The Work of Noël Coward

The Last Chapter (1917)
Co-written with Esmé Wynne under their joint pen name, Esnomel

Woman and Whisky (1918)
Co-written with Esmé Wynne

The Rat Trap (1918)
First Produced in 1926

I'll Leave It to You (1920)

Sirocco (1921)
Revised in 1927

The Young Idea (1922)

The Better Half (1922)

The Queen Was in the Parlour (1922)
First Produced in 1926

The Vortex (1923)
First Produced in 1924

Easy Virtue (1924)
First Produced in 1925

Fallen Angels (1925)

Hay Fever (1925)

Semi-Monde (1926)
Originally Ritz Bar, First Produced in 1977

This Was a Man (1926)

The Marquise (1927)

Home Chat (1927)

Private Lives (1929)
First Produced in 1930

Post Mortem (1932)
First Produced in 1992

Cavalcade (1930)
First Produced in 1931

Design For Living (1932)
First Produced in 1933

Point Valaine (1934)

Tonight at 8:30 (1935/36) a cycle of ten one-act plays:
We Were Dancing, The Astonished Heart, Red Peppers,
Hands Across the Sea, Fumed Oak, Shadow Play,
Ways and Means, Still Life, Family Album, Star Chamber

Present Laughter (1939)
First Produced 1942

This Happy Breed (1939)
First Produced 1943

Time Remembered (1940)

Blithe Spirit (1941)

Peace In Our Time (1947)

Long Island Sound (1947)
First Produced 1989

South Sea Bubble [Island Fling in USA] (1951)

Relative Values (1951)

Quadrille (1952)

Nude with Violin (1956)

Volcano (1957)
First Produced in 2002

Look After Lulu! (1959)

Waiting in the Wings (1960)

Suite in Three Keys (1966)
A Song at Twilight, Shadows of the Evening, 
Come into the Garden, Maud 

Star Quality (1967)
First Produced in Bath, 1985

Musicals

Bitter Sweet (1928/1929)
An operetta

Conversation Piece (1933)
Comedy with music

Operette (1937)
A musical play

Pacific 1860 (1946)
A musical romance

Ace of Clubs (1949)
A musical play

After the Ball (1953)
A musical based on Lady Windermere's Fan

London Morning (1958)
A ballet

Sail Away (1959–61)
A musical comedy

The Girl Who Came to Supper (1963)
A musical comedy based on The Sleeping Prince

Revues and Sketches

London Calling! (1922, 1923)
A revue in collaboration with Ronald Jeans

Weatherwise (1923)
First Produced in 1932

On With the Dance (1924, 1925)

This Year of Grace (1927, 1928)
Originally Charles B. Cochran's Revue

Charles B. Cochran’s Revue (1931)

The Third Little Show (1931)

Words and Music (1932)

Set to Music (1939)
A Broadway rewrite of Words and Music

Sigh No More (1945)

Oh, Coward! (1972)

Cowardy Custard (1972)

Selected Filmography

The Queen Was In The Parlour (1927)

Director: Graham Cutts. Starring Lili Damita

Based on Coward’s play

Easy Virtue (1927)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring Isabel Jeans

Based on Coward’s play

The Vortex (1927)

Director: Adrian Brunel. Starring Ivor Novello

Based on Coward’s play

Private Lives (1931)

Director: Sidney Franklin. Starring Norma Shearer & Robert Montgomery

Based on Coward’s play

Tonight Is Ours (1933)

Director: Stuart Walker. Starring Claudette Colbert & Fredric March
Based on Coward’s play, ‘The Queen Was In The Parlour’

Cavalcade (1932)

Director: Frank Lloyd. Starring Diana Wynyard & Clive Brook

Based on Coward’s play

Winner of 3 Oscars – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Art Direction

Bitter Sweet (1933)

Director: Herbert Wilcox. Starring Anna Neagle

Based on Coward’s operetta

Design For Living (1933)

Director: Ernst Lubitsch. Starring Fredric March, Gary Cooper & Miriam Hopkins

Based on Coward’s play

Bitter Sweet (1940)

Director: W.S. Van Dyke. Starring Jeanette MacDonald & Nelson Eddy

Based on Coward’s operetta

We Were Dancing (1942)

Director: Robert Z. Leonard. Starring Norma Shearer & Melvyn Douglas
Based on one of the 10 plays in Coward’s Tonight at 8:30

In Which We Serve (1942)

Director: Noël Coward & David Lean. Starring Noël Coward, Celia Johnson & John Mills

Screenplay by Coward

Nominated for best film and best screenplay at the 1944 Academy Awards and winner of an honorary award at the 1943 Academy Awards

This Happy Breed (1943)

Director: David Lean. Starring Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, John Mills

Based on Coward’s play

Brief Encounter (1945)

Director: David Lean. Starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard
Based on Coward's short play Still Life, one of the 10 plays in Coward’s Tonight at 8:30

Nominated for 3 Academy Awards

Blithe Spirit (1945)

Director: David Lean. Starring Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond & Margaret Rutherford

Based on Coward’s play

Winner of an Academy Award for best special effects.

