Concrete Playground

This love-to-hate-you romp is pumped full of the kind of lacerating wit that the likes of Ricky Gervais could only dream of. Noël Coward’s celebration of modernity, disposable relationships and withering put-downs is about to be given a wild contemporary makeover by Silo Theatre. Expect ridiculous pleasure.

There are only two things wrong with Amanda and Elyot’s honeymoon. Her husband and his wife. Once explosively wedded to each other, now quite happily divorced, Amanda and Elyot find themselves trapped in adjoining hotel suites where they both happen to be honeymooning with their new spouses. Bugger. Will they f**k, kill or remarry? In a coup of sexual chemistry and dangerous alchemy, Silo has lined up Go Girls’ Matt Whelan and Mia Blake as the love-to-hate-you divorcees.

Private Lives is widely acclaimed as Noël Coward’s masterpiece. Struck down by the flu and confined to a Shanghai hotel room, Coward wrote the play in only four days as a vehicle for himself and his best mate Gertrude Lawrence. Prim, buttoned-up critics panned the play’s 1930 premiere and Lord Chamberlain tried to ban it. But audiences couldn’t be deterred, devouring the slap-happy showdown of wits. Held up as a hallmark of Coward’s writing style, the play is now revered for its definitive wit, fabulous plot and jagged sophistication.