PRIVATE LIVES

BY NOËL COWARD
7 APRIL - 27 MAY 2023

We were so ridiculously over in love.
Funny wasn’t it?
Horribly funny.

Elyot and Amanda; glamorous, rich, reckless… and divorced. 

A surprise encounter on adjoining hotel balconies rekindles their passion and they fling themselves violently into love once more, and their newly married lives into chaos.

Starring Stephen Mangan, Rachael Stirling, Laura Carmichael and Sargon Yelda this fiercely intimate revival of Noël Coward’s dark comedy directed by Donmar Artistic Director Michael Longhurst, asks can you love someone too much, or too many times?

★★★★★ “This stylish, thought-provoking production is the Donmar at its very best” The New European

★★★★★ “A perfect rendering of a perfect play” Theatre Cat

★★★★★ All That Dazzles ★★★★ The Telegraph ★★★★ Daily Express ★★★★ Mail on Sunday ★★★★ Daily Mirror ★★★★ The Arts Desk ★★★★ Theatre Weekly

“It has an electricity that makes it feel more bracingly alive than many a classic revival” Metro

“Michael Longhurst’s sleek staging of Noël Coward’s intimate tragicomedy” The Guardian

"Divinely inspired... the stuff of shockwaves" The Telegraph

“It’s a dark view of Coward, but it feels like truth” WhatsOnStage

"Mesmerising Intensity by Stephen Mangan and Rachael Stirling" The New European

“Coward knew how to show the rollercoaster ride of coupledom: jealousy, rage, giggles, desire, boredom, regret, teasing, closeness.” The Times

"Rachael Stirling and Stephen Mangan deliver" Time Out

“Carmichael brings a touching fragility to the jilted Sibyl and Yelda is appropriately pedantic as the upright, uptight Victor” Daily Express

CAST

Sybil Laura Carmichael 
Louise / The Violinist Faoileann Cunningham
Elyot Stephen Mangan
The Cellist Harry Napier
Amanda Rachael Stirling
Victor Sargon Yelda

 

CREATIVE TEAM

Writer Noël Coward
Director Michael Longhurst
Designer Hildegard Bechtler
Lighting Designer Jack Knowles
Sound Designer Giles Thomas
Composer Simon Slater
Movement Director Chi-San Howard
Fight Director Kate Waters 
Voice and Dialect Coach Charmian Hoare
Casting Director Anna Cooper CDG

This production is generously supported by Charles Holloway, Season Supporter.

Additionally, we would like to thank our Production Supporters: Charles J Burdick, Helen Davies, Robert & Pirjo Gardiner, Ros & Alan Haigh, Crawford & Mary Harris, Tiina Lee, Mr Rajeev Philip, the Private Lives Production Syndicate and 2 Anonymous Supporters.

Production photos by Marc Brenner