Review of Private Lives at Royal Exchange, Manchester.
On honeymoon in the south of France, Amanda discovers that her first husband Elyot is staying in the hotel suite next door, celebrating his recent marriage to new wife Sibyl.
It is hard not to feel that Amanda’s description of the situation as a “little unfortunate”, fails to capture the potential for emotional fireworks – and Noël Coward’s Private Lives obligingly wastes no time in lighting the blue touch paper.
Elyot and Amanda’s past marriage looms large. Not because they want to talk about it, but because their new partners Sibyl and Victor obsessively pick over the details, unable to resist setting themselves up in competition with the people they have replaced.
In Blanche McIntyre’s production at the Royal Exchange, Jill Halfpenny’s Amanda radiates an almost regal confidence. Straight-backed on a sofa and gently stroking the fabric as, sphinx-like, she gathers her thoughts – or sitting proud upon the arm of a chaise longue, staring ahead, like Boudica on a chariot.
There is a glimpse early on, that her poise and icy charm are constructs of a quick and resourceful mind. On first spotting Elyot at the hotel, Amanda throws herself down upon a sofa to hide, horror-stricken – only for her to rise again moments later, composed and with a plan in place.
Conversely, Steve John Shepherd’s Elyot strides through life with the unshakeable conviction gifted by his gender and class. Urbane, yet haughty, his silver tongue can deliver stinging put-downs. Shepherd’s extra-dry delivery milks Coward’s wit to maximum effect.
Their honeymoon suites are all gloss and gleam, cream sofas and satin dresses. Everything is ordered, tidy and efficient – not a cocktail glass out of place. Beneath their practiced veneer, Amanda and Elyot seem ill at ease, bored even. Hemmed in by the solid rails of their respective hotel balconies, they’ll stare out at the horizon, all at sea.
One of the great strengths of McIntyre’s production is its clear focus on the nature of Amanda and Elyot’s relationship – and designer Dick Bird’s thoughtfully put together sets and costumes are integral to that storytelling.
Within the surface-deep sophistication of the hotel, there’s some sort of duality going on. In identical neighbouring rooms, as Halfpenny’s Amanda and Shepherd’s Elyot smoke or hold a drink, their movements appear to subconsciously mirror one another exactly. Like peas in a pod, or perhaps two sides of the same coin.
In the second act, having abandoned their new spouses, and fled to Paris, the couple appear transformed amongst the bohemian clutter of Amanda’s apartment. As they lounge across one another’s laps, bare-footed, and in brightly coloured dressing gowns, they seem suddenly truly themselves.
No longer on show to others, they are fully revealed as capricious creatures, driven by impulse – somehow not made for the polite, structured society they must inhabit.
McIntyre emphasises the marital merry-go-round at the heart of Coward’s play by having the stage on almost constant revolve. It’s a simple but effective device – a carousel of comings and goings and ever shifting perspectives.
Mostly on steady spin, things speed up dramatically during a feverish row between Amanda and Elyot. Hinting at elemental forces at play, furniture is knocked over and objects thrown, while a noisy storm rages outside and lightning illuminates the apartment.
Oddly, it’s only when the movement of the set slows to a standstill that the production loses its footing in the Exchange’s in-the-round setting. Furniture is fussily dragged on and off the main stage to no discernible benefit, characters start drifting out to the perimeter of the auditorium, and sightlines become muddled.
At a certain point, as I strained to see the back of three characters’ heads, (one of them wearing a seen-better-days wig), two of them obscured by the lid of a gramophone, and the other fully hidden by a lampshade, I started to suspect McIntyre was staging a brief homage to Acorn Antiques.
It’s a temporary lapse, and soon the brake comes off both the revolve and the production’s flow, as Daniel Miller’s puffed-up Victor and Shazia Nicholls’ clingy Sibyl clash spectacularly – and another round of falling out and making up begins.
Classic revivals have always been a feature of the Royal Exchange’s programming, so it feels fitting to have one nestling among the selection of shows celebrating the theatre’s 50th anniversary.
Resisting any attempt at radical reinterpretation, McIntyre’s production lets Coward’s enduringly popular comedy speak for itself – delivering a smooth, quick-paced and entertaining Private Lives, powered by two classy yet crowd-pleasing central performances from Halfpenny and Shepherd.
Performance seen on 1 April 2026.
Private Lives runs at Royal Exchange, Manchester from 27 March to 2 May 2026.
Images by Johan Persson.
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