Design For Living n Review: Malvern Theatres

The comedy focuses on a trio of artists in the 1930s who find they cannot live with or without each other.

To a backdrop of period glamour, the characters flit around, holding tortured discussions about their previous misdemeanours, before committing yet another.

After routinely destroying each pairing and hurting each other, they resolve to live as a threesome - a design for living.

Janie Dee as Gilda, Aden Gillett as Leo and Hugo Speer as Otto were excellent as the three corners of the love triangle. Dee perfectