I couldn't find any great clips of Angela Lansbury in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit (although if YOU can, I would very much appreciate it) but YouTube provided me with one of his classic plays: Present Laughter.
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 1899 – 26 March 1973) 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".[1]
Born in Teddington, southwest London, Coward attended a dance academy in London as a child, making his professional stage début at the age of eleven. As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter and Blithe Spirit, have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. He composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works (including the operetta Bitter Sweet and comic revues), poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance, and a three-volume autobiography. Coward's stage and film acting and directing career spanned six decades, during which he starred in many of his own works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Coward starred as Garry Essendine in Present Laughter during the original run.According to wiki, Coward wrote it in 1939 but it was first staged in 1942, apparently shortly before Blithe Spirit was first staged: and both of them on tour. (See wiki link about the play, below the fleur-de-kos.)
Below the fold, the entire play as filmed by the BBC, from a West End production in 1981:
About the play:
The plot follows a few days in the life of the successful and self-obsessed light comedy actor Garry Essendine as he prepares to travel for a touring commitment in Africa. Amid a series of events bordering on farce, Garry has to deal with women who want to seduce him, placate both his long-suffering secretary and his estranged wife, cope with a crazed young playwright, and overcome his impending mid-life crisis (since he has recently turned forty). The story was described by Coward as "a series of semi-autobiographical pyrotechnics".[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
I've now watched Present Laughter about three times, and it's definitely worth the time -- I find that farce moves so very quickly, I can't catch all the nuance the first time through: and that probably sounds like oxymoron. A farce with nuance? Yes: farce is far more nuanced, in my experience, than tragedy, which just sort of beats you over the head with a baseball bat. I mean, was there EVER any doubt what Hedda Gabler was about? Or Hamlet?
But great comedy, and farce in particular, moves so quickly and is spoken so quickly that it rewards frequent revisits. (In film, think: Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, and The Philadelphia Story, to name only a few.)
I found a documentary about Noel Coward that might be of interest to Theatricals readers: