Noël Coward Theatre, through June 2.
Clary's self-caricature as an "annoying camp comic and renowned homosexual" is amusing, if self-indulgent, but his portrayal of Noël Coward, filtered through Clary's own sensibility, never quite convinces.
It's in something of the same spirit that one lauds Simon Russell Beale's delicious star turn in the West End revival of "Deathtrap" at the Noel Coward Theatre, through Jan . 22 When you've been an era-defining Hamlet, Iago and Leontes and have a Lear for the National Theatre in the pipeline, you, too, might want to whistle while you work.
"Peter and Alice, Johnn Logan's knotty play at the Noel Coward Theatre through June 1, chronicles a kind of limbo – that's to say, what happens when fame by association takes over a life that can't compete with the renown that nonetheless happens to be yours.
The tour is full of stories with just the right mixture of preciseness (Alfred was a stickler for detail), scandal (a naked Coward dashing through the kitchen) and humor, resulting in a quite complete picture of the first lady and gentleman of stage.
Riffling through Coward's diaries, however, reveals an edgier rivalry than this show suggests.
That fugitive element is allied to a vein of misogyny that one can't deny runs through Coward's work.
This feeling of uselessness eventually leads to thoughts of suicide, though he deems himself too much of a coward to go through with it.
Through Essendine, Coward teases his own public persona and works its magic at the same time.
Jep is gentle, kind, attractive, and also a coward who smirks hopelessly, through the Botox, in the face of ageing.
