Noël and Gertie, by Coward's first biographer, Sheridan Morley, will be staged at the Jermyn Street theatre from Aug. 19 to Sept. 7, in a production directed by the author and starring Annabel Leventon and John Watts, with choreography by Irving Davies and musical direction by Stuart Pedlar.

Noël and Gertie was first produced at the Hong Kong Festival of 1982. Since then, it has been seen in more than 30 productions worldwide: Patricia Hodge and Simon Cadell starred in the long initial West End run, Twiggy headed the New York production, where it also ran for more than six months, and the musical comedy has also been seen in Monte Carlo, Cape Town, Honolulu, Vienna, Sydney and Toronto, as well as in more than a dozen British cities.

Sheridan Morley has a long association with Jermyn Street Theatre — earlier this year he directed The Lodger (starring Garth Bardsley) there. Morley is literary advisor to the Coward estate, and directed Coward's final play, Song at Twilight, at the King's Head Islington and, subsequently, the Gielgud Theatre.

—By Paul Webb Theatrenow