Private Lives @ Chesil Theatre, Winchester

Noel Coward sophistication and comedy in a zipping along drama of sparring couples. Plus the ethical complications of modern life 1930’s style. And a live wind up gramophone!

Beautifully staged and fast paced, we encounter two couples on their honeymoon. Elyot (Alec Walters) and Sybil (Hannah Ley), and Victor (Steve Clark) and Amanda (Helen Milton Symes). Only Elyot and Amanda used to be married to each other, divorced each other and are…now honeymooning in suites next to each other in the same hotel. (With adjoining balconies). How to navigate out of this embarrassing situation?

Passionate and violent by turns, Amanda and Elyot seemingly can’t live with — or without — each other. Encountering each other again, they run off together to Paris, abandoning their new partners — and cocktails. Only it’s not long before they’re fighting again — and needing to introduce a code word to calm things down, viz. ‘Solomon Isaacs’ or Sollocks. And what will they do when their new/old partners catch up with them?

Magnificently costumed, Hannah Ley presents Sybil at her wailing best. Helen Milton Symes is excellent at hurling cushions at coffee pots and smashing records over her former husband’s head. Alec Walters rocks an urbane dressing gown and Steve Clark is all concern and irritated care as Victor.

Whilst the domestic violence is uncomfortable today, here the aggression is played for laughs as more of a farce and never condoned. We get more of the seething and suppressed rage here as Amanda and Elyot wait for two minutes mid-fight to start all over again.

Enjoy Coward’s world-weary witticisms and ‘modern life’ dilemmas against suave settings!