Private Lives

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.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 4 March 2010

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 book...

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Latest User Review

Gman. - 30 March 2010:

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!...

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