Noël Coward’s play about an alternate wartime Britain
In 1946, after the end of WWII, Coward wrote an alternative history of wartime Britain – the first written, one might imagine.
The inspiration came on the 3rd November, when Coward wrote in his diary:
The programme from the 1947 production at the Lyric Theatre
Drove up to London. Began thinking on the way up about a play on the theme that England was invaded and conquered in 1940, Might Have Been, scene a public house somewhere between Knightsbridge and Sloane Square. The whole horrible anticlimax of occupation and demoralization for five years culminating in the invasion of England from France by free English, Americans and French… Think this is really a honey of an idea and it has fallen into place with such remarkable speed that I feel I must do it almost immediately. Oh dear. I do hope it stays as good to me as it seems now.
The play originally termed Might Have Been would later become Peace in Our Time and mirrored Coward’s own sense of depression after the war. The previous year he had written about the “dreadful feeling of anticlimax in the world.”
The Coward that entered the war was not the Coward that left it. This was a man more bitter and cynical about the world and the play reflected a darker tone than Coward’s normal style.
But the play is also a celebration of the British spirit, from the more minor resistance of the characters – listening to the BBC World Service illegally, refusing to drink to “Heil Hittler” with the German official, lying about having a secret bottle of gin – to the more serious resistance efforts of harbouring a fugitive.
As full as patriotism the play is, many of the characters have already capitulated in small ways, and there is a sense of resignation to the inevitable.
Inside view of the programme from the 1947 production at the Lyric Theatre
A magazine editor character is accused of changing his editorials to avoid being prosecuted, and later has lunch with a German official.
The publican, Fred, is told off by the others for calling the official “sir”: “he’s a customer, isn’t he?”
It is made clear that outside the pub many people are capitulating to the occupying force. Alma comments that “they’re getting more converts every day.”
Fred replies: I can’t help seeing people’s point every now and then – life’s got to go on, hasn’t it?
Fred then launches into a tirade on the downfall of the country, which one might take to be Coward’s rather pessimistic assessment of Britain.
We were the finest people in the world – see? But we were getting too pleased with ourselves. We all swore in nineteen-eighteen that we’d never have another war. Then gradually, bit by bit, we allowed our politicians and our newspapers and our own selfishness to chivvy us into this one. Even as late as nineteen thirty-eight we were dancing in the streets because a silly old man promised us “Peace in our time”. We knew bloody well there wasn’t a dog’s chance of peace in our time. Then suddenly in nineteen thirty-nine we woke and found ourselves in the soup, no guns, not enough aeroplanes, half the navy we should have had.
Alma then asks Fred whether he thinks they would have been better off if they had won the Battle of Britain. He says yes. She disagrees:
We should have got lazy again, and blown out with our own glory. We should have been bombed and blitzed and we should have stood up under it – an example to the whole civilised world – and that would have finished us. As it is – in defeat – we still have a chance.
In Coward’s 1946 of course, Britain had won the war, been bombed and blitzed and stood up under it, but “blown out with our own glory”.
Britain in victory was in just as precarious position as Britain in defeat, distracted by its own success, Coward worried.
The play was initially met with good reception from audiences. It was first shown in Brighton:
Tuesday 15 July:
A manuscript of dialogue from Peace in Our Time. The scene was either cut or unused in the final version
The play went terrifically and there was an ovation at the end.
Thursday 17 July:
The performance was slack and untidy and the effects were muddled, but it went marvellously and again I had a terrific ovation. In spite of all the Press have said about me, I seem to be loved by the public. It is a lovely feeling and I am grateful.
But in London, an initially good reception started to turn:
Tuesday 2 September:
Rather depressed about the returns for Peace in Our Time. I do hope after all the fuss that it is not a flop.
By late September, the turning tide would be part of what convinced Coward to abandon England, irritated with what he saw as a lack of recognition for his art.
Tuesday 23 September:
Telephoned to Graham. He read me a cable from Binkie saying he was not very happy about Peace in Our Time. Really, if that play turns out to be a flop I shall be forced to the reluctant and pompous conclusion that England does not deserve my work. That is a good play, written with care and heart and guts and it is beautifully acted and directed… I have a sick at heart feeling about England anyhow. We are so idiotic and apathetic.
The play would go on to be revived after Coward’s death at the Jeanetta Cochrane Theatre in 1989 and later a touring production in 1995, which would not reach the West End despite good reviews.
Perhaps Peace in Our Time was a play that could only be fully appreciated in the immediate aftermath of the war, by an audience for whom the threat of German invasion was a very real fear in recent memory.
