Mainly about Style

Abstract

The many tributes to Coward share, despite their diversity, a common focus: his uniqueness. They may praise his plays or his songs extravagantly, they may use words like ‘genius’, but more frequently their specific approbation is muted, freely acknowledging that there were better writers, better composers, more variously talented actors. To celebrate Coward is not necessarily to admire a particular piece of work but to enjoy the impact of a highly personal style, the projection of a markedly individual personality upon its chosen material. Even at the lowest point in his fortunes this seemed clear. In 1953 Tynan recorded that ‘Even the youngest of us will know, in fifty years’ time, exactly what we mean by “a very Noel Coward sort of person”.’¹ Rattigan, who by the mid-fifties saw Coward and himself as united in a common theatrical cause, called him ‘simply a phenomenon’.² And John Osborne, who at that time cast himself as a sort of proletarian antagonist to Coward, nevertheless acknowledged that ‘Mr Coward… is his own invention and contribution to this century. Anyone who cannot see that should keep well away from the theatre.’³