Mayflower is creating new work, having most recently co-produced Spitfire Girls with Tilted Wig, Lost Atoms with Frantic Assembly, The Koala Who Could with Rose Theatre, Kingston, and The Pianist with Wolk Transfer.
In the autumn of 2025 we have our own production of Noël & Gertie which opens in September and undertakes a short UK tour. We sat down with the show’s Director, and Mayflower’s Associate Artistic Director, Thom Southerland to find out more about the show.
“Noël & Gertie takes us behind the scenes about how Noël Coward, one of the most celebrated theatrical personas of the 20th Century lived and worked, and explores his relationship with Gertrude Lawrence. It’s a part of Noël’s life that is rather unknown now, and I think whilst sometimes we still see revivals of things like Private Lives and Present Laughter, we can appreciate them much more if we know about Noël Coward and how he was writing them.
Noël & Gertie is the perfect piece for Mayflower Studios – an audience is able to see this show in close proximity and to understand the art of creation, but also look back at one of the theatre’s great icons. I think the world has forgotten how much of a celebrity Noël Coward was, he was known as “The Playboy of the West End World” and in this play we really get under the skin of this,” says Thom
Credit: The Noël Coward Archive Trust
Credit: The Noël Coward Archive Trust
Having directed Noël & Gertie before, Thom reflects on how differently he is approaching the material now, “It will be a completely different take because I think the world is a different place since I last directed this. I’ve gotten older and appreciate Noël Coward’s work in different ways. Each revival brings a nuance to it. I think to understand Noël Coward as a gay man, we see how a non-traditional non heterosexual relationship develops. He had to embrace his sexuality, whilst also embracing the world. This piece uses all of Coward’s words based on his diaries and letters. All the music is played live. With four in the cast I feel the music is almost a character in itself. I’m looking forward to audiences enjoying this funny, witty but deeply moving story about this British icon, well who else had a theatre (the Phoenix) purposely built to put on one of his shows?!”
At Mayflower Studios, we are really passionate about nurturing and commissioning new work and understanding how work is created.
