Les Liaisons Dangereuses: theatre

The 2026 NT production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses is superb.

It starred

Aidan Turner as the Vicomte de Valmont
Lesley Manville as the Marquise de Merteuil
Hannah van der Westhuysen as Cécile de Volanges
Monica Barbaro as Madame de Tourvel
Darragh Hand as the Chevalier Danceny

These, and all the other actors, gave faultless performances.

It used the script that Christopher Hampton adapted from the original novel by Choderlos de Laclos.

I saw it as a screencast of a 'recorded live' performance on 25th June 2026 at the Beacon cinema in Eastbourne

The choreography was stand-out. The play was topped and tailed with a masked ball but without the formalised dancing that many directors use to inform the audience that this is a period piece. Instead the actors and dancers whirled and swapped partners in a blur of movement to symbolise the underlying theme of sexual infidelity. This actually made the movement into physical theatre rather than just punctuating the dialogue; it added to the overall effect rather than merely adding a bit of spectacle.

It was a complicated story but it was very well explained. Valmont is a notorious rake and that Merteuil, seeking revenge on a lover who has discarded her, has commissioned him to seduce the freshly-out-of-convent-school and therefore innocent Cécile (superbly played by ) de Volanges. He agrees on the promise of Merteuil surrendering herself to him as a reward; she accepts but demands written proof. At the same time Valmont’s private project is to seduce Madame de Tourvel (an excellent performance from Monica Barbaro) who is notoriously faithful to her husband, just because of the challenge and the consequent triumph she represents. Cécile falls in love with her young music teacher the Chevalier Danceny (Darragh Hand) and Valmont pretends to assist the young lovers as a way of getting close to her. After he has raped her, he discovers that Mertauil has taken the Chevalier as her lover. Meanwhile he has fallen in love with Tourvel. Merteuil persuades him to reject Tourvel and then reneges on her promise to sleep with him. He prompts Danceny to abandon Merteuil, in revenge she tells Danceny he has seduced Cecile. Danceny and Valmont duel and Valmont is killed; Merteuil's letters are published and she is disgraced. Cecile ends up as top courtesan. (This is a change from the ending of the book.)

It was long! It was billed on IMDb as 3h 30m; in fact it was only slightly over three hours and that included the fifteen minute interval. But why, when a programme is already so long, do they insist on adding adverts for Sky Arts? After all, the audience presumably knows about Sky bloody Arts otherwise they wouldn’t be in the cinema. Not to mention that it is the same advert every time.

I was already tired from sleeping badly the night before and I admit there were moments in the more than one and a half hour long first half that my eyes closed although I didn’t actually fall asleep as one of my companions did.

But it was well worth the late night! I thoroughly enjoyed another superb production from the NT team. Five stars.