Private Lives Review
Venue: Richmond Theatre
Dates: Tuesday 9th – Saturday 13th November 2021
OUR VERDICT:
Noel Coward’s Private Lives at the Richmond Theatre is 91 years old but still seems surprisingly modern. This is the play with the famous line: “Very flat, Norfolk.”
Inevitably, some of the force of its original theatrical punch has faded but much of the querulous banter between couples who love each other but can’t abide being together retains its timeless appeal. It’s a story of two love-hate romances.
It begins with a quirk of fate.
Elyot, played by Nigel Havers, and Sibyl, played by Natalie Walter, are on honeymoon in a swish hotel in Deauville overlooking the harbour. It is a balmy summer’s evening when they wander onto the balcony, nearly time to dress for dinner and prepare cocktails.
The light of the yellow lamps on the yachts moored below dances on the surface of the dark waters. Here is married bliss.
Both of them are divorced. Sibyl can’t stop comparing herself and questioning Elyot about his former wife, Amanda. But after she goes back into the room who should appear on the balcony of the hotel’s adjoining suite but his first wife, Amanda, played by Patricia Hodge.
Although remembering the hell of their marriage, the intense attraction remains.
As their rekindled passion develops, their other halves are pressed together. In the background is the iron sanctity of the institution of marriage but in the foreground are the immediate pleasures of flirtation and the reckless road of spontaneous emotion – a road that leads to an apartment in Paris.
Nigel Havers is absolutely charming. Stern English matrons in the audience were breathless with delight, loving his every move, even whooping like Americans to express their arousal.
Patricia Hodge is his female equivalent. This is great casting.
They seem made for each other despite the intense antagonism required. Natalie Walter and Dugald Bruce-Lockhart are also well cast as the other halves, perfectly playing second fiddles in their minor love-hate relationship.
Like Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward was both an insider and an outsider in the set of the upper classes, able to celebrate but also mock the surface values of exquisite manners that concealed the fires of unspoken truths beneath. To say, “Very flat, Norfolk,” conveys volumes of inexpressible feeling:
“I met her on a house party in Norfolk.”
“Very flat, Norfolk.”
(Then instantly, wit diverts the moment from saying anything heartfelt:)
“That was no reflection on her unless of course, she made it flatter.”
We may remember that Noel Coward wrote the screenplay for the film, Brief Encounter, which again depicts the difficulty of following one’s true feelings against the norms of respectable society. That’s how our grandparents lived dressed in frumpy frocks and baggy trousers.
Today, the play has become a historical costume drama, like a TV adaptation of Jane Austen. We can hardly see at this distance how different people were in those times. Divorce was rare and always disgraceful. The gentry was buttoned-up to the throat.
For us that aspect is all but lost; whilst there remains the gracious style and the gay patter of amusing conversations spiced with wit.
