Noël and Gertie, Down and Dirty

Noël Coward once said ‘There will always be a few people…in every generation who will find my work entertaining and true.’ An understatement indeed, and one of the premises of Noël and Gertie, Down and Dirty, a revue detailing the lives of Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, both LGBTQIA+ stars of the early part of the 20^th century.

Written by Jonathan Mill, and featuring Deborah Caddy, Breanna Macey, Jonathan Mill, Mark Oates, Mariette Rups-Donnelly, with musical direction by Jeremy Brennan and the pianistic talents of Bev Kennedy, this show is a treasure trove of Coward and other show composers of the period.

The songs abound, too many to list in full here. They include ‘Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs Worthington’, ‘Someday I’ll Find You’, ‘You’d be So Nice to Come Home To’, ‘A Room with a View’, ‘Any Little Fish’, ‘I Went to a Marvellous Party’ and of course, ‘Mad Dogs and Englishman’ to name a few.

My favourite moments of the production are – Mark Oates’ rendering of ‘Mad About the Boy’, the Coward lyrics of Cole Porter’s ‘Let’s Do It’, the excerpt from the balcony scene from Private Lives (Caddy and Oates) and ‘Jenny’ (by Gershwin & Weill performed by Rups-Donnelly).

Having directed a large amount of the Coward repertoire and played the Master himself many times, I was excited to see what Noël and Gertie, Down and Dirty had to offer. I was delighted! The rapport between the cast is obvious, the script is well researched /written and there are many ‘down and dirty’ secrets from their lives , some I had never heard before.

Coward is a wordsmith and his lyrics are often delivered at speed with crisp articulation. I missed the ‘Coward’ style of delivery and phrasing in some of the more iconic numbers. There were also some ‘line fluffs’, but this should settle as the season progresses.

Noël and Gertie, Down and Dirty is a clever melange of the history and works of Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, their private lives and their connection with LGBTQIA+ today. Go and see it, even if you have never heard of Noël and Gertie, they were the queer crusaders of their time!

Barry Hill OAM

To check out our round-up of Adelaide Fringe reviews, click here.