Noel Coward’s “three sided erotic hotch potch” sparkles from start to finish in this gloriously funny production.
While many societal mores have moved on since the Design for Living‘s 1933 debut, the idea of monogamy is still going strong – something that Gilda, Otto, and Leo battle with over what could be a long three hours, but which whizzes by.
Coward’s typically erudite dialogue plays a big part in that, but so do to the four central performances and Clare Howard’s assured direction.
Hollie Harrington is a wonderfully gamine Gilda (with some great costumes thanks to Claire Williamson and Jennifer Flitton), equal in every measure to her partners and some besides: you can see why they would fall for her. Lewis Garvey (as Leo) and Alex Tiller (Otto) are dashing and cute respectively, their personalities’ subtly changing as their fortunes unfold and their roles switch. Their drunken scene at the end of act two is a comic delight.
Nick Bodger is the campest of camp as art dealer Ernest in the earlier scenes but brings genuine anger and hurt in the explosive finale, perhaps too successfully as it risks the audience agreeing with his statement that the central – potentially heroic – trio really only care about themselves.
There are some short but sweet cameos, especially for Zanna Foley-Davies as housekeeper Miss Hodge, bringing laughs with just her befuddled gazes as well as some drily delivered one liners.
Coward’s authorly call for understanding of differently shaped lives can’t help be read biographically, but it goes deeper than sex. The interactions between Gilda, Otto, Leo, and Ernest, are a network of creative inspirations and frictions that spur them all on in different ways, a recognition that connections between people can take many different forms.
This Sewell Barn production brings them swirling and somersaulting on to the stage with panache.
- Design for Living continues at Sewell Barn Theatre until Saturday 19 April 2025.
