Ways and Means (play)

Ways and Means is a short comic play by Noël Coward, one of ten that make up Tonight at 8.30, a cycle written to be performed across three evenings. The story concerns an heiress and her gambling husband, who are plagued by debt and embarrassment as everything seems to always go wrong for them. Their honour is saved just in time when a disgraced chauffeur tries to rob them but amiably ends up pulling them out of a hole.

In the introduction to a published edition of the plays, Coward wrote, "A short play, having a great advantage over a long one in that it can sustain a mood without technical creaking or over padding, deserves a better fate, and if, by careful writing, acting and producing I can do a little towards reinstating it in its rightful pride, I shall have achieved one of my more sentimental ambitions."^[1]

The play was first produced in London (1936), and then in New York (1936–1937). It has enjoyed several major revivals and has been adapted for film.