Noel Coward

I have been listening to a CD of Noel Coward's speeches and songs and - I hadn't realised, or had forgotten, how racist he was. Of course he is the product of his age, and of course there are plenty of people even now who would say the same, but the casual off-hand nature of his offensiveness quite takes the breath away. There is hardly a song that isn't marked by it. The whole product comes from a different world, and yet there are books and songs of the same age that recognisably inhabit the modern world with us. I wonder if he knew that his views would fade and his art be intolerable to us now?