Jane Seymour is an English actress. After making her screen debut as an uncredited extra in the 1969 musical comedy Oh! What a Lovely War, Seymour transitioned to leading roles in film and television, including a leading role in the television series The Onedin Line (1972–1973) and the role of psychic Bond girl Solitaire in the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973).
Alfred David Lunt was an American actor and director, best known for his long stage partnership with his wife, Lynn Fontanne, from the 1920s to 1960, co-starring in Broadway and West End productions. After their marriage, they nearly always appeared together. They became known as "the Lunts" and were celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic.
Lynn Fontanne was an English actress. After early success in supporting roles in the West End, she met the American actor Alfred Lunt, whom she married in 1922 and with whom she co-starred in Broadway and West End productions over the next four decades. They became known as "The Lunts", and were celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic.
Hay Fever is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1924. Its first production was in the West End in 1925 with Marie Tempest as Judith Bliss. A cross between high farce and a comedy of manners, the play is set in an English country house in the 1920s, and deals with the four eccentric members of the Bliss family and their outlandish behaviour when they each invite a guest to spend the weekend. The self-centred behaviour of the hosts finally drives their guests to flee while the Blisses are so engaged in a family row that they do not notice their guests' furtive departure.
Present Laughter is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1939 but not produced until 1942 because the Second World War began while it was in rehearsal, and the British theatres closed. The title is drawn from a song in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night that urges carpe diem. The play has been frequently revived in Britain, the US and beyond.
Evelyn Laye was an English actress and singer.
Dinah Sheridan was an English actress with a career spanning seven decades. She was best known for the films Genevieve (1953) and The Railway Children (1970); the long-running BBC comedy series Don't Wait Up (1983–1990); and for her distinguished theatre career in London's West End.
Belinda Lucy Lange, known professionally as Belinda Lang, is an English actress. She is known for playing Liza in the ITV sitcom Second Thoughts (1991–94), and Bill Porter in the BBC sitcom 2point4 Children (1991–99). Her theatre credits include London productions of the Noël Coward plays, Present Laughter (1981), Blithe Spirit (1997), and Hay Fever (2006). Her radio/audio credits include voicing narrator Madeleine in the podcast Wooden Overcoats.
Catherine Ann "Katy" Manning is a British actress. Although she has made many appearances on both screen and stage, Manning is best known for her part as the companion Jo Grant in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. Manning initially played the role regularly from 1971 to 1973 but also reprised the role in the Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures in 2010. She is also well known for voicing Iris Wildthyme in the audio series Iris Wildthyme for Big Finish Productions since 2005.
Susannah Harker is an English film, television, and theatre actress. She was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award in 1990 for her role as Mattie Storin in House of Cards. She played Jane Bennet in the 1995 TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
Jane Cowl was an American film and stage actress and playwright "notorious for playing lachrymose parts". Actress Jane Russell was named in Cowl's honor.
Dame Irene Vanbrugh DBE was an English actress. The daughter of a clergyman, Vanbrugh followed her elder sister Violet into the theatrical profession and sustained a career for more than 50 years.
Fallen Angels is a comedy by the English playwright Noël Coward. It opened at the Globe Theatre, London on 21 April 1925 and ran until 29 August. The central theme of two wives admitting to premarital sex and contemplating adultery met hostility from the office of the official theatre censor, the Lord Chamberlain, and the necessary licence was granted only after the personal intervention of the Chamberlain.
Janie Dee is a British actress. She won the Olivier Award for Best Actress, Evening Standard Award and Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Play, and in New York the Obie and Theatre World Award for Best Newcomer, for her performance as Jacie Triplethree in Alan Ayckbourn's Comic Potential.
Judy Campbell was an English film, television and stage actress, widely known to be Noël Coward's muse. Her daughter was the actress and singer Jane Birkin, her son the screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin, and among her grandchildren are the actresses Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, the late poet Anno Birkin, the artist David Birkin and the late photographer Kate Barry.
Irene Browne was an English stage and film actress and singer who appeared in plays and musicals including No, No, Nanette. Later in her career, she became particularly associated with the works of Noël Coward and acted in films.
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".
Family Album, described as "a Victorian comedy with music", is a short comic play in one scene by Noël Coward. It is one of ten short plays that make up Tonight at 8.30, a cycle written to be performed in groups of three plays across three evenings. The original production, starring Coward and Gertrude Lawrence played in a pre-London tour, and then the West End, and finally New York, in 1935–1937. Family Album has been revived periodically and has been adapted for television.
A Song at Twilight is a play in two acts by Noël Coward. It is one of a trio of plays collectively titled Suite in Three Keys, all of which are set in the same suite in a luxury hotel in Switzerland. The play depicts an elderly writer confronted by his former mistress with facts about his past life that he would prefer to forget.
Jennifer Gray was a British actress, frequently seen in the West End and on tour between 1934 and 1954. She made only two cinema films, but was often seen on BBC television in the late 1940s. Among the roles she created onstage were Daphne Stillington in Noël Coward's Present Laughter and Queenie Gibbons in his This Happy Breed, which premiered on successive nights in September 1942.
