THEATRE REVIEW: Private Lives - The Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield.

Coward’s 'Private Lives' was premiered in 1930, in a dark time for the world. One year on from the Wall Street Crash, the economies of western countries were in disarray, mass unemployment had become a fact of life, with every suggestion that things would get a good deal worse before they began to get any better.  As the Master himself said, ‘There are bad times just around the corner...’ Nevertheless, his light-as-air play concerning the romantic tergiversations of a quartet of spoiled, rich dilettantes triumphed on both sides of the Atlantic and has held the stage ever since ....

Ninety years on, and with an international situation every bit as worrying, 'Private Lives' returns in this touring version from the Nigel Havers Company, directed by Christopher Luscombe. Its durability is partly explained by its adroit blend of romance and comedy, a number of imperishably witty lines and exchanges and its status as a vehicle for either very good character actors or, as here, mainstream stars. 

Havers, in a performance that seemed to delight those who’d come out specifically to see him, played Elyot Chase as very much the silver fox, all kitted out with trophy second wife Sybil (Natalie Walter) and looking forward to a less intense version of conjugal bliss. Finding himself booked into an adjoining room in the same Riviera hotel as his previous spouse Amanda (Patricia Hodge), on her own honeymoon with new husband Victor (Dugald Bruce-Lockhart), he finds himself irresistibly drawn back into old ways and old habits as he and Amanda reminisce about their time together and, with the aid of some exceedingly potent cheap music, they realise that they’re still in love and decide spontaneously to jettison their respective partners and escape to Paris. 

Leaving aside the improbable coincidence on which it hangs, the first act is a wonderful piece of mechanism that sets up the situation and delivers the laughs with consummate skill. But the second act is a less straightforward affair as Elyot and Amanda telescope their relationship’s ups and downs while idling about in Amanda’s Paris flat. The present critic has always felt that Coward sets the actors a considerable challenge here, for not only must they continue to amuse, they must also retain the audience’s interest and sympathy if they’re not to come across as a pair of elderly spoiled children.   Unfortunately, the tension sagged somewhat here and the pace was never entirely recovered; not even Hodge’s considerable comedic and terpischorean skills could rescue the second half. 

Nevertheless, there was still much to enjoy, principally the contribution of experienced Cowardian Hodge. It’s been ungallantly suggested that both she and Havers are too old for their roles, but that criticism hardly holds water: flightiness and irresponsibility are not the exclusive preserve of the young!

Reviewer - Paul Ashcroft.
on - 22.2.22