Noel Coward tells a very naughty joke
WHAT a night — after what a day! It was the wildest night I’ve spent in London since VE Day.
In the West End, cheering, friendly, happy crowds made it almost impossible to get from one place to another. I abandoned my car —– just left it by the side of the road in the hope I shall find it today.
FIRST to The Savoy, where Noel Coward’s singing was wonderful. We were still laughing at his outrageous comment earlier in the day. As Queen Salote of Tonga, a magnificent 20st figure, rode through Park Lane in her carriage, Coward was asked the identity of the small gentleman sitting next to her. He replied: ‘Her lunch.’ It was, in fact, the Sultan of Kelantan.
AT THE Savoy, the Queen’s Yeomen Warders, survivors of the Coronation route’s six miles, forgot their sore feet and stood for another six hours as ‘decorations’.
I SPIED voluptuous actress Patricia Medina spending the evening with ex-husband Richard Greene.
MOVING on, I enjoyed the quiet elegance of the best private party which was thrown by the French ambassador’s wife, Madame Massigli, before a total change of scene and a ‘knees-up’ at London’s newest pub, the Lord Belgrave.
MANY theatres were empty. Only the musical The Glorious Days, starring Anna Neagle, was sold out, but many people were unable to get through the crush before curtain time.
WHILE most restaurateurs cashed in, at Polish-born Seigi Sessier’s Charles Street bar we had to donate just one guinea for the National Playing Fields Association. In return, he supplied food and drink free. By 11pm there were 500 of us drinking champagne.
I WATCHED the splendid fireworks from the roof of Sir John MacTaggart’s flat at 55 Park Lane. Below us in the drawing room of the 20- room flat the elderly members of his party watched the same show on TV. Reason: Warmer.
THE Café de Paris was jammed. Not a seat anywhere — even at seven guineas a time.
OVER a plate of revivifying salmon, Sir Pierson Dixon told me how the Abbey guests survived the day. By dosing themselves up with vitamin tablets!
OVERHEARD . . . Novelist Paul Gallico: ‘It’s a love affair between one woman and 50 million people.’ Actress Hermione Gingold: ‘What a show! It should run every night for months.’ Bank clerk Kav Hyndman, who’d flown in from Montreal: ‘I’d have come if it had cost me my last dollar.’