The prospect of seeing Dillie Keane, presiding genius of Fascinating Aida, taking part in a celebration of the words and music of Noël Coward is just about irresistible. Dame Dillie, as some of us like to think of her, lives up to expectations every time she steps centre-stage. Her memorably sozzled version of I’ve Been to a Marvellous Party finds her succumbing to an overdose of champagne, while she delivers a gloriously undignified impersonation of an old buffer on I Wonder What Happened to Him?  Coward’s admirers certainly won’t want to miss this revival of the revue — devised by Gerald Frow, Alan Strachan and Wendy Toye — which first opened in London in 1972. Kit Hesketh-Harvey , although somewhat subdued, captures the Master’s worldly hauteur, and has great fun gyrating his hips on the spoof Latin American rhythms of Nina.

The epic list of songs includes those old favourites A Room with a View, Twentieth Century Blues and There are Bad Times Just Around the Corner, not to mention a sprinkling of numbers that are much less well known. Fragments of autobiography and dialogue round out the portrait of an artist who constantly wrong-footed his detractors. One of the wittiest segments finds Coward thumbing his nose at those drama critics, including the man from The Thunderer, who delighted in talking down to him.

To be frank, though, the evening does tend to sag just a little whenever Keane slips into the shadows. Hesketh-Harvey’s long-time stage partner, Richard Sisson (alias the Widow) and the young actor-singers Stuart Neal and Savannah Stevenson give their all. But, marooned on Samal Blak’s gloomy, minimalist set, they sometimes struggle to match the brittle sophistication of the lyrics. One or two of the modern additions overseen by the director Paul Foster are distracting as well. Most jarring of all is the clumsy attempt to turn London Pride into a defiant response to 7/7, complete with news clips and a Tony Blair soundbite. Starbucks and Piers Morgan make unexpected appearances in Why do the Wrong People Travel?, a ditty that is enough to give Oliver Letwin bad dreams. Perhaps the highlight of the second half, though, is Keane and Sisson’s double-act on the joyously mean-spirited glimpse of an elderly couple in Bronxville Darby and Joan. Coward, as ever, twists the knife with a demure smile.

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The Telegraph: Charles Spencer at Guildford

This loving tribute to Noël Coward, first staged in 1972, the year before the great man’s death, kicked off the fashion for compilation musicals and revues. Side by Side by Sondheim and a Cole Porter show followed, and it wasn’t long before the likes of Buddy Holly and countless other rock and rollers were being anthologised and memorialised in London’s theatres, ending up with the tacky vulgarity of a show such as the Queen tribute We Will Rock You. One shudders to think what the Master would have made of that. He couldn’t even abide the Beatles. The legacy of Cowardy Custard is therefore a decidedly mixed blessing, but the show itself, now revised for a smaller cast by one of the devisers of the original production, Alan Strachan, is a classy delight. I caught this touring production at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford, where a packed Monday night house was almost purring with collective pleasure – and quite right, too.

Coward has long struck me as a songwriter who can stand comparison with such American greats as Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. His range was extraordinary, extending from the bawdy to the sublime, from the witty to the achingly heartfelt and, once heard, many of his melodies are never forgotten. These qualities are superbly displayed in Cowardy Custard, which stars a trio of Britain’s best-loved cabaret performers – Dillie Keane from Fascinating Aida, and Kit and the Widow, featuring Kit Hesketh-Harvey and Richard Sisson, the latter providing admirable piano accompaniment as well as joining in many of the songs himself. There are also two highly talented younger performers, Stuart Neal and Savannah Stevenson, who turn a nifty toe, sing strongly and add a touch of youth and glamour to the proceedings.
  
The show ranges from the comic hilarity of Mad Dogs and Englishmen to the lovelorn yearning of Someday I’ll Find You and the Blitz spirit of London Pride – though I think it is a mistake to combine this last song with news reports about the Islamist London bombings of 2005. Occasionally, Coward’s less attractive characteristics come through – not least his snobbery in Why Do the Wrong People Travel? and that horribly supercilious scene from Present Laughter in which a Coward-like playwright cruelly patronises an aspiring writer. But there is far more to delight, from Dillie Keane’s hilariously hooting, rubber-legged drunk-act during I’ve Been to a Marvellous Party, in which she clings desperately to the baby grand piano to stave off complete physical collapse, to Kit Hesketh-Harvey’s amazing hip-swivelling during the Latin American number Nina.

I would have welcomed more background information about the songs and Coward’s life and work, of the kind Ned Sherrin supplied in Side by Side by Sondheim, but the extracts from Coward’s diaries are often both moving and revealing, not least his feeling in his later years that the country he once loved had gone forever. A part of Coward’s England will remain, however, for as long as these wonderful songs are performed.

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On-line: Clare Brotherwood at the Theatre Royal Windsor

With Dillie Keane and Kit and the Widow at the helm, I knew Cowardy Custard would be well worth seeing - but this revival of the 1972 revue goes beyond even my expectations.

With such good material as Noel Coward’s songs and plays, the company has a head start, but the five performers present them in such a way that Coward must certainly be giving their tour a standing ovation from the hallowed halls of theatrical Heaven. With a wind-up gramophone, a jumble of books, a dais, a couple of chairs and a piano, there’s not a lot to tempt the eye, but who needs props when you have the glorious Dillie Keane, stalwart of the comedy trio Fascinating Aida, taking us through a drunken rendering of I’ve Been to a Marvellous Party (which ends with her crawling off the stage) - a comic masterpiece; or making sitting down an art form as she and Kit reminisce as two old army officers (she can gender bend too) in I Wonder What Happened to Him?

Each song is a complete performance in itself. Coward’s quality and bitingly witty lyrics and memorable melodies are not only choreographed but fully acted out with superb comic timing or poignancy. Other particular favourites are, of course, The Stately Homes of England, Mad Dogs and Englishmen and, after a sketch involving an over-enthusiastic singer’s audition, what better song to follow than Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage Mrs Worthington.

But this tremendously energetic show, with direction by Paul Foster, doesn’t just feature the songs we all know. Alan Strachan, Gerald Frow and Wendy Towe, who devised it, tracked down songs from forgotten shows including the little gem Touring Days, which was found in a suitcase stored in the flat of Coward’s London secretary. Neither is it stuck in Coward’s time. One minute Dillie is trying to get a signal on a mobile phone, the next she is languishing with a cigarette holder, and the hilarity of the evening hangs in the air when, during London Pride we have a newscaster reporting the London bombings of 7/7/2005 before sounds from the Blitz and a respectful silence from all - a moving tribute indeed.

Coward’s songs and extracts from his plays are interspersed with each member of the company telling, as The Master, his life story, from child actor through having to mortgage his piano to arriving in New York and  his depression following a Battle of Britain dinner in 1963. Even less than flattering reviews also get an airing (oh, how times have changed!).

Throughout this review I’ve referred to five performers and leaving Dillie Keane and Kit and the Widow’s co-stars until last certainly doesn’t mean least. Stuart Neal and Savannah Stevenson, whose powerful voice must lift the roofs of most theatres, are incredibly versatile, ploughing into their all-singing, all-dancing, all-acting performances with great gusto and apparent ease - certainly part of a company who have a talent to amuse.