Playwright Noel Coward

Noel Coward was one of the great figures of the 20th-century British theatre. He wrote or co-wrote over sixty plays and musicals in his lifetime, as well as a number of short stories. In addition to his writing, he was active in many other aspects of theatre, film, and television production. At Coward's 70th birthday party in 1969, Lord Louis Mountbatten commented on all of his contributions to arts and letters:

"There are probably greater painters than Noël, greater novelists than Noel, greater librettists, greater composers of music, greater singers, greater dancers, greater comedians, greater tragedians, greater stage producers, greater film directors, greater cabaret artists, greater TV stars. If there are, they are fourteen different people. Only one man combined all fourteen different labels - The Master."

Coward began working in the theatre as a boy in the first decade of the twentieth century and his plays are still entertaining people across the English-speaking world one hundred years later. In addition to his contributions to the theatre world, he also served his government by working for the Secret Service during WWII. To read a detailed chronology of Coward's life, visit the Noel Coward Society website.

To hear Coward and his friend and collaborator Gertrude Lawrence perform one of Coward's one-act plays, visit the Noel Coward Society website. To hear short audio clips of Coward discussing his life and work, visit the BBC audio interviews archive.