Still Life (play) mood without technical creaking or over padding, deserves a better fate, and if, by careful writing, acting and producing I can do a little towards reinstating it in its rightful pride, I shall have achieved one of my more sentimental ambitions." "Still Life" was first produced in London (1936) and later presented in New York (1936–1937) and Canada (1938). It has enjoyed several major revivals and in 1945 was adapted for film under the title "Brief Encounter". Like all the other plays in the cycle, it originally starred Gertrude Lawrence and Coward himself. Six of the plays in "" were
Tonight at 8:30 Coward adapted "Ways and Means", "Red Peppers" and "Fumed Oak" (called "Tonight at 8:30" in the US). Coward himself played Christian Faber in a 1950 film of "The Astonished Heart" (also starring Celia Johnson and Margaret Leighton). Television adaptations of "Red Peppers" were released in 1937, 1938, 1958 and 1969. "Still Life" was given a television production in 1951. The NBC-TV anthology series "Producers' Showcase" debuted on 18 October 1954 with "Shadow Play", "Still Life" and "Red Peppers", produced and directed Otto Preminger, starring Ginger Rogers in all three; Martyn Green also starred in "Red Peppers". "Hands Across the Sea"