This Was a Man

• Original Broadway Production (1926)
  New York, NY
• London Fringe Revival (2014)
  London, England
• Off-West End Revival (2017)
  London, England
• Reading (2026)
  New York, NY

A frank comedy of infidelity, it was banned in Britain by the Lord Chamberlain (although it found success in America, Paris, and Germany). Ironically, American audiences expecting something risqué left disappointed by the lack of scandal. Coward blamed the British ban not on the subject matter, which he'd handled elsewhere, but on the tone: when the husband Edward learns his wife has slept with his best friend, he bursts out laughing. The board of directors, Coward quipped, preferred their commandments broken "solemnly or not at all." Even Coward was lukewarm on the result, calling it "on the whole rather dull."