The world of Private Lives is one of enticing extremes. In this sparkling production, the audience is invited to witness a hilarious battle between wicked excess and wearisome moderation.

Private Lives is Coward at his very best, and his dynamic, intelligent script propagates a juicy form of wit that punctuates the performances and more than satisfies the audience. Amanda and Elyot, a couple who divorced five years previously following a tempestuous relationship based on extremes of love and hate, collide with each other whilst on their respective honeymoons with their new spouses, Victor and Sybil. Acting upon a sudden surge of rekindled passion, the couple flees for Paris, leaving two bewildered spouses and much dramatic, and indeed comic, potential in their wake. The events that ensue are utterly engaging and the director, James Copp, renders them with an exquisiteness appropriate to both the setting and the nature of the characters themselves.

Copp brings out the contrast between Elyot and Amanda's impulsive, excessive nature and Sybil and Victor's insipidness very clearly, provoking the audience to question the merits of each attitude to life. The play opens with a clear confrontation between Sybil's red-cheeked enthusiasm and Elyot's blasé dismissiveness; when Victor waddles boisterously to the front of the stage, followed by a poised and elegant Amanda, it is clear that a similarly intriguing ideological void gapes between the second 'happy' couple.

The cast is universally strong and a joy to watch. Elisabeth Gray is impressively natural in the role of Amanda, oozing a sleek dominance and inherent grace that renders her performance utterly captivating. Her use of understatement makes her exceptional comic timing seem effortless and she also endows more sombre moments of nostalgic reverie with an engaging wistfulness. Such brilliance can but cast a shadow upon her fellow performers. Nevertheless, Anthony Wilks is deliciously smooth as the arrogant Elyot, and yet he captures the jittery nervousness when first confronted with Amanda exceptionally; their moments of intimacy in the later scenes are also captivatingly sincere. Mark Grimmer is well cast as Victor and is convincingly graceless and tactless, whilst, as Sybil, Helena Johnson's sudden switches from delicate primness to foot-stomping stubbornness are sublime.

Copp's sensitive direction ensures that the cast succeeds in creating a wide range of atmospheres, as the combination of characters, emotions and situations fluctuates throughout the play. Where Victor and Sybil are awkward and clumsy, Elyot and Amanda are sparky and charged; where Victor and Sybil are sycophantic towards their new spouses, Elyot and Amanda objectify theirs, referring to them as "yours" and "mine". when alone together, Elyot and Amanda drag the audience on an exhilarating rollercoaster ride from the heights of passionate adoration to the depths of passionate anger. Such contrasts climax when all four characters are thrown back together in the final scene, one blustering, one tearful, one flippant and one dismissively 'gaie'.