Forget 1974! Retreat into the gay world of Noel Coward. Fenella Fielding and Penelope Keith will conduct you in Fallen Angels at Watford’s Palace Theatre.

[From the Watford Observer of February 8, 1974]

NOSTALGIA NOTE: Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels, published in 1925, appeared at the Palace Theatre from February 6 to March 9, 1974. The Watford Observer’s reviewer described it as “absolutely spiffing – a jolly good laugh from start to finish”.

He wrote: “Both gals are great. Miss Fielding is the vamp with pouting lips and fluttering lashes, while Miss Keith is the sterner one ... they work together as a team, not trying to outdo each other. As a result, both ladies emerge victorious.”

The following year, Penelope Keith went on to tremendous acclaim as Margo Leadbetter in BBC TV comedy The Good Life – voted in 2004 the ninth best British sitcom of all time. Husky voiced Fenella Fielding is best known (by me at least) as the “smoking hot” Valeria Watt in Carry On Screaming. She was most recently on TV playing Alex’s grandmother Miriam in Channel 4’s teen drama Skins in 2012.

These stories formed part of the Nostalgia column first published in the Watford Observer on February 14, 2014. The next Nostalgia column – with information on a photographer dowsing Prince Philip, the naming of Watersmeet and the great Watford FC Popeye lookalike competition, among many other things – can be found in this week’s Watford Observer (dated February 21, 2014 and available in newsagents now, priced just 90p) or read online here from 4pm on Thursday.

If you have anything to add – or would like to tell us anything you think our readers may enjoy about Watford’s history – we are always pleased to hear from you. Contact Nostalgia, by clicking here watfordnostalgia@london.newsquest.co.uk