Noël Coward, the English playwright who loved all things American
Half a century after his death, the playwright, songwriter, actor, director and general Renaissance man Noël Coward is regarded, with some justification, as the quintessential English polymath. His best-known plays and songs, from Private Lives and Present Laughter to “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” and “London Pride,” seem so steeped in their Britishness — even if Coward was catering to a country that loved seeing a distorted, exaggerated version of itself — they could be placed in a time capsule as perfectly executed microcosms of the national identity. Any man who could write “Wouldn’t it be dreadful to live in a country where they didn’t have tea?
