Private Lives
Northcott Theatre, Exeter
5th - 28th February 2004 (7.30pm & 2.30pm matinee on Sat 28th)
Tickets: £8.50 - £15
Box Office: 01392 493493

Noel Coward's Private Lives seems to have been universally adored by everyone who's ever seen it down the years.

In fact, the only person who's had a bad word to say about it could well have been Noel Coward himself, once he got bored with it, as he always did with everything.

So, I'm bound to congratulate the Northcott Theatre Company on their fine production of the classic, which runs throughout February.

Coward wrote the play with a view to starring in it himself, as the newlywed Elyot (James Weber Brown, here) who meets his ex-wife Amanda (Clare Swinburne) on his second honeymoon and elopes with her.

Clare Swinburne and Guy Lankester as Amanda and Victor Prynne

They fall in love all over again and then grow to hate each other instantly. Amanda is also on her second honeymoon when they meet.

The two scorned partners - Elyot's wife Sibyl (Emma Fildes) and Amanda's husband Victor (Guy Lankester) - track them down in Amanda's Parisian flat.

The show is full of coincidences, and is a little too contrived for my liking. It's bizarre in that respect - a mix of farce with the emotions and squabbles we all recognise from everyday life.

I must confess I prefer one or the other. I prefer that farce is just silly, with nothing making sense. Coward's scenario could have been acted out in a hilarious manner without the forced coincidences.

The five actors all have the mannerisms of their particular stereotype well-honed - but none more so than Eleanor Montgomery as the French maid.

She brings so much to such a little part. Her very brief appearance allows the English class snobbery to be highlighted, and the stiff upper-lipped Victor is the typical Englishman abroad with his deliberately slow "what time is it?"

You laugh at the stereotypes, you're on the edge of your seat as the couples bicker, and you wince as they slap each other and throw each other around the stage.

And when I left afterwards I just HAD to argue with someone.