Director Imara Savage explains why audiences should learn to love the Boho family from hell.

It’s a common mistake to assume that Noël Coward was a creature of the English upper classes. What with all the dressing gowns and smoking jackets, and those plummy, clipped tones, he reeks of establishment and aristocracy. But the balladeer of Mad Dogs and Englishmen definitely didn’t come into the world with any silver spoon in his mouth. Born in southwest London to a piano salesman and his wife, the young Noël went to dance classes before being pushed onto the stage by his ambitious Mrs Worthington-of-a-mother at the age of 11. As a teenager he wormed – some would say, slept – his way into a high society he would go on to lampoon in a series or brilliant works of waspish wit over the following 50 years. Private Lives, Present Laughter and Blithe Spirit are still repertoire favourites, but Sydney Theatre Company has decided to go back to basics this year with Hay Fever, Coward’s first big hit, written in a remarkable three weeks of feverish creativity at the tender age of 25.