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
Blithe Spirit (play) his own view of things on the brute facts of existence," and Michael Billington of "The Guardian" wrote of Coward's influence on Harold Pinter. In 2004, Charles Spencer of "The Daily Telegraph" wrote, "With "Hay Fever" and "Private Lives", "Blithe Spirit" strikes me as being one of Coward 's three indisputable comic masterpieces. [It is] the outrageous frivolity with which Coward treats mortality that makes the piece so bracing." "Blithe Spirit" was made into a successful film in 1945, adapted by Coward and directed by David Lean. The cast included Rex Harrison as Charles, Constance Cummings as Ruth, Kay Hammond