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An elderly writer's former mistress confronts him with letters revealing the truth about his past relationships, including his love for a deceased man. His wife helps negotiate the return of the letters as the former lovers revisit their history.
In 1899 London, the upper crust gather at Lord and Lady Windermere's London house for a spectacular ball. Lady Windermere at first ignores the gossip that she has a rival for her husband's affections, an older woman called Mrs Erlynne, but she eventually confronts Lord Windermere with the accusation. He admits that he has been paying money to Mrs Erlynne but denies that he has had an affair with her and refuses to say more. In fact, Mrs Erlynne is Lady Windermere's mother, whom her daughter believes to be dead, and Lord Windermere is paying her money to keep her from revealing the relationship. Lady Windermere, still believing the worst of her husband, is tempted by the amorous advances of the debonair Lord Darlington and agrees to visit him at his flat. Mrs Erlynne, learning of this before Lord Windermere, rushes to Darlington's flat to prevent her daughter from committing a destructive folly similar to that which she herself committed twenty years earlier. Without letting Lady Windermere know that they are mother and daughter, Mrs Erlynne persuades her that a liaison with Lord Darlington would be disastrous, but before they can leave, Lord Windermere arrives. The ladies conceal themselves, but Lord Windermere discovers the fan that he has recently given his wife as a birthday present and demands to know if Lord Darlington has Lady Windermere in his rooms. To prevent the exposure of Lady Windermere, Mrs Erlynne enters, saying that it is she who is under Lord Darlington's roof and must have picked up Lady Windermere's fan by mistake. Lady Windermere's reputation is saved, but Mrs Erlynne's is compromised. Fortunately, her admirer, Lord Augustus Lorton, is convinced of her honour and proposes marriage. The Windermeres are reconciled, and all ends happily. Lady Windermere never learns that Mrs Erlynne is her mother.
Novelist Charles Condomine's séance summons the ghost of his first wife, Elvira, who tries to disrupt his marriage to his second wife Ruth. After Ruth also dies and returns as a ghost, medium Madame Arcati works to banish both spirits.
At a Lausanne hotel, philosophical Verner Conklin falls for the recently met widow Maud, while his domineering wife Anne-Mary plans a grand dinner party; he leaves his wife to pursue Maud.
The story is set in Regency Brighton in 1811. Paul, the Duc de Chaucigny-Varennes, an émigré from the terrors of the French Revolution, is passing off Melanie, a beautiful young girl, as his ward – the daughter of an executed friend, the Marquis de Tramont. In fact, Melanie is a dance hall singer. Paul's plan is to marry Melanie to a rich husband such as Edward, Marquis of Sheere, who seeks her hand. The rich Lady Julia Charteris, who is much taken with Paul, encourages Edward's marital plans and tries to woo Paul for herself. But Melanie has long loved Paul, and in a last gamble to turn him away from Lady Julia, she pretends to return to France. Her trick works: Paul realises the depth of his feelings for her and there is a romantic happy ending.
The artist Gilda and her former lover, writer Leo, are living with painter Otto, with whom Gilda is also involved. Across Paris, London, and New York, the trio repeatedly separate and reunite as each pursues other relationships and careers, until Gilda returns to Otto and Leo and the three laugh together at their unconventional arrangement.
An elderly writer's former mistress confronts him with letters revealing the truth about his past relationships, including his love for a deceased man. His wife helps negotiate the return of the letters as the former lovers revisit their history.
In 1899 London, the upper crust gather at Lord and Lady Windermere's London house for a spectacular ball. Lady Windermere at first ignores the gossip that she has a rival for her husband's affections, an older woman called Mrs Erlynne, but she eventually confronts Lord Windermere with the accusation. He admits that he has been paying money to Mrs Erlynne but denies that he has had an affair with her and refuses to say more. In fact, Mrs Erlynne is Lady Windermere's mother, whom her daughter believes to be dead, and Lord Windermere is paying her money to keep her from revealing the relationship. Lady Windermere, still believing the worst of her husband, is tempted by the amorous advances of the debonair Lord Darlington and agrees to visit him at his flat. Mrs Erlynne, learning of this before Lord Windermere, rushes to Darlington's flat to prevent her daughter from committing a destructive folly similar to that which she herself committed twenty years earlier. Without letting Lady Windermere know that they are mother and daughter, Mrs Erlynne persuades her that a liaison with Lord Darlington would be disastrous, but before they can leave, Lord Windermere arrives. The ladies conceal themselves, but Lord Windermere discovers the fan that he has recently given his wife as a birthday present and demands to know if Lord Darlington has Lady Windermere in his rooms. To prevent the exposure of Lady Windermere, Mrs Erlynne enters, saying that it is she who is under Lord Darlington's roof and must have picked up Lady Windermere's fan by mistake. Lady Windermere's reputation is saved, but Mrs Erlynne's is compromised. Fortunately, her admirer, Lord Augustus Lorton, is convinced of her honour and proposes marriage. The Windermeres are reconciled, and all ends happily. Lady Windermere never learns that Mrs Erlynne is her mother.
