Suite in Three Keys - Orange Tree

Those were done on TV with Joan Collins. Got the DVD but haven't watched them yet.
www.imdb.com/title/tt1186344/

The Astonished Heart is another Tonight at 8:30 one-act that has been adapted to the film of the same name (1950). Noel plays a psychiatrist who has an affair with his wife's friend, played by Margaret Leighton. Celia Johnson plays the wife. It features a great Coward family cast, including Graham Payn, Joyce Carey, and Alan Webb.

On Sunday 13 September 1987, I went to a performance of Noel Coward's Semi-Monde at the Royalty Theatre in Kingsway. It was a benefit for the Combined Theatrical Charities Appeal Council. Everyone was in it: Joyce Carey, Elisabeth Welch, Evelyn Laye, Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Michael Williams, Finty Williams, Jane Asher, Joanna Lumley, Patricia Hodge, Frank Thornton, Ian Ogilvy, Caroline Blakiston, Tim Pigott-Smith, Angela Thorne, Jeremy Sinden, Gwen Watford, Barry Humphries, and many others. I was lucky to be in London and get a last-minute front row seat.

Must have been around 1982 when I saw Joyce Carey in Pygmalion with Peter O'Toole when she was around 84. She was playing Mrs Higgins which is a significant part. It was touching because the relationship Mrs Higgins has with her son Henry in the play must have mirrored (deliberately I think) their perceived status as actors in the industry. Hard to overstate the charisma and sense of unpredictability O'Toole carried with him on stage.  

This is the third time recently I’ve had a more positive view of an OT production than early posters here who saw previews. I’m not sure how long a rehearsal period they have at the OT but I get the impression that their previews are not much different to rehearsals. In particular comic or partly comic plays need to be fine-tuned in front of an audience several times before they are ready. Also run times almost always reduce between previews and the post-opening run and the actors are more secure in their parts. For that reason I think reviews and comments here and on social media based on previews are problematic - people may be put off from seeing a production due to unrepresentative reviews. I know that previews are cheaper and that’s why people book them but that’s for a reason - they are not seeing the finished production.

I thought all three plays were well acted and directed without hitting the heights. I like Emma Fielding and was glad to see her on stage again. I’d characterise Stephen Boxer as “reliable”. He has a competent go at parts that on the face of it he isn’t entirely suitable for. In this case as Coward wrote the three parts for himself to play I’m not sure who would have been obvious casting. I last saw Boxer as Titus Andronicus for the RSC, again not obvious casting but a part Coward would have struggled with. Tara Fitzgerald was the most natural casting across the three plays.

The first short play is weak. Coward himself thought this too as he dropped it for the proposed Broadway transfer of the plays. The second short play, which I’d seen before, is a lightweight comedy which was entertaining enough. The longer play is a more substantial work and stood up quite well. The character portrayed was inspired by the writer Somerset Maugham but in the key theme there are echoes of Coward’s own life and that of several film actors both before and since.

Overall a good 3*

Finally saw the Double Bill this afternoon (I had to abandon plans to see these plays earlier due to an injury), and judging by the above comments, the plays have been getting better even faster than I have been getting better lol.

Because I thought Stephen Boxer was an absolute hoot as the multimillionaire American dripping money everywhere, Verner Conklin, in "Come into the Garden Maude" this afternoon. He has really nailed how to land a wry punchline at this late stage in the run, and he never missed, whether stomaching drily his wife's pretensions (a deliriously out-of-control flustered barrage from the wonderful Emma Fielding) or getting excited by his prospective Mistress's liberalism (Tara Fitzgerald in top flighty form).

Its just laughs, but I laughed a lot to the tune of 4 stars.

The other play is just too dated in it's assumption we will be dazzled by how knowing and reasonable a man, his wife and his mistress can be in the face of death. I was bored by that one to the tune of 2 stars.

The Orange Tree was totally sold out, more so than anything I've seen there for ages, with a full standing section.

I myself have had to resort to booking standing for the final play, but hey ho, I'll give it a go. I'm glad I'm not missing it.

I've now seen all 3 plays.
I found them all an absolute treat.
The three main actors are terrific (quite a feat of line-learning too) and the singing waiter is the icing on the cake.

So pleased to have seen these. The interval concert was a treat. The acting was pretty outstanding.

Thanks, a bit far for me!