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You Were There

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In 1935/1936, Noël Coward wrote a series of 10 short plays which were performed, three to an evening, in Manchester, London, and later on Broadway. Noël and Gertrude Lawrence had been a smashing hit in his play Private Lives in 1930, and he expressly sat out to write the plays and music contained in Tonight at 8:30 in the main as vehicles for his and Gertrude's appearance on stage together.

You Were There is the centerpiece of Shadow Play, one of the ten short plays composing Tonight at 8:30. In this play, Simon Gayforth (Noël Coward) asks his wife of four years, Vicki (Gertrude Lawrence), for a divorce at the end of an evening when she is just preparing for bed. Dosed with sleeping pills, as she is falling asleep, Vicki falls into a reverie, which is enacted by Noël and Gertrude primarily through three songs, the final song being You Were There. In the end, the magic of the song—the first verse by Simon, the second by Vicki—has changed Simon's mind about the need for a divorce.