Private Lives | Northern Stage | 5th November 2025
Review by Stephen Stokoe
It does not take much to get me into the theatre but for my visit this time I was very excited to see a new production of Noël Coward’s brilliant comedy ‘Private Lives.’ I have been a great fan of The Master and actually based my Masters thesis in Theatre and Performance on his work so I was very interested to see how director Tanuja Amarasuriya was going to present his witty social commentary on societal and in particular marriage norms.
It has been a while since I have attended Northern Stage and due to being in the town somewhat earlier than curtain up at 2.30pm I decided to pay a visit to the café which offers hot and cold drinks and a variety of snacks, sandwiches, and jacket potatoes to theatre goers wanting a bite before the show and to the general public wanting to soak up the creative atmosphere of this welcoming and friendly arts venue. It was a most pleasant beginning to a lovely return to Northern Stage.
On entering the auditorium the audience was welcomed by pre show music firmly set around the time the play is based c.1930. The stage was adorned with a set that suggested a beautifully ornate art deco hotel and two distinct performance areas. The set (and the costumes) were designed by Amy Jane Cook and worked very well indeed to bring out the humour in the story.
For those who are not familiar with the play there are two newly married couples – Elyot (Chrag Benedict Lobo and Sibyl (Sade Malone) and Victor (Ashley Gerlauch) and Amanda (Pepter Lunkuse) – who are honeymooning at a boutique hotel. One part of each couple are very well acquainted having been married previously and from this chance meeting decide to rekindle their romance and run off leaving the other two behind in their wake. The new lovers, keen not to repeat the mistakes of their previous union vow not to bicker and gripe at each other with a safe word should either overstep their agreed marks. In act two we realise that the lovers really should not be together at all and the jilted spouses are hot on their trails demanding retribution for being so unceremoniously forsaken.
The skill of presenting Coward’s prose is in the delivery and acting as one may well expect. The nuance is in the ‘masters’ own command of his writing – and the two must combine exquisitely – in this production they most certainly do.
Lobo is delightfully charming, impish and caddish as playboy Elyot. You really want to hate him for his views and manner but it is very hard not to like him for it – especially when he is cavorting around on the floor pretending to be a pussycat. Lunkuse’s Amanda exudes passion and sexuality from every sinew and it is not hard to understand Elyot’s infatuation with her. Gerlach’s effeminate and toffee nosed Victor is the perfect mirror of Elyot’s misogynistic roué and their fight scene towards the end of the play is not to be missed for the sheer camp comic value. Malone, as Sibyl, has the wonderful task of simpering, being generally ditzy and dramatic which she does with elegant ease without ever appearing to break her character as the rather spoilt newly-wed wife of the arrogant Elyot. Jodie Cuaresma’s cameos as the maid offer interruptions to the action. She brings superb comic timing and more than a soupçon of sheer sass.
Amarasuriya’s direction rattles through the script at a ferocious pace but this adds to the feelings of passion experienced by Elyot and Amanda in act one but also the passions of loathing in act two. The sound and music (Timothy X Attack) was innovative, well produced and beautifully operated in this performance. I expected and indeed would have liked some of Coward’s own beautifully crafted music to have been incorporated into the play but this was not to be.
While still set in the early 20th century in the volatile period between the two world wars, Coward’s observations are still very much relevant today. Amarasuriya points out in her programme notes that while ‘plenty may have changed since 1930, 2025 finds us in a world where tolerance and freedoms we might have recently taken for granted are being rolled back.’ In her direction she leans into Coward’s more acerbic style allowing the characters a sense of gender fluid ambivalence on tone and movement that I am sure ‘The Master’ himself would have been mightily proud.
I thoroughly enjoyed this production and the actors all perform brilliantly and follow Mr Coward’s immortal rules of speaking clearly and not bumping into the furniture. If your pay packets allow, you need no further motivation to enjoy ‘Private Lives’ which runs at Northern Stage until Saturday 8th November.