Noël Coward’s 1930 play, revived by Her Productions just a couple of months before another production comes to the Royal Exchange across town, is famous for its balance of comedy and malice. At its centre are acrimoniously divorced couple Amanda and Elyot, who bump into each other while honeymooning with their new spouses. Soon the fierce love that first brought them together has rekindled and they abscond together, initiating a dangerous dance of desire and violence.
Both the play and director Amy Gavin’s production are at their best when trembling on the knife-edge between carnality and cruelty. After a gratingly broad first act introduces us to the protagonists and their insipid new partners, things settle when we arrive in Amanda and Elyot’s Parisian bolthole and get drawn into their tumultuous relationship. Here there’s a sense of how quickly love can sour into contempt, as the pair alternately sizzle and spar, a slap never far from a kiss. Gavin’s intervention of projecting recorded images from the couple’s stormy marriage on the surface behind them unnecessarily hammers home what we can already see playing out.
