In this, a short, crackling recording of ‘Private Lives’ (1930), Noel Coward plays ‘Elyot’ and Gertrude Lawrence ‘Amanda’ – a divorced couple who happen to meet again on their respective honeymoons to other people.
How does it have so few views? The cut-glass English accents may be a thing of the past, but the brilliance of their verbal sparring never gets old.
The English censor was nervous of this, ‘the balcony scene’ – with good cause! Below the surface brilliance of Coward’s wit is something deeply subversive. Amanda the mirror image of Elyot, they spend the play repelling and attracting each other. Societal and gender norms breaking down alongside their short-lived marriages…
For after finding themselves in adjoining hotel rooms, they soon also find that the old magic remains. As it does in this old recording:
