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Synopsis A divorced couple are reunited whilst honeymooning with their second spouses. Moonlight on the Mediterranean - a beautiful young woman drifts onto a hotel balcony. A young man joins her. They embrace, drink in the scene. This is a dream of a honey moon come true. They part. The young man is alone. A band plays. On the next balcony another young woman appears. She sings a song. The young man gives a horrified gasp and freezes. He knows that tune only too well. And he knows that voice. He used to be married to it.
Noel Coward's enduringly popular comedy Private Lives has returned to the West End in a starry production led by Sex and the City siren Kim Cattrall and recent Mr Darcy Matthew Macfadyen, helmed by former NT artistic director Richard Eyre.
The play, which opened last night at the Vaudeville Theatre (See Today's 1st Night Photos), centres on divorcees Amanda (Cattrall) and Elyot (Macfadyen), who find themselves honeymooning with their new spouses in the same hotel in the South of France with dramatic (and hilarious) consequences.
Overnight critics lined up the superlatives to describe Eyre's "splendid" and "dazzlingly well-acted" revival - the first in the West End since Howard Davies' multi-award winning 2001 production. Cattrall was deemed "dangerous", "miraculous" and a "vision to behold" as Amanda, while Macfadyen didn't come out too badly either - even if in some quarters he was found "too blokish" and "unusual" in the role of Elyot. The support of Paisley Day's mustachioed Victor and Dillon's "hideously priggish" Sybil was also roundly praised.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (four stars) - “At first, the audience thinks Kim Cattrall has withered inside herself. But this pinched, slightly hunched pretty blonde woman is not Kim, but Lisa Dillon, superbly well cast as Elyot Chase’s second wife, Sybil ... Matthew MacFadyen's sullen, heavily built Elyot is not happy ... only when Kim Cattrall does appear, shimmering with malice and sexuality, dressed in a white towel, does he cheer up. Simon Paisley Day’s hilariously bovine Victor ... is the absolute personification of a knitted eyebrow ... It’s one of the great virtues of Richard Eyre’s clever, fast-moving production ... that Victor and Sybil will, you feel, one day enjoy hating each other as much as do Elyot and Amanda. There have not been that many outstanding revivals of Private Lives since Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens tore strips off each other, but this one has a freshness and elan that still takes you by surprise and honours both the musicality of Coward’s perfect prose and his brittle humanity. ”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph (four stars) – “[Noël Coward] was surprisingly self-deprecating about Private Lives (1930), surely the greatest of all his plays ... Watching Richard Eyre's terrific new production one can only marvel at his modesty. Eighty years on this remarkable comedy about love, lust, and marriage still seems both miraculously fresh and remarkably frank. Mind you, Private Lives demands performances of an exceptionally high order if it is to fly ... But here the sparks really fly. Cattrall is a vision to behold, at ease in her body, and miraculously combining vulnerability with sharp wit ... Matthew Macfadyen has more than a touch of the brutish bully about him ... And there are delicious supporting performances from Simon Paisley Day as Amanda's betrayed husband Victor ... and from Lisa Dillon as the horribly irritating, hideously priggish Sybil. Wonderfully funny and fabulously sexy, Private Lives has lost none of its allure.”
