The writer of the plot summary has it wrong. It is not the elderly mother but the troubled son,who has returned from Paris ,who has a drug habit (cocaine) in this play , the inclusion of which plot point narrowly escaped censorship for the mid 1920s stage premiere.
The somewhat shortened TV adaptation is a curiosity. It is part of a month of Noel Coward presentations,each introduced with retrospective comments from the playwright, on British tv in August 1964.
The actress who plays the mother,Margaret Johnston ,overacts badly but the other cast members aren't bad. The production values are limited. The best of the four plays shown in this series (all directed by Joan Kemp -Welch) is Blithe Spirit which avoids the heavy handed moralizing that The Vortex exudes today.
The somewhat shortened TV adaptation is a curiosity. It is part of a month of Noel Coward presentations,each introduced with retrospective comments from the playwright, on British tv in August 1964.
The actress who plays the mother,Margaret Johnston ,overacts badly but the other cast members aren't bad. The production values are limited. The best of the four plays shown in this series (all directed by Joan Kemp -Welch) is Blithe Spirit which avoids the heavy handed moralizing that The Vortex exudes today.
