatre critic in 1965, before joining The Guardian in 1971. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to the theatre. His books include The 101 Greatest Plays: From Antiquity to the Present (2016), State of the Nation: British Theatre Since 1945 (2009) and Harold Pinter (2007). |