The Astonished Heart (1950)

Director: Antony Darnbrough & Terence Fisher. Starring Noël Coward, Celia Johnson, Margaret Leighton & Graham Payn
Based on one of the 10 plays in Coward’s Tonight at 8:30

Meet Me Tonight (1952)

Director: Anthony Pelisser. Starring Valerie Hobson, Stanley Holloway & Nigel Patrick
Based on Red Peppers, Fumed Oak and Ways & Means in Coward’s Tonight at 8:30

Pretty Polly, UK/A Matter of Innocence, US (1967)

Director: Guy Green. Starring Hayley Mills & Trevor Howard
Based on Coward’s short story Pretty Polly Barlow

Relative Values (2000)

Director: Eric Styles. Starring: Julie Andrews, Colin Firth & Stephen Fry

Based on Coward’s play

Easy Virtue (2008)

Director: Stephan Elliott. Starring Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Kristin Scott Thomas & Colin Firth

Based on Coward’s play

Blithe Spirit (2020)

Director: Edward Hall. Starring Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher, Leslie Mann & Judi Dench

Based on Coward’s play

Screen Acting Roles

Hearts of the World (1918)

Cameo

Coward’s first screen appearance in D.W. Griffith’s First World War blockbuster, pushing a wheelbarrow past Lillian Gish.

The Scoundrel (1935)

As Anthony Mallare

Coward played an egocentric publisher in this Hecht & MacArthur Film, which won an Academy Award for best story.

In Which We Serve (1942)

As Captain Kinross

Coward starred as a seaman based on his personal friend, Lord Mountbatten, as well as writing, directing and producing.

The Astonished Heart (1950)

As Christian Faber

Coward took over the leading role from Michael Redgrave.

Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)

As Roland Hesketh-Baggott

Coward had a cameo role as in this Academy Award best picture winner. He was paid £100 and one Bonnard painting.

Our Man in Havana (1959)

As Agent Hawthorne

Coward played a bowler-hatted secret service agent opposite Alec Guinness.

Surprise Package (1960)

As King Pavel II

Critics claimed Coward stole the film opposite Yul Brynner and Mitzi Gaynor.

Paris When It Sizzles (1963)

As Alexander Mayerheim

Coward had a small, but memorable part in this Audrey Hepburn/William Holden comedy.

Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)

As Horacio Wilson

Coward shared a scene with Laurence Olivier as Superintendent Newhouse, 35 years after they were on stage together in Private Lives.

Androcles and the Lion (1967)

As Caesar

Coward was directed by his Sail Away choreographer, Joe Layton, in this American TV special.

Boom (1968)

As The Witch of Capri

Coward’s friends (and neighbours) Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor co-starred in this adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore.

The Italian Job (1969)

As Mr. Bridger

Coward’s final screen appearance, alongside long term partner, Graham Payn. Directed by Peter Collinson, whom Coward had known and supported since he was a child at the Actor’s orphanage.

Other Works

Short Story Collections

To Step Aside (1939)

The Wooden Madonna, Traveller’s Joy, Aunt Tittie, What Mad Pursuit?, Cheap Excursion, The Kindness of Mrs. Radcliffe, Nature Study

Star Quality (1951)

A Richer Dust, Mr. and Mrs. Edgehill, Stop Me If You’ve Heard It, Ashes Of Roses, This Time Tomorrow, Star Quality

Pretty Polly & Other Stories (1965)

Pretty Polly Barlow, Mrs. Capper’s Birthday, Me And The Girls

Bon Voyage & Other Stories (1967)

Solali, Mrs Ebony, Penny Dreadful, Bon Voyage

Novels

Pomp And Circumstance (1960)

Satire

A Withered Nosegay (1922)

Chelsea Buns (1925)

Spangled Unicorn (1932)

Poetry

Not Yet the Dodo (1967)