'Three's a crowd', so it is said, yet the Peter Hall Company's production of Noel Coward's 'Design for Living' aims to prove that this is not necessarily true.

As the play opens, Janie Dee's Gilda, girlfriend of aspiring artist Otto (Hugo Speer), has spent the night with their just-returned long-time friend Leo (Aden Gillett). Over the course of the next two and a half hours the romantic entanglements of the bohemian trio become increasingly complicated, passing through three cities (effectively distinguished by John Gunter's interiors) and every possible permutation, culminating with the protagonists being united in an unorthodox and passionate threesome.

Often considered to have its basis in the real life relationship between Coward and his friends, Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, who made up the original cast, the lustful menage-a-trois caused a scandal when first performed in 1932. Today, however, Coward's references to living-in-sin and homosexuality no longer have the same power to shock.

Though the themes of love, marriage and social expectation have undoubted contemporary resonance, their impact is blunted by the fact that it is almost impossibly difficult to feel a pang of sympathy for the principal characters. Unlike, for example, the stars of the hit US sitcom Frasier, who endear themselves to the audience in spite of their self-involvement and snobbery, Gilda, Leo and Otto remain singularly unlikeable as they become increasingly engrossed in the trappings of success.

All three seem to operate only at two levels: calm discussion (Act II) dissolving into impassioned gesticulation in two swigs of a brandy bottle. Leo progresses seamlessly from being hard-hearted and driven throughout the first two acts to pink-pyjamaed camp at the finale. At no point is it clear exactly why any of the three should want to be in bed with any of the others, let alone what binds them all so firmly together.

What should have been punchy dialogue was strangely flat in places, the funniest lines seeming to suffer from overemphasis. Instead the most comic moments tended to come from supporting characters such as Ann Penfold's housekeeper and Col Farrell's bumbling journalist.

Design for Living is potentially still a snappy and entertaining comedy, but in this production, to borrow Leo's words, it ends up tasting rather of brown paper.

Catherine Kernot, 12.08.03