Coward, because you remind me of my father." That cooled his jets, it did. It does have the story from Kenneth More's memoirs about More's fear, as a young cute juvenile, that Coward would attempt a seduction, and how he fobbed it off by saying, "I could never have an affair with you, Mr. Similarly we hear a lot about Graham Payn, Coward's "Matelot," but nothing about their long-term relationship beyond the fact that the two men were very great friends. Briers isn't exactly prim, and many of his anecdotes are raucous, his language ripe, so I wonder why he is so reticent about Coward's sex life? We find out that Coward broke off with Cochran to set up his own production company in partnership with Jack Wilson, but Briers doesn't mention that Wilson was Coward's boyfriend. Again the breakup story is told thereafter. Cocky Cochran in chapter three, for example, and yet he meets Cocky in chapter four, and works with him in chapter five. Coward breaks up his long theatrical association with the producer C.B. The same stories are told again and again, and the different incidents in Coward's long life are chopped up and tossed like a salad. I lapped up every page of this book, but I would be remiss if I didn't advise readers that this book is organized in a very slapdash manner, nearly invisibly, without rhyme or reason and definitely laughing in the face of old-fashioned chronological order.
England's favorite sitcom star Richard Briers here dusts off his pen and sits back with a cup of hot tea to remember his limited encounters with the master, Noel Coward, and to bask in the master's wit and wisdom in nearly sixty years of acting and playwriting.
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