We Were Dancing

Gertrude Lawrence and Noël Coward in the original production, 1936

We Were Dancing is a short comic play in two scenes by Noël Coward. It is one of ten short plays that make up Tonight at 8.30, a cycle written to be performed in groups of three plays across three evenings. The original production, starring Coward and Gertrude Lawrence played in a pre-London tour, and then the West End, and finally New York, in 1935–1937. We Were Dancing has been revived periodically and was adapted for the cinema in 1942.

The play depicts a married woman who falls in love with a divorced man at a dance on a South Pacific island. They plan to go to Australia, but in the cold light of morning, they realise that they have nothing in common and go their separate ways,