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Coward Noel Quizzes, Trivia and Puzzles
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Noel Coward Trivia

Noel Coward Trivia Quizzes

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2 Noel Coward quizzes and 20 Noel Coward trivia questions.
1.
  The Lyrics of Noel Coward editor best quiz   best quiz  
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
For his devotees, Coward is "the Master," but he seems to have been overlooked so far on Fun Trivia. So here are a few questions, mainly about his better known songs.
Average, 10 Qns, TabbyTom, Feb 23 13
Average
TabbyTom gold member
2412 plays
2.
  Mad Dogs and Englishmen    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
This is all about Noel Coward and the song in the title. Have fun!
Average, 10 Qns, mlcmlc, Feb 23 13
Average
mlcmlc gold member
901 plays
Related Topics
  Coward, Noel [Literature] (1 quizzes)


Noel Coward Trivia Questions
1. "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" was included in a 1932 revue that ran 184 performances in the West End. What was the revue name?

From Quiz Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Answer: Words and Music

The revue opened on Broadway in 1939 with the title "Set to Music".

2. What creatures, besides mad dogs, go out in the midday sun?

From Quiz The Lyrics of Noel Coward

Answer: Englishmen

The satirical wit and virtuoso rhyming have made this one of the most popular of Coward's songs. Many of us think of the saying about "mad dogs and Englishmen" as Coward's own, but it seems to be much older. The musicologist Charles Burney, in an account of a European journey in 1770, comments on the death of an English traveller with the words "He certainly overheated himself at Venice by walking at a season when it is said that only dogs and Englishmen are seen out of doors at noon."

3. The song "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" was first performed in "The Third Little Show" in what city?

From Quiz Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Answer: New York

This revue opened in 1931. This song was performed by Beatrice Lille.

4. Where, according to the title of a song, did love come to Mrs Wentworth-Brewster?

From Quiz The Lyrics of Noel Coward

Answer: in a bar on the Piccola Marina

According to Coward, the song was inspired by his observations in Capri in 1954. In a spoken introduction to a recording, he says: "Each evening I used to sit on the piazza and watch these hordes of middle-aged ladies arriving by every boat, obviously all set to have themselves a ball. So startled was I by this rather macabre spectacle that I wrote this song about a respectable British matron, who discovered in the nick of time that life was for living."

5. The infamous repeating phrase in the song is "Mad Dogs and Englishman...

From Quiz Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Answer: go out in the midday sun."

It is repeated six times.

6. "Past Forgetting" was the title of a memoir by a lady called Kay Morgan (née Summersby), telling of an alleged affair with Dwight D Eisenhower. From which musical work by Coward did she borrow her title?

From Quiz The Lyrics of Noel Coward

Answer: Bitter Sweet

"I'll see you again, whenever spring breaks through again. Time may lie heavy between, but what has been is past forgetting ." Complete and utter kitsch, perhaps, but memorable all the same.

7. "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" is the title of a book, published in 2002, based on which long-running sci-fi BBC television show?

From Quiz Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Answer: Dr. Who

This novel was written by Paul Magrs.

8. There's a song by Coward that has the same title as a novel by E. M. Forster. What is it?

From Quiz The Lyrics of Noel Coward

Answer: A Room With A View

The song comes from the 1928 revue "This Year of Grace," which also includes "Dance, Little Lady."

9. In 1970 which rock/soul/blues musician recorded an album titled "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" from a US tour of the same name?

From Quiz Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Answer: Joe Cocker

This was also released as a film of the same name in 1971.

10. What was Mrs Worthington advised not to do?

From Quiz The Lyrics of Noel Coward

Answer: put her daughter on the stage

The song is a letter from an impresario to a "stage mother," pointing out with increasing bluntness the defects in the daughter's appearance and ability which disqualify her for a career in acting. The last verse is usually omitted, probably because there the impresario abandons all pretence of politeness and uses expressions like "bloody" and "Christ!"

11. Part of the "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" lyrics are the words: "In Hong Kong, they strike a gong, and fire off a noonday gun." Where does this really happen?

From Quiz Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Answer: Excelsior Hotel in Hong Kong

This tradition is still continued by the Jardines, the owners of the hotel.

12. Who "refused to begin the beguine when they besought her to"?

From Quiz The Lyrics of Noel Coward

Answer: Nina from Argentina

Nina was a strong-minded young lady who saw no attraction in the dances of her native Latin America and therefore: "She refused to begin the beguine When they besought her to. In language profane and obscene She cursed the man who taught her to. She cursed Cole Porter too!" In a dance-mad culture, her aversion naturally cut her off from prospective suitors, but eventually "She met a sailor Who had acquired a wooden leg in Venezuela, And she married him because he couldn't dance!"

13. The song "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" is also famous for being written by Coward during a trip from Hanoi to Saigon. What added to the notoriety?

From Quiz Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Answer: It was written without pen, paper or piano.

Several sources state that the entire song was written in his head during the trip without pen, paper or piano. Might explain some of the rhymes!

14. Lord Elderley, Lord Borrowmere, Lord Sickert and Lord Camp sing the praises of which of the pleasures of English upper-class life?

From Quiz The Lyrics of Noel Coward

Answer: the stately homes of England

Like "mad dogs and Englishmen," "the stately homes of England" is a phrase that is indissolubly associated with Coward but which goes back much further. Mrs Felicia Dorothea Hemans, who died in 1835, praised the stately homes of England in one of her poems ("How beautiful they stand, amidst their tall ancestral trees o'er all the pleasant land!"). But all we remember today is Coward's parody ("How beautiful they stand, to prove the upper classes have still the upper hand!").

15. In Coward's play "Private Lives," Amanda and Elyot, a divorced couple, meet again when they're on honeymoon with their second spouses. As they chat on a hotel balcony, they hear the strains of "Some Day I'll Find You." What is Amanda's comment?

From Quiz The Lyrics of Noel Coward

Answer: Strange how potent cheap music is!

Some texts of the play have "Extraordinary how potent ....", but (as Nigel Rees points out in "Cassell's Companion to Quotations") "strange" is the word used in the 1930 recording with Coward and Gertrude Lawrence. The song being played is of course one of Coward's own.

16. In which Coward song do a society woman, a streetwalker, a schoolgirl and a Cockney maid sing of their infatuation with a movie star?

From Quiz The Lyrics of Noel Coward

Answer: Mad About The Boy

The song appeared in the 1932 revue "Words and Music." It is rarely performed in full: most recordings include, at the most, only the society woman's and streetwalker's verses. It's difficult to be sure whether Coward had any particular star in mind when he wrote about "the boy," but claims have been made for Clark Gable, Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks Junior and James Cagney.

17. The lyrics of "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" employ a particular type of humor, can you identify which?

From Quiz Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Answer: satire

Coward often employed self-deprecating satire.

18. In a song that Coward wrote during World War Two, which flower symbolized British defiance?

From Quiz The Lyrics of Noel Coward

Answer: London Pride

London pride (Saxifraga umbrosa), like all saxifrages, can grow on stony ground. However, if you see it in London nowadays, it will probably be carefully cultivated in a window-box and not (as in Coward's song) "growing in the crevices by some London railing."

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