Design for Living

Featuring Coward's trademark piquant style, this lively, funny but also atypical play looks at dazzling, egotistical creatures and their self-destructive dependence on each other.

"Its fusion of passion and mischief remains striking and there is something undeniably heady about its celebration of a kind of sexual liberation that looks a lot like flippancy" - Evening Standard From 1930s bohemian Paris to the dizzying heights of Manhattan society, a tempestuous love triangle unravels between a vivacious interior designer, Gilda, playwright Leo and artist Otto - three people unashamedly and passionately in love with each other. But can such a lavish love affair survive the real world? Exploring themes of bisexuality, celebrity, success and self-obsession, Design for Living is a stylish and scandalous comedy, that is often revered as Coward's most controversial and risqué work. This new edition is published in Methuen Drama's iconic Modern Classics series to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Coward's death and features a new introduction by Oliver Soden.