Mail on Sunday, June 9, 1991, by Kenneth Hurren ----------------------------------------------------------- Let Coward flinch - or, anyway, let his spirit - as the lesser works of Noel the Master are dis-interred. Like, say, "Point Valaine," his mid-Thirties flop, now dragged from long oblivion to the stage of the Minerva, Chichester. Coward himself knew that it bombed between the demands of comedy and tragedy - and Tim Luscombe's inventive direction cannot really redeem it. Set in a hotel on a small Caribbean island, it begins with musical-comedy-style sketches of the guests - a babble of gay young men (yes, honestly) and twittering girls - all laconically observed by a cynical novelist (Edward Petherbridge). But a steamy infernal triangle intrudes. The hotel proprietess's cosily carnal affair with her headwaiter fails to cope with the advent of a priggish but handsome aviator. The gaudily emotional scene between the long-term lovers is fiercely played by Sara Kestelman and Jack Klaff, but the situation never seems important or indeed credible enough to justify its tragic resolution. These goings-on collide disastrously with the earlier comedy, which is not so much light as weightless. ----------------------------------------------------------- Bentley's Bedlam http://www.BetsyDa.com/bedlam.html This website is for information and entertainment purposes only and is not intended to infringe on copyrights held by others.