Noël Coward’s Home Chat has not been seen for nearly 90 years. In his autobiography, Present Indicative, Coward says his comedy has some excellent lines and a reasonably funny situation but that he was not entirely pleased with it: “It was a little better than bad, but not quite good enough and that was that.”
The premiere in 1927 did not go well. The leading lady dried on a number of occasions and the pace was funereal. The gallery and pit booed at the curtain call. Coward took to the stage. “We expected a better play!” shouted a galleryite. “I expected better manners!” snapped Coward. The notices next day were all bad and the play ran for only 38 performances.
Home Chat is a flippant and cynical commentary on society’s hypocrisy and a woman’s right to sexual freedom. But where is Coward’s wit? Nobody will be rooting for the heroine who behaves in such a crass manner when she is falsely accused of adultery by her husband, mother-in-law and mother.