Sirocco (play)

While on holiday in Alassio in 1921 Coward had enjoyed the atmosphere of the Combattente Club, with "much tawdry glamour … contributed by sweet champagne, an electric piano, paper streamers and the usual paraphernalia of Latin carnival", and the added attraction of an attractive young local who caught his eye and inspired the fiery, romantic hero of Sirocco.

In 1921 Coward was still little known, but by late 1927, when Sirocco was finally produced, he had established himself with two substantial successes – The Vortex (1924) and Hay Fever (1925).

The Marquise ran in the West End for a moderate run of 129 performances, and Home Chat played for only 38.

[2] Basil Dean, who directed (or as it was phrased at the time "produced") the latter was keen to stage the six-year-old Sirocco, and Coward agreed.

[3] Producer – Basil Dean; Designer – Gladys Calthrop The action of the play takes place in Northern Italy Two elderly English ladies sit chatting about another guest, Stephen Griffin, who is about to go to Tunis on business, leaving his mother and his young wife, Lucy, behind at the hotel.

The London opening of Sirocco met with violently unfavourable audience reaction and a generally adverse critical reception.

Coward's biographers Mander and Mitchenson comment that the scenes in the theatre at the final curtain "have passed into stage history".

'"[5] Coward later said, "My first instinct was to leave England immediately, but this seemed too craven a move, and also too gratifying to my enemies, whose numbers had by then swollen in our minds to practically the entire population of the British Isles.

[8] Ivor Brown in The Manchester Guardian thought the first two acts weak but the third good: "[Coward] strips his pretentious lover relentlessly; there is no mercy needed or given"[9]