Patricia Hodge and Nigel Havers dazzle in Christopher Luscombe’s rendition of Noel Coward’s classic comedy, Private Lives. Every detail of the show is beautifully crafted to deliver a thoroughly enjoyable evening of diversion and laughter.

The play follows two people on honeymoon and their ensuing horror on discovering they are in adjacent rooms to their ex-wife and ex-husband. Over three acts it explores the turbulence of falling in and out of love, that as we age we are just as vulnerable to be swept away on the rollercoaster of love and that all humans are fundamentally flawed, laughable and beautiful - with buckets of Noel Coward’s trademark wit and flippancy throughout.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that Private Lives is a 90 year old play now. With words so cemented in time, and a plot that centres around relationships and expectations amongst newlyweds, it would be easy for this play to feel reductive. But the beauty of this piece lies in all members of the cast’s believable character creation, with Nigel and Patricia leading the charge with rapturing status play and hilarious embodiment of the ex-lovers.

Nigel Havers embodies Elyot’s love of flippancy with a flailing and flapping that somehow manages to feel entirely real, entirely refined, while being extremely juvenile and low status. This characterisation is so essential to the play’s status balance. For example when Elyot is shaming Amanda for being with other men while they were divorced and Amanda gently consoles “I expect your affairs outnumbered mine anyhow” the audience sits expectantly, waiting for his response as Elyot’s infantile response, “That is a little different. I'm a man”, as Nigel puffed up his chest and stamped his feet childishly. This was met with booing and hissing. This kind of audience interaction is a testament to the status of the play that the Director Christopher Luscombe has succeeded in establishing. Patricia Hodge then expertly waited for the audience’s uproar to calm down before her retort - it is this masterful play from seasoned actors so well accustomed to surfing the waves of a live audience’s energy that creates such an electrifying atmosphere.

Patricia’s characterisation of Amanda truly brings this play alive and up to date. The power, the joy and the stubbornness that Patricia’s Amanda embodies in voice, in manner, and expression draw out the future-minded nature of some of Coward’s writing.

With an excellent dynamic between younger and older - superb casting by Sarah Bird - Dugald Bruce-Lockhart (playing a straight laced and aggressively kind Victor - new husband), Natalie Walter (playing a ferociously piteous Sibyl - new wife) and Aicha Kossoko (the cheerful Louise - the maid) complete the line up. I would add that it does pain me to see the only black actor in the cast play the role of the maid. I look forward to more actors of colour given more stage time in our classic works.

The set is exquisite, telling the story of opulence and idleness. We begin in a beautifully crafted pastel coloured hotel balcony in the first act, followed by a high ceiling-ed art deco, lavish apartment in the second and third. Real attention has been made to texture with metallic paint, silks and velvets catching the light. These are complemented perfectly in the beautiful costumes. Silks and tweeds with immaculate tailoring and accessories of sparkling glitz.

The Oxford Playhouse has very thoughtful safety measures for Covid (signs on commonly used touchpoints, a request for masks in all areas) which allows us to go back to a non socially distanced seating which really brings this play to life. How lovely it is to be part of a collective again, to hear a stranger next to you laughing, and together as one judging characters that feel like they embody the most shameful parts of our shut-in pandemic selves.

Truly an enjoyable evening of laughter watching some masters of their craft at work.