‘The party is never just a party’

There is a beautifully preserved myth surrounding Noël Coward. For many, he exists in a world of silk dressing gowns, perfectly enunciated vowels and silver cigarette cases.

Present Laughter has always been one of my favourite plays. But when I looked at it more closely, I saw something beyond the sparkling comedy. I saw a portrait of the cost of celebrity — of a fragile ego trapped inside a gilded cage, desperately trying to hold back the one thing that catches up with every icon: time, and the fear of becoming irrelevant.

In Coward’s original 1939 play, Garry Essendine is an ageing stage idol, prone to theatrical tantrums and ill-advised affairs, while those around him manage his chaos. But the moment I flipped the gender, the stakes suddenly became even more fascinating.

Enter Geri Essendine — who has been thirty-nine for the best part of a decade.

The idea of a badly behaved middle-aged actress, conducting herself every bit as outrageously as her male counterparts, immediately intrigued me. I thought of Mae West, who wrote and produced her own work and famously enjoyed the company of many of her leading men. I thought of Joan Collins and her uniquely British glamour, of Elizabeth Taylor and Liza Minnelli. Women with agency, self-belief, power and unafraid to use their glamour and influence.

But would it work in pre-war London? Or could another setting honour Coward’s original while allowing us to look at it through a different lens, without losing any of its wit, farce and brilliance?

I found myself drawn to New York in 1977, at the height of Studio 54. The endless queues outside, the celebrities gliding into those hallowed VIP spaces (sometimes on horseback), where strong charismatic women were centre stage in a world of glamour, excess and intoxicating sense of belonging to “the in crowd”. Where bad behaviour and egotism was rife across all genders.

And I began to wonder: what if Geri were an expatriate British actress? A hugely successful West End star who had arrived in America fifteen years earlier with her chosen family — her dashing ex-husband, her fiercely loyal secretary and her producers — all determined that she would conquer Broadway and make all their fortunes.

Geri needs them desperately, and they need her. Without each other, can they even exist? Can Monty, Len, Henrietta, Morris — and Geri herself — survive the arrival of the handsome Johannes, whose presence threatens to blow “the firm” apart?

Get close to Geri and you enter the inner sanctum. Here is a woman who knows minor royalty, whose intelligence and talent have made her irresistible to everyone around her, and whose star power still burns brightly.

Huge thanks must go to Alan Brodie and the Noël Coward Estate for giving me permission to explore the idea, and to Lindsay Posner, Danny Moar and Simon Beresford for encouraging me to see whether it might work.

Setting Present Laughter in the world of Studio 54 throws a fresh light on questions that feel surprisingly contemporary. In an industry that has so often been harsher on women than men, ageing and relevance are not simply matters of vanity. For performers whose lives have been shaped by applause and attention, the fear of losing the spotlight can feel overwhelming.

But we haven’t broken Noël Coward’s masterpiece. Quite the opposite. Beneath the mirrored disco ball, Present Laughter remains what it has always been: a dazzling comedy about love, vanity, friendship and the strange business of being adored.

Because for stars like Geri and her gang, the party is never just a party.

Tracy-Ann Oberman
June 2026

:: Tickets available now at https://www.lighthousepoole.co.uk/event/present-laughter/ and on 01202 280000.