This article is taken from the May 2026 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Get five issues for just £5.
The National Theatre seems to be in its physical theatre phase just now. Less than a year since the Indhu Rubasingham regime began, its productions seem to be obsessed by “movement” and “motion”.
This sounds more interesting than it is. In practice, it means we’ve had a surfeit of irrelevant table-jumping in the revival of Terence Rattigan’s Man and Boy, a plethora of whatever the hell was going on in The Bacchae, stylised transitions in Summerfolk and, now, a new staging of Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses that would be, I imagine, a good 20 to 30 minutes shorter and considerably better without the interpretative dance.
If those words make your blood run cold, this is not an evening for you. In Marianne Elliott’s over-fussy, busy staging, set against a mirrored backdrop, the rakes and vamps of pre-Revolutionary France (although, in the modern style, Natalie Roar’s costumes are impressive but non-period-specific) spend lengthy periods prancing around the stage in closely choreographed action.
If this mummery was just between scene changes, something to keep the audience engaged during the business of moving the set around, then fine. But unfortunately virtually every moment of physical theatre has to include some sort of balletic lunge — whether it’s a love scene, a duel or simply a conversation between two people which is turned into a virtual pas de deux.
I suspect Elliott’s intention was to make some sweeping point about human interaction and the way in which sex, love, anger and death are all intertwined in inextricably corporeal fashion.
Which is not necessarily a bad idea, but judging by the audible sighs every single time the troupe burst into a dance routine, why not go the whole hog and add songs as well? I could sense the impatience around me as members of the audience realised that the chances of getting the 10.06 back to Guildford were decreasing rapidly as yet another procession of well-drilled young men and women disported themselves on the Lyttelton stage.
The most frustrating thing about this revival of Hampton’s play, the first seen in London for a decade, is that when Elliott calms down and puts her trust in the actors and the scenario, it improves dramatically.
Anyone who has seen Stephen Frears’ film Dangerous Liaisons or read de Laclos’ original epistolary novel will thrill to the intricate narrative of seduction and counter-seduction dreamt up by Machiavellian widow Marquise de Merteuil and her former lover, the Vicomte de Valmont.
Merteuil asks Valmont to seduce a virtuous maiden, Cécile de Volanges, in order to revenge herself against Cécile’s mother — who also happens to be her cousin — and, in exchange, Valmont will be granted her sexual favours once more.
The conniving count agrees, but also sets himself an even more demanding task: the corruption of Madame de Tourvel, a young wife famous for her purity and fidelity.
If the evening has an outstanding performance, it is Lesley Manville as Merteuil. She has her own history with the play, having played Cécile in the first RSC production 40 years ago (the National turned it down) and Merteuil in a miniseries prequel a few years ago. She now finally manages to make her mark in some style.
Considerably older than usual — and given an effective scene at the start of the second half where she silently contemplates her ageing body decked out in designer bodice and stockings — she is nonetheless magnetic from start to finish, combining sensuality, wit and rapacious sexual viciousness with a cold understanding of a woman’s precarious place in society.
This is a firmly post-#MeToo staging, which makes Valmont’s rape of Cécile brutally clear, even down to seeing Hannah van der Westhuysen sitting traumatised in the corner of a bedroom after she has been coerced into sex. And the effect of this in Manville’s sublime Merteuil is to make the audience realise how tough, and unfeeling, she has to be in order to survive, let alone thrive, in a man’s world.
It’s a fascinating and psychologically rich interpretation that proves, yet again, that Manville may be the greatest actress of her generation.
Unfortunately, Aidan Turner’s Valmont isn’t her equal. Whilst the age gap adds a welcome Oedipal charge, he’s too bluff and jolly to convince as an ice-cold libertine. He gets plenty of laughs, especially in the first half, but I missed the lizard-like magnetism of an Alan Rickman-John Malkovich type. By the time Valmont delivers the would-be devastating line “It’s beyond my control”, after he falls in love against his better judgement, Turner seems less devastated and more mildly annoyed.
There are plenty of small pleasures (I enjoyed Ali Goldsmith’s butler to Valmont, himself a sly opportunist on the make) but Elliott, usually such an incisive and able director, has gambled far too heavily on a high concept that never soars and a lead actor outclassed by his co-star.
Still, thank heavens for Manville, who walks away with the evening as elegantly and wholly as Merteuil triumphs in the sexual arena.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses is at the National Theatre, Upper Ground, until 6 June