Paul Taylor in the Independent (four stars) - “Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen display an onstage chemistry that works like a volatile charm in Richard Eyre's exhilaratingly funny revival of ... Private Lives.With her tossed blonde curls and barbed flightiness, Cattrall’s a delight ... she’s got very good comic timing and demonstrates a winning flair for emotional slapstick. Escaping entirely from the highly strung, slightly queeny stock portrayal of Elyot, Macfadyen is all the funnier for being so meatily masculine and solid a presence, with an accent that seems to mock its own port-wine plumminess. Rob Howell’s set for the Paris apartment is as hilarious as it is handsome ... Lisa Dillon as Sibyl marvellously progresses from fretful, insecure pest to a woman veering between vestigial decorum and paroxysms of a new septic self-assertion. Simon Paisley Day’s Victor behaves as though he emerged from the womb ramrod-backed and with an officious pipe soldered to his lower lip. Eyre’s splendid production alerts you anew to the fact that Private Lives is a dazzling feat of airborne comic dramaturgy.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (three stars) – “This is a classy revival, expertly staged by Richard Eyre, of Coward's enduring comedy about the proximity of love and violence. But, while it will give pleasure, the partnership of Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen as Amanda and Elyot never struck me as hatched in some ante-room of heaven. Cattrall ... is actually very good as Amanda ... she brings out the inviolable selfhood that, for Coward, was a vital part of sexual attraction ... Macfadyen's Elyot is more unusual. Avoiding the staccato delivery and camp one associates with the character, he presents us with a testy bully irresistibly drawn to Amanda while finding her impossible. But there is a sanity about Macfadyen which doesn't quite square with Elyot's espousal of flippancy as a way of life. Paisley Day finds a complete character in Victor, bringing out the raging hysteria behind the suburban stuffiness. And he is well partnered by Lisa Dillon, who highlights the obstinacy behind Sibyl's seeming fluffiness ... It is a clever, funny production that certainly hits the spot.”
Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail - "Actress Kim Cattrall almost completely sheds her identity as 'that vamp from TV's Sex and the City' ... to play Bohemian, dangerous, irresistible Amanda in Noel Coward's enduring comedy. This is a gorgeous, glorious production of Private Lives, just bitchy enough to be modern, yet old-fashioned enough to have a three-part form. Miss Cattrall, elegant in flowing gowns and bare feet ... produces a not quite faultless English accent ... but as Elyot says in one of the play's many memorable lines, 'don't quibble, Sybil'. All four principals are superb. Mr Macfadyen's Elyot is greedily nonchalant about other people's feelings. Miss Dillon's Sybil is eminently divorceable on the grounds of simpering dullness. And Mr Paisley Day, in the least obviously fruitful role, is a scream as Victor, his divided, toothbrush moustache twitching with pomposity.”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times - "Eyre isn’t in the habit of bringing dinky paper boats to the stage, and thanks to him and his lead actors you can’t miss the play’s unassuming point and purpose. Shallow? At times perhaps, but wilfully and defiantly so ... And in any case, flippancy is pretty clearly one way of coping with what’s really serious in the play, which is love itself ... you never doubt their (Catrall and Macfayden) bond ... his wit has bite, and she combines allure with the mulishness of a woman who knows her own mind as well as her own body ... Lisa Dillon’s Sybil gives a nice performance as the sort of twee, clutchy woman bound to irritate a man like Elyot, and Simon Paisley Day’s Victor is even more gloriously unsuitable: a bloke whose accent, tweeds, moustache and ultra-decent manner all suggest he’s auditioning for the role of a squadron leader in some fearfully British B-movie.”
Henry Hitchings in the Evening Standard (four stars) - " Noel Coward's comedy calls for a mixture of turbulence and dry urbanity, and Richard Eyre's finely calibrated production of Private Lives exhibits just the right blend of these qualities. In the key roles,Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen have what might blithely be termed chemistry ... Macfadyen ... gives a performance that’s a mix of steely detachment and waspish repartee. It’s a primer in tart comic timing, and his voice proves an impressively pliable instrument. Cattrall conveys an arch playfulness and a good deal of flighty yet vulnerable glamourt ... As Victor, Simon Paisley Day is a study in anxious pomposity ... while Lisa Dillon’s Sybil makes a pleasing transition from paltry ornament to spiky social critic. Rob Howell’s design is gorgeous ... Although it begins on an unexpectedly passive note, this is a satisfying and intelligently conceived production. It’s fluent, very funny and at times dazzlingly well-acted.”
Paul Callan in the Daily Express - "In many ways, this is Noel Coward at his most polished and sophisticated and this is where this production occasionally falters. Matthew Macfadyen is rather too masculine, too blokish to deliver some of Coward's more fey lines. It is a particularly high camp play, with fussy rhythms and delightfully funny lines that really need a gossamer touch. But, that apart, both Cattrall and Macfadyen catch the exact spirit of the warring couple. Lisa Dillon is neatly irritating as Elyot's new, child-like bride Sybil. And there is a masterly performance by Simon Paisley Day as Amanda's blusterin new husband Victor. Director Richard Eyre gives the play a splendid pace, with all the emphases in the right places. It may all sound a trifle dated, but The Master's work still has fresh and hilarious appeal.”
At first, the audience thinks Kim Cattrall has withered inside herself. But this pinched, slightly hunched pretty blonde woman is not Kim, but Lisa Dillon, superbly well cast as Elyot Chase’s second wife, Sybil, and an obviously unsatisfactory replacement for the real thing.
Sybil and Elyot stand gloomily on the hotel balcony in Deauville, designed by Rob Howell with a battery of green shutters and some strangely unappealing white muslin curtains, which billow in the wind and make the coming and going a little complicated.
Matthew MacFadyen’s sullen, heavily built Elyot is not happy. He scatters a handful of wedding confetti he happens to find in his jacket pocket like a memento mori. Only when Kim Cattrall does appear, shimmering with malice and sexuality, dressed in a white towel, does he cheer up. Hostilities can be resumed and the honeymoon’s on hold.
Cattrall’s Amanda – a catty Amanda who caterwauls – has booked into the same hotel with her new husband, Simon Paisley Day’s hilariously bovine Victor, who is the absolute personification of a knitted eyebrow. It’s one of the great virtues of Richard Eyre’s clever, fast-moving production (one interval taken after the first act) that Victor and Sybil will, you feel, one day enjoy hating each other as much as do Elyot and Amanda.
Hate is the flip side of love. Amanda and Elyot can’t live together without fighting, but they can’t live apart, either. Not only, as Nicholas Wright reminds us in a programme note, is Coward’s 1930 effortless comedy one of the best in the language about sexual attraction, it’s also a brilliant analysis of the mutability of that attraction and its farcical dynamic.
There is a palpable physicality to all this, climaxing in the famous second act bun fight in which McFadyen’s Elyot has devised a novel torture for Amanda: a handful of ice cubes down the back of the neck. I like the way the exit to Paris is put into comic relief by the bulwark presence of the French maid (Carline Lena Olsson) who doesn’t pout or twitter but acts as a sort of domestic shock absorber.
There have not been that many outstanding revivals of Private Lives since Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens tore strips off each other, but this one has a freshness and elan that still takes you by surprise and honours both the musicality of Coward’s perfect prose and his brittle humanity.
Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen are in sublime form in this classy revival. The fight scene is so well done and just hilarious. Kim Cattrall has just good comic timing and stage presence. A production not to be missed. Enjoy! - Gman.
30 Mar 10
Sir Richard Eyre CBE (as he is formally billed in the programme) directs a delightful revival of one of Coward's funniest plays, well served by a mostly excellent cast. Lisa Dillon is splendidly irritating and Simon Paisley Day is hysterical as ramrod straight but befuddled Victor. Unfortunately Matthew Macfadyen is unable to shed his wooden tendencies and you need a far lightetr touch than he posesses to get way with a line like "Women should be struck regularly - like a gong", which now sounds cringingly anachronistic. Having seen all three of Kim Cattrall's recent West End performances it's no surprise that she is very good indeed. Of course she is able to handle the comedy but, despite an occasional lapse of accent, she perfectly captures the vulnerability of the apparently amoral Amanda. Kim Cattrall must have made a fortune from Sex and the City; perhaps she should do a Patrick Stewart and return home to continue an impressive resume of stage appearances. - David Baxter
25 Mar 10
My daughter and I thoroughly enjoyed this play. The cast are all superb, the set, the costumes and the actor's comedy timing all impeccable. There were so many laugh-out-loud moments and the fight scene between Matthew and Kim was so realistic, the audience gasped. We can't recommend Private Lives enough and can only say that if you only see one show this year, make it this one! - Vicky
Opened 16 Apr 1870. Front re-constructed in 1890. 694 seats. Member of the Society of London Theatre. Each year there will be, from 1997, an Autumn to Spring Variety Season. The theatre is run by Max Weitzenhoffer.
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