Novelist Charles Condomine's séance summons the ghost of his first wife, Elvira, who tries to disrupt his marriage to his second wife Ruth. After Ruth also dies and returns as a ghost, medium Madame Arcati works to banish both spirits.
At a Lausanne hotel, philosophical Verner Conklin falls for the recently met widow Maud, while his domineering wife Anne-Mary plans a grand dinner party; he leaves his wife to pursue Maud.
The story is set in Regency Brighton in 1811. Paul, the Duc de Chaucigny-Varennes, an émigré from the terrors of the French Revolution, is passing off Melanie, a beautiful young girl, as his ward – the daughter of an executed friend, the Marquis de Tramont. In fact, Melanie is a dance hall singer. Paul's plan is to marry Melanie to a rich husband such as Edward, Marquis of Sheere, who seeks her hand. The rich Lady Julia Charteris, who is much taken with Paul, encourages Edward's marital plans and tries to woo Paul for herself. But Melanie has long loved Paul, and in a last gamble to turn him away from Lady Julia, she pretends to return to France. Her trick works: Paul realises the depth of his feelings for her and there is a romantic happy ending.
The artist Gilda and her former lover, writer Leo, are living with painter Otto, with whom Gilda is also involved. Across Paris, London, and New York, the trio repeatedly separate and reunite as each pursues other relationships and careers, until Gilda returns to Otto and Leo and the three laugh together at their unconventional arrangement.
The Whittakers' conventional household is disrupted when their only son John returns from France with Larita, a glamorous divorcée. As his family judges her past and John grows jealous, Larita exposes their hypocrisies and ultimately leaves him.
Julia and Jane, whose former lover Maurice is expected to visit, debate whether they can resist him and prepare to leave their homes. They drink and quarrel while waiting; when Maurice finally arrives the next morning, he invites both women upstairs, leaving their husbands to panic.
A Victorian family gathers after the funeral of its father. As they reminisce, Lavinia reveals he was cruel and mean, and that she and the butler burned his final will, which would have deprived the family of its inheritance. They celebrate their reprieve by dancing together.
Downtrodden salesman Henry Gow endures breakfast quarrels among his wife Doris, daughter Elsie and mother-in-law. After returning home from work, he confronts all three, reveals he has saved enough to leave, and walks out for good.
At a tea reception in their Mayfair drawing room, the absent-minded Lady Maureen Gilpin repeatedly mistakes one set of guests for another while her naval-officer husband handles calls and tries to entertain them. Their haphazard hospitality leaves an unexpected collection of visitors confused until the mix-up is finally revealed.
The four eccentric members of the Bliss family each invite a guest to their country house for a weekend, without telling one another. They impose parlour games, flirtations, and theatrical outbursts on their increasingly bewildered visitors. The next morning the guests slip away while the family is absorbed in a row and does not notice until the door slams.
After married Janet Ebony returns from France with her platonic friend Peter, their shared train compartment prompts suspicions of adultery. Janet falsely claims they are lovers to shock her mother; misunderstandings and staged scenes deepen the scandal before Janet and her husband agree to divorce and pursue other relationships.
An uncle promises his fortune to whichever of his five nieces and nephews builds the most successful career, prompting them to work; he later reveals he is penniless.
In 1908 Paris, the cocotte Lulu agrees to a mock wedding with Marcel so he can secure his godfather’s fortune, while her lover Philippe is away on military service and a prince seeks an assignation. A string of mistaken letters, hidden guests and bathroom and bedroom disguises turns the sham ceremony into a real marriage, then leaves Lulu free to return to Philippe.
After painter Paul Sorodin dies, his family learns he painted none of the celebrated works sold under his name. His valet Sebastien manages the artists who secretly created the works and manipulates the family’s efforts to protect Sorodin’s reputation.
In an imagined Nazi-occupied Britain, patrons and staff at a London pub negotiate collaboration and resistance from 1940 to 1945. The Shattock family shelters resistance activity; betrayal, imprisonment, and the death of their daughter Doris shape the community’s struggle through liberation.
