Private Lives

Childish, competitive, supercilious and selfish, Elyot and Amanda are mirror images of each other: hedonistic lovers one moment, “scratching and biting like panthers” the next. After a turbulent marriage and an acrimonious divorce, they both remarry new partners in the hope that ‘second best’ will suffice. Elyot weds the girlish, unworldly Sybil and Amanda gets hitched to the stuffy, but decent and reliable, Victor. However, by a hideous coincidence, the two newly-wed couples find that they are spending their honeymoons in adjoining rooms at the same hotel!

Aghast at this cruel twist of fate and eager for the past not to intrude any further upon the present, Elyot and Amanda frantically try to convince their respective new partners to call off their honeymoons and leave immediately. When they fail, the former lovers start to backslide into old habits!

Since its premiere in 1930, Noël Coward’s Private Lives has become a magnet for renowned theatrical heavyweights: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Penelope Keith and most recently, Toby Stephens and Anna Chancellor, have all flocked to play Coward’s hilarious, hedonistic, Bright Young (or otherwise) Things.