Faster, Faster

Back when popular culture actually had some, Noël Coward (1899–1973) seemed to create about half of it. In his songs (“Mad Dogs and Englishmen”), he put his own lyrics to his own music. On the London stage ( Private Lives ), he sometimes played the lead in the comedies he’d written. In the columns and on the town, he was so much the apex of sophisticated wit that not having been to “a party where they honored Noël Coward” was one reason, according to Rodgers and Hart, that the lady is a tramp. And yet, Coward’s sophisticated wit had a peculiar come-join-us quality. Even when heard from the second balcony, the high-life repartee of Design for Living made listeners feel they were third-row center—and actually belonged there.

Any chance to unpack what ...