Award-winning writer Oliver Soden joins the celebrated actress Patricia Hodge, to discuss the mercurial talents of Noël Coward.  Masquerade is the first cradle-to-grave account of the playwright’s life for thirty years and is based on access to unpublished diaries and correspondence.  The book reveals a deeply complex man.  Oliver and Patricia share their perspectives of this iconic and extraordinary figure, who was simultaneously a writer and composer, an actor, humorist, playboy, patriot and (possibly) a spy. 

Oliver Soden is the author of the critically acclaimed Michael Tippett: The Biography and Jeoffry: The Poet’s Cat, which were both awarded Book of the Year status in the Times Literary Supplement.