My guest this week is OLIVER SODEN, the author of a truly remarkable new book:

Masquerade — The Lives of Noel Coward.

As frequent listeners to this podcast may remember, as a teenager growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, I developed an unlikely affinity for all things related to Noel Coward, inspired I am sure by that double record cast recording of the 1972 musical revue, Oh, Coward! — an album that I still love listening to. And from then on I was hooked! So this book is right in my wheelhouse!

This is the first biography of Coward in nearly thirty years and it is a spectacular achievement — incredibly thorough and brilliantly researched. Perhaps most remarkably, as the title would indicate, Oliver Soden is able to encompass all of the many lives of Noel Coward — including his multiple careers as actor, singer, dancer, playwright, lyricist, composer, director, media celebrity, screenwriter, film director, and night club entertainer, as well as his hair-raising espionage career during World War II and his personal life, and romantic gay relationships which, of course, had to be kept secret at the time. But because of Soden’s exclusive and unrestricted access to Coward’s unpublished diaries and correspondence they are revealed here in more detail than ever before.

And I was especially happy that this book gives equal weight to Coward’s musicals, revues, and songs as it does to his brilliant plays.

Oliver Sodon is a writer and broadcaster whose previous books include the critically acclaimed 2019 biography of composer Michael Tippett. Oliver’s writing on art, music and literature has appeared in the Guardian, Spectator, London Review of Books, and the Times Literary Supplement, and he is a frequent guest speaker on BBC radio and television broadcasts.

Noel Coward was without a doubt one of the most remarkable figures of the 20th Century, and as you will hear over the next several episodes, Oliver Soden and I had a great time discussing Coward and this extraordinary new biography.

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