The 100th anniversary of Noël Coward’s West End debut is to be celebrated by an all-star cast online. Judi Dench, Stephen Fry, Cush Jumbo, Emma Thompson and Giles Terera are among those who are performing speeches and songs by the British playwright for A Marvellous Party on 20 September. Actors have either self-recorded their performances at home or have been filmed on location with Covid-19 safety measures in place.
Coward made his West End debut as a playwright in the summer of 1920 with I’ll Leave It to You, in which he also appeared. Several of the actors featured in the celebration have won acclaim for their portrayals of Coward’s characters, including Indira Varma, who starred in Present Laughter at the Old Vic in 2019.
A Marvellous Party can be streamed for free but any donations will go towards the performers’ charities Acting for Others (in the UK) and the Actors Fund (in the US). Alan Brodie, chair of the Noël Coward Foundation, said Coward himself “galvanised his famous friends into raising considerable sums for charitable causes on both sides of the Atlantic and was also a founder member of the Combined Theatrical Charities, the predecessor organisation to Acting for Others. Noël would have been very distressed by the shutdowns of the West End, Broadway and theatres across the world resulting in hardship for so many.”
Emma Thompson will also star in another Coward charity event this weekend. She is taking part in a live virtual table read of his play Private Lives, organised by Lockdown Theatre in association with the Royal Theatrical Fund. Jonathan Church directs the reading on Zoom, which will also feature Sanjeev Bhaskar, Emilia Clarke and Robert Lindsay. Funds raised will be used as a crisis grant to support those who are struggling financially in the theatre industry.
