NOEL Coward’s dazzling wit and uncompromising insights into human behaviour rightly won him the title of “The Master”, and his legacy is a collection of brilliant plays set in a time before political correctness and the “classless” society we now claim. That means they need a very careful and specific style to ring true and entertain a modern audience.

The short play Hands Across the Sea is a perfect example of the need for pitch perfection, because you really do have to believe in these people as they are written. Lady Maureen (Piggie) Gilpin is married to naval commander Peter and her social circle includes various Hons and military top brass. She’s been travelling the world with a chum, and on their voyage has met various people she has charmed with her exaggerated bonhomie, only to forget them moments later. When, by one of those co-incidences life throws our way, two couples from the East arrive in London simultaneously, her hectic life of gushing phone calls and toenail painting could be thrown into disarray – or will she even notice? You get the strong impression that the fledgling Coward suffered under entitled indifference on his way to stardom.

Sally Marshall directed a cast of ten in this “comedy of bad manners”, performed on a clever Art Deco set as the home of Piggie (Clare Green) and her husband Peter (Simon Haseley). The unexpected – and unrecognised – guests were played with excruciating embarrassment by Sheridan Cooper and Jamie Pullen. Emily Casselton was as delightful a maid in this play as she was waitress Beryl in the second offering. Jackie Pilkington was the one who REALLY knew how to play Noel Coward, and her performance as The Hon Clare Wedderburn shone out.

The set was totally transformed (even changing the light fittings) during the interval, and by the time the audience returned was a dingy railway buffet in the 1940s. Here, as anyone who has seen Brief Encounter will know, was the place where the energetic and inspirational young doctor Alec Harvey once took a smut out of the eye of Laura Jesson, and so began one of the great love stories of the cinema.

Jamie Pullen returned in the very different role of the conflicted but ultimately decent doctor, joined by Sophie Townsend as the anguished, married and passionate Laura.

Ness Hawkins brought a wonderfully humorous Mrs Bagot to the proceedings, pursued by Colin Hayman’s Albert. Sarah Kirkpatrick added a splash of colour as Dolly Messiter, with her ill-timed intrusion to the lovers’ painful farewell. Linda Hayman directed her cast, all perfectly in period, in this heart-wrenching story.

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Images by Trinity Photography