At a hotel on a West Indian island, owner Linda Valaine, a former missionary’s daughter and war widow, becomes involved with a young airman, Martin. Her Russian head waiter and lover Stefan grows jealous; after Linda rejects him, he drowns himself, and she responds by arranging to hire a new head waiter.
A British soldier mortally wounded in 1917 imagines how his family and acquaintances will respond when the war ends. As a ghost in 1930, he sees that the survivors have learned little from the war; a fellow veteran exposes their indifference, then kills himself. The final scene returns to the trenches as the soldier dies.
Over several days, successful and self-absorbed actor Garry Essendine juggles admirers who try to seduce him, his estranged wife, his employees and a young playwright as he prepares to tour Africa.
Act 1 Following a brief courtship, Elyot and Sibyl are honeymooning at a hotel in Deauville, France, although her curiosity about his first marriage is not helping his romantic mood. In the adjoining suite Amanda and Victor are starting their new life together, although he cannot stop thinking of the cruelty Amanda's ex-husband displayed towards her. Elyot and Amanda, following a volatile three-year-long marriage, have been divorced for five years, but they now discover that they are sharing a terrace while on their honeymoons with their new and younger spouses. Elyot and Amanda separately beg their new spouses to leave the hotel with them immediately, but both new spouses refuse to cooperate and each storms off to dine alone. Realising they still love each other and regretting having divorced, Elyot and Amanda abandon their spouses and run off to Amanda's flat in Paris. Act 2 After dinner at the Paris flat several days later, Elyot and Amanda use their code word "Solomon Isaacs", soon abbreviated to "Sollocks", to stop their arguments from getting out of hand. They kiss passionately, but the harmony cannot last: whilst Elyot and Amanda cannot live without each other, neither can they live together. They argue violently and try to outwit each other, just as they had done during their stormy marriage. Their ongoing argument escalates to a point of fury, as Amanda breaks a record over Elyot's head and he retaliates by slapping her face. They seem trapped in a repeating cycle of love and hate, consumed by their private passions and jealousies. At the height of their biggest fight, Sibyl and Victor walk in. Act 3 The next morning Amanda tries to sneak away early but is surprised to find Sibyl and Victor there. As they talk, Elyot enters, and he and Amanda start bickering again. It has been decided that neither of the new spouses will grant a divorce for a year, to give Amanda and Elyot time to confirm if this is really what they want. As tempers rise, Sibyl and Victor begin to bicker with each other, defending their respective spouses. Amanda and Elyot realise that Sibyl and Victor are as suited to each other as they are, forgive each other and sneak out, leaving the younger two together. As Elyot and Amanda tiptoe out, Victor and Sibyl have reached the point of mutual violence.
In the mid-Victorian era, an English aristocrat and an American businessman's wife elope to France. Their deserted spouses follow them, and the American businessman and aristocrat's wife gradually form a bond of their own.
A husband-and-wife music-hall double act, George and Lily Pepper, perform comic songs while quarrelling with one another and their colleagues. Their dressing-room disputes interrupt the numbers, and the final tap dance descends into a fight with the musical director.
When aristocrat Nigel plans to marry Hollywood actress Miranda, his mother Felicity learns that her maid Moxie is Miranda’s elder sister and refuses to lose her indispensable companion. The household disguises Moxie’s changed status, but Miranda’s invented account of her poor childhood and Moxie’s disclosure unsettle the engagement; Miranda ultimately leaves with her former lover Don, restoring the household’s preferred order.
Sail Away is a musical with a book, music and lyrics by Noël Coward. The show was the last musical for which Coward wrote both the book and music, although he wrote the music for one last book musical in 1963. The story centres on brash, bold American divorcee Mimi Paragon, working as a hostess on a British cruise ship. The musical ran on Broadway (1961) and in the West End (1962) and has been revived since. Elaine Stritch was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in the original production.
In the public rooms of a Paris hotel from 1925 to 1927, a changing group of socialites engage in rendezvous, affairs, quarrels and reconciliations. The play includes queer couples and exposes hypocrisy and sexual repression amid its decadent social world. In the second act, entangled affairs culminate in a shooting before the turmoil settles into a restoration of heterosexual order.
Vicky Gayforth takes sleeping tablets after she and her husband Simon agree to divorce. In a drug-induced dream she revisits their courtship and marriage through shifting scenes, dances and songs; when she wakes, Simon’s concern rekindles their affection and they reconcile.
In a Swiss hotel suite, Linda and Anne discuss the terminal cancer of George, Anne’s estranged husband and Linda’s lover. George reveals that he already knows he is dying and plans to spend his remaining time with both women, moving between Linda and his family with Anne.
At a hotel in northern Italy, bored Englishwoman Lucy meets Sirio, a local painter, while her husband plans to leave for business. After falling in love with Sirio, she separates from her husband; when Sirio later leaves to help his mother, Lucy declares herself free but is uncertain about what comes next.
On the Pacific island of Samolo, liberal Governor George Shotter and his wife Sandra navigate a conflict between British rule and independence. When Sandra's attempt to influence independence advocate Hali Alani turns into an encounter at his beach house, a political blackmail scheme follows; Hali ultimately shields her, and the factions reconcile.
At a charity committee meeting for a home for destitute actresses, a secretary tries to secure approval for necessary building repairs while self-involved performers turn the discussion toward their own fundraising ideas and fail to attend to his figures. After the chairwoman promises a donation and rushes away, the meeting dissolves without formally closing, leaving her dog behind.
Across a year of chance encounters at a railway-station refreshment room, married housewife Laura Jesson and married physician Alec Harvey begin a secret love affair. Guilt and impending separation end their relationship; their parting is interrupted by a talkative friend, and Laura remains behind at the station.
A trilogy set in a luxury Swiss hotel suite, where British, American, and German guests encounter the same Italian waiter across A Song at Twilight and the double bill of Shadows of the Evening and Come Into the Garden, Maud.
Psychiatrist Chris Faber begins an affair with Leonora, an old friend of his wife Barbara, and becomes increasingly unstable under the strain. The six-scene tragedy frames the story around Chris’s final illness and death, revealing through shifting time how obsession and guilt culminate in suicide.
Alice, disillusioned with her self-satisfied husband David, proposes that he marry her friend Marion after Marion’s failed attempt to seduce him; Alice then plans a scandalous affair to satisfy divorce law, leaving the other two bewildered.
The story is set in 1911 London at the time of George V's coronation. American-born chorus girl Mary Morgan becomes involved with Balkan archduke Charles, the widowed prince regent of Carpathia, after he sees a performance of her West End musical The Coconut Girl. She soon becomes involved with the actions of his teenaged son, King Nicholas, as well as the Queen Mother.
In 1735 France, the return of Eloise, a singer and former lover of Count Raoul, disrupts the arranged marriage of their children Adrienne and Miguel. The revelations that Miguel and Adrienne share a mother lead to a forced marriage, a duel and the older generation’s reconciliation.
Novelist Sheila marries aspiring playwright Keld despite a friend’s warning that two egotistical writers will struggle to share a life. As Sheila’s writing stalls and Keld has an affair with an actress, she leaves him; later, pregnant and frightened, she considers returning despite no longer loving him.
Nicky Lancaster, a young composer, struggles with cocaine use and resentment of his ageing socialite mother, Florence, whose affairs with younger men fuel society gossip. When Nicky's fiancée discovers Florence's lover is her former fiancé, relationships fracture; mother and son confront each other and agree to try to change.
Two spirited children from George Brent’s first marriage try to separate him from his unsympathetic second wife and reunite him with their mother. Their schemes around an attempted elopement and their mother’s new suitor eventually bring George and Jennifer back together.
The Gibbons family’s life in a South London home unfolds from 1919 to 1939 through changes in work, politics, relationships, grief, and family reconciliation, ending as Frank and Ethel prepare to leave for the country.
Portrait painter Edward Churt knows his wife Carol has affairs with other men and treats them lightly until he finally declares he will divorce her. His decision remains comically casual: he leaves for lunch after making it, and the play ends with a joke about suicide.
A cycle of ten one-act plays by Coward, mostly comedies with three serious pieces and four plays containing songs. The plays were presented in rotating triple bills; their subjects and tones vary rather than forming one continuous plot. The cycle includes We Were Dancing, The Astonished Heart, Red Peppers, Hands Across the Sea, Fumed Oak, Shadow Play, Family Album, Star Chamber, Ways and Means, and Still Life.
At The Wings, a charity home for retired actresses, May Davenport is furious when her old rival Lotta Bainbridge moves in. Amid a fundraising show, a fire and the residents’ changing fortunes, the women gradually reconcile; when Lotta’s son invites her to leave for Canada, she chooses the community she has made at the home.
Heiress Stella Cartwright and her gambling husband Toby face debts and eviction from their French villa. When a disgraced chauffeur breaks in to rob them, Stella turns the encounter into a scheme to rob their guests and recover their money.
At a dance on a South Pacific island, married Louise falls for Karl and plans to leave with him for Australia. After talking through the night, they realize their feelings were fleeting and part amicably.
Lady Warple’s trance makes her behave like a dog whenever anyone mentions the weather; a household attempt to cure her ends in fatal violence.