PRIVATE LIVES closes Chichester's 2012 Festival in style

Jonathan Kent's new prodution of Noël Coward's perennially popular PRIVATE LIVES opened at Chicester's Minerva Theatre last week to rave reviews across the board. The classic comedy, which stars Toby Stephens and Anna Chancellor as Elyot and Amanda, the ex-lovers who couldn't live together yet can't live apart, and features Anthony Calf as Victor and Anna-Louise Plowman as Sybil, their new and thoroughly unsuitable respective spouses, closes Chichester's 50th Anniversary Festival.

* * * * * The Telegraph

* * * *    The Guardian, The Independent, The Times

Writing in The Times, Libby Purves calls it "a refreshing (and funny) take on the play", while Charles Spencer in The Telegraph says "Jonathan Kent directs one of the finest productions of the play I have seen... [a] constantly alert and gripping production". He goes on to comment that "I haven’t seen Toby Stephens give a better performance than he does here".

Meanwhile, Michael Billington writing in The Guardian judges that "Jonathan Kent's revival gets the balance just right". Of the actors he declares that "casting in Kent's production is spot-on".

And in The Independent Paul Taylor proclaimes this "the best Private Lives we have seen since Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan struck sparks off each other in the West End a decade ago."

The production continues at the Minerva until 27 Oct. Tickets are officially sold out, but you can check for returns here.