OBSERVER: Fallen Angels
Noel Coward’s maxim for any actor was, “Just say the lines and don’t trip over the furniture.”
The playwright’s use of language was such that the lines and the situation did all the work. It is something those attempting to stage his works today should remember.
This film version of the Broadway production of Fallen Angels, a 1925 play that ran in March 2026, highlights just what Coward meant.
The art décor set (David Rockwell) was magnificent and Annette Jolles’ direction for the screen made the play eminently viewable, but stage director Scott Ellis allowed the cast to say their lines with an extravagance which was almost melodramatic at times.
Fundamentally, Julia (Kelli O’Hara) and Jane (Rose Byrne) reminisce about their pre-marital past which involved the same Frenchman, Maurice Duclos (Mark Consvelos) during a champagne-fuelled weekend while their husbands are away,
They learn this past lover is about to visit and they are both simultaneously delighted and fearful their husbands, Willy (Christopher Fitzgerald) and Fred (Aasif Mandui), will find out.
O’Hara has some delightful moments of physical comedy that are not necessarily out of place as the women get drunk but the absurdity of their predicament and the contravention of the social mores of the day means that very little work has to be done by the actors to realise Coward’s comic genius.
When Willy and Fred learn that Maurice is to take up residence in the flat above their floor, their British ‘nice chap’ sensibility hardly falters.
It is the audience that makes the connection first before the husbands cotton on. It doesn’t require overstatement of any kind. The swaying of the chandelier above their heads says it all.
The film looks superb and it works as a great introduction to a master wordsmith, but it is difficult being British beyond England’s shores.
Opening in Australian cinemas October 22. Distributed by Sharmill Films.
Review by David McLean
Pictured: Kelli O’Hara in Fallen Angels.