Mad About the Boy: The Noël Coward Story

5/24/2023

This is quite a fascinating documentary. Not because Barnaby Thompson has a particularly innovative approach to the subject matter, but because he has managed to use an enormous amount of contemporaneous archive of this enigmatic man, and because he has engaged the charismatic dulcets of Rupert Everett to, rather authentically, read excerpts from his journals that were written, meticulously, throughout his adult life. Born in relative poverty, Coward lived with his parents whilst his mother slaved away running a boarding house. Like his friend in later life, Charlie Chaplin, you get the feeling that this hand-to-mouth upbringing instilled in this largely uneducated man a determination to succeed. From child acting to writing; the USA, Britain and Jamaica all provided creative conduits as h