This bittersweet comedy is the story of a cosmopolitan author caught in his declining years between two women, one being his wife of convenience for twenty years, the other, one of his former loves. There is a bit of the detective story in this, too, for the former flame produces some old love letters which she is about to turn over to a biographer. He is dead set against it, for it would compromise his impeccable reputation until she produces still another set of love letters, even more damaging, written to a male friend of his early youth. It remains for the wife of convenience to say that she has known about this all along, and to send the old flame off with an entirely different opinion. The blackmail fails, but the rue remains. Mr. Coward, Lilli Palmer and Irene Worth played in the London production. Produced in New York under the title
Noel Coward in Two Keys.