 In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Coward wrote a succession of hits, ranging from the operetta "Bitter Sweet" (1929) and the epic "Cavalcade" (1931), requiring a large cast, gargantuan sets and a complex hydraulic stage, to the intimate comedies "Private Lives" (1930), in which Coward starred alongside Gertrude Lawrence, and "Design for Living" (1932).Coward said that after "Private Lives", he felt that the public enjoyed seeing him and Lawrence together on stage, and so he wrote the play cycle "Tonight at 8.30" as "acting, singing, and dancing vehicles for Gertrude Lawrence and myself".In the programme for the London run Coward wrote