Post-war Drama and Fiction

Samolo, a British dependency in the Pacific, is the setting for the historical Pacific 1860, South Sea Bubble and the novel Pomp and Circumstance. Of these the novel is the only accomplished work, with an eventful plot and some shrewd depiction of affairs among the pleasure-seeking ‘international set’. The musical melodrama Ace of Clubs did not lift Coward out of his own post-war slump, something that had to wait until Relative Values, a straight comedy about an earl’s intended marriage in which class differences provide the theme; a play that presents a picture of Britain in 1950. Quadrille, a last full-length comedy of manners mingles a wistful ripeness with a change of partners formally similar to Private Lives. Nude with Violin disappoints the promise of its art hoax idea. (129).