Coward's 1930s sparkling, witty comedy arrives at The Lyceum just in time for Valentine’s Day! Read more …
Private Lives follows the difficult relationship of divorced couple Elyot and Amanda, who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel in the South of France. Cue Elyot and Amanda falling in love - and in hate - all over again as their bewildered new spouses Sibyl and Victor try to cope. Love is complicated!
Grasping the rhythm and melody of the lines as well as the beats in between them, all the performances are of a very high order indeed.
Crisp in its physicality and punctilious in its delivery, Private Lives at the Royal Lyceum brings out the full verve of Noel Coward’s marvellous script, with director Martin Duncan giving his cast full rein in their authentically mannered delivery.
A lively and highly energetic piece that boasts exceptional acting.
Coward’s brilliant one-liners trip off the tongue, sometimes sounding a little harsher and less funny than they can do.
What this play really needs, however, is a production bursting with snap and fizz, and despite the best efforts of all, some of that elusive magic is still missing, and a production that flirts tantalisingly with something special ultimately falls just short.
It’s an energy that comes with youth and a certain naivety; the audience are merely voyeurs, there to laugh at them but also to envy the undeniable chemistry that makes them belong so wholly to each other. For that reason, it’s hard not to crave the satisfaction of a happy ending. And you won’t be disappointed.
Sparkling, sassy, cool and classy, the laugh-a-minute humour is so intoxicating it hits the spot like an ice-cold Dirty Martini.
Martin Duncan’s decidedly middling offering.
Noel Coward’s Private Lives is a visually and intellectually luscious performance, more than worthy of a viewing by anyone who professes themselves to be a lover of theatre.
Noel Coward's Private Lives set to return to Edinburgh, the city of its premiere
Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh from Friday February 14, 2014, until Saturday March 8, 2014. More info: www.lyceum.org.uk