Private Lives at the Royal Exchange Theatre

The Royal Exchange continues its promisingly programmed fiftieth anniversary season with a revival of Noël Coward’s Private Lives. The classic comedy of manners concerns two honeymooning couples who unexpectedly find themselves honeymooning alongside their former partners at the same French hotel. After reconciling their differences and eloping to Paris together, they quickly fall back into old, argumentative habits before being confronted by their spurned spouses.

In a small cast such as this, one would usually be looking for chemistry between the characters. Whilst this is certainly present, it is in the fierce quarrels where this production comes into its own. The soppy declarations of love can drag a little at times, but when any two characters launch themselves into an argument, the sparks begin to fly, and the laughs come thick and fast. As the chaotic central couple, Jill Halfpenny and Steve John Shepard are a magnetic pairing, addicted to drama and incapable of making it five minutes without sniping at each other. (Don’t we all know a couple like that?)

With more limited stage time, it would be possible to render the new partners as lightly sketched supporting characters, but a real strength here is how fully fleshed out they are. Shazia Nicholls in particular makes for a deliciously melodramatic Sibyl, swooning and screaming through Elyot’s appalling treatment of her. 

The intermittently rotating set (designed by Dick Bird) varies in speed throughout the runtime, reflecting the rapid variations in the relationship between Elyot and Amanda, and the cyclical nature of their tempestuous relationship. These two seem doomed to forever repeat the same cycle of passionate, over-the-top declarations of love followed by tempestuous rows. This is a neat device, but it is inconsistently applied – although that’s probably a good thing as the rapid rotations during the fiercer arguments did leave me feeling a little seasick after a while…

It’s easy for a modern production of Coward’s comedies to lean on some of the more dated aspects of the text for laughs, hamming up the accents and ridiculing the behaviour of characters written almost a century ago. This production demonstrates the merits of avoiding that tactic though, taking both its characters and setting seriously and therefore allowing Coward’s comedy to shine through.