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Hay Fever (Modern Classics)

Hay Fever (Modern Classics)

by Noël Coward (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2002

    $11.53
Synopsis

First produced in 1925, Hay Fever is technically a masterpiece. A comedy of bad manners which starts with the arrival of four guests, invited independently by different members of the Bliss family for a weekend at their country house near Maidenhead. The promise of an idyllic and peaceful weekend is quickly trounced by the self-absorbed eccentricities of the family who leave the guests to slink away humiliated, embarrassed and abandoned. "It does not date...it is in the highest mood of fantastic comedy, it is deliciously heartless and therefore delicioiusly alive and fresh" The Times

$11.53

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 112
 Edition: New Edition - New ed
 Publisher: Methuen Drama
Published: 20 Jun 2002
ISBN 10: 0413540901
ISBN 13: 9780413540904

Media Reviews
'No one in modern English comedy boasts a more seductively comic or escapist approach to life than the self-absorbed family in Noel Coward's Hay Fever... Coward celebrates the value, enchantment and absurdity of escaping from life into theatrics.' Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard, 17.4.09 'Coward's Hay Fever, like the allergy, is always with us.' Michael Billington, Guardian, 17.4.09 'Hay Fever...was written in a spirit as fresh and cutting as new-mown lawn. It's an affectionate and arch portrait of Berkshire bohemians behaving badly. Politeness and Restraint are not this play's middle names.' Dominic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph, 17.4.09 'Coward's paradoxical plot hilariously exposes the guests good manners as a mask for hiprocrisy and the artifices of the family as the true expression of sincerely genuine natures.' Clare Brennan, Observer, 27.06.10 'This hectically Bohemian family, artificial to the point of lunacy in the memorable words of one of their hapless house guests, is among Noel Coward's strongest creations and has enjoyed star-studded outings since its 1925 debut.' Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard (London), 29.9.10 'This comedy of bad manners, in which a family of insufferably self-regarding bohemians treat their more conventional guests with abominable rudeness at a weekend house party' Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph, 29.9.10 'There is a splendid clipped precision about Coward's dialogue, and the constant realisation that the characters are actually thinking very different things from the banal platitudes they actually utter.' Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph, 29.9.10 'It's a beautifully constructed play' Jeremy Kingston, The Times, 30.9.10 It was 'written by the playwright over a single weekend in 1921. It proved a highly profitable weekend for Coward' Lyn Gardner, Guardian, 1.10.10
Author Bio
Noel Coward made his name as a playwright with The Vortex (1924), in which he also appeared. His numerous other successful plays included Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, and Blithe Spirit. During the war he wrote screenplays such as Brief Encounter (1944) and This Happy Breed (1942). His volumes of verse, autobiography and letters have all been published to acclaim by Methuen Drama. Coward was knighted in 1970 and died three years later in Jamaica.