Mad About the Boy – The Noël Coward Story review – brisk trot through life and career – The Guardian

Here is a brisk documentary about Noël Coward, who sailed to New York aged 20 with £17 in his pocket, and by his thirtieth birthday was the highest-paid creator within the western world; in his lifetime he wrote 500 songs and 60 performs – appearing in additional than 70. At its greatest, that is an environment friendly movie that does a stable, succinct job of becoming lots of life into just a little over 90 minutes; Coward died aged 73 in 1973. However in some methods this seems like a Wikipedia entry learn out loud, by no means fairly getting beneath the pores and skin of an advanced man.

Coward grew up poor within the suburbs of London, aided and abetted on to the stage as a toddler by his adoring mom, Violet, who appears to have indulged her son’s precocious show-offy streak. Violet was a genteel lady who had fallen on onerous instances, and stored a boarding home. Coward as soon as stated he wished to grow to be as wealthy and profitable as rapidly as attainable “to get mom out of that damned kitchen”. Even after his first large sensation in Nineteen Twenties London with The Vortex, he lived at dwelling along with his mum and pop.

In The Vortex, Coward forged himself as Nicky, a “proficient, subtle playboy”. Off stage, he rigorously crafted his public picture within the character’s likeness: clipped accent masking his non-posh background. He lived in worry of being outed as homosexual (his pal John Gielgud had a nervous breakdown after being arrested for cottaging). It’s prompt right here that Churchill’s disapproval of Coward’s sexuality may need been one cause that he didn’t get a knighthood after writing and co-directing with David Lean the patriotic wartime film In Which We Serve. The extent of Coward’s worry of being uncovered is obvious from a diary extract: “I research my very own facade rigorously … I take ruthless inventory of myself within the mirror earlier than going out, for even a polo jumper or unlucky tie exposes one to hazard.”

The movie has a number of intimate moments like this, when it feels near Coward, however principally it trots via his life and profession. Nonetheless, there’s lots from Coward himself, who isn’t lower than entertaining in diary entries and snippets of his display appearing. Then there’s the chatshow appearances in later life; he drops bon mots like grenades, shamelessly basking within the glow of consideration. “What age do you know you have been a star?” the presenter asks. “Two,” he deadpans.

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