Noël Coward seems to belong to another, much more gilded era – so what is the secret of his staying power?

With new takes on Coward’s work coming to stage and screen, Geoffrey Macnab looks at the bon vivant’s enduring appeal and his overlooked contribution to British cinema

Staying power: Coward at his best deals in primal emotions (Getty)

Thousands of people have talent. I might as well congratulate you for having eyes in your head. The one and only thing that counts is: do you have staying power.” Thus reads one of the many quotes attributed to Noël Coward (1899-1973).

Coward’s own staying power is extraordinary. You’d have thought we have had enough of him by now. Think of the author, actor, singer, composer and general gadfly and the image that springs to mind is of a louche and camp figure in a silk dressing gown, smoking cigarettes through a holder, making frightfully witty remarks in an upper-class drawl, singing about mad dogs and Englishmen out in the midday sun and writing brittle, witty plays.

He seems to belong to another, much more gilded era. Nonetheless, Coward films and plays keep on coming. Movie distributors around the world have been fighting one another recently to snap up the rights to a new film version of his play, Blithe Spirit, directed by Edward Hall and starring Judi Dench as the eccentric mystic, Madame Arcati. The film (due to be released next year) also has American comic actress Leslie Mann as Elvira, the very svelte and glamorous ghost who comes back from the dead to haunt her writer husband (Dan Stevens) and to annoy his new wife (Isla Fisher).