Hands Across the Sea (play)

Hands Across the Sea, described by the author as "a comedy of bad manners", is a one-act play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8.30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings.^{[n 1]} One-act plays were unfashionable in the 1920s and 30s, but Coward was fond of the genre and conceived the idea of a set of short pieces to be played across several evenings. The actress most closely associated with him was Gertrude Lawrence, and he wrote the plays as vehicles for them both.

The play, widely seen as caricaturing Coward's friends Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina, depicts an upper class couple and their haphazard and chaotic reception of guests in their drawing room.

The play was first produced in 1935 in Manchester and then toured for nine weeks before opening in London (1936) and New York (1936–37). It has been revived occasionally and has been adapted for television and radio.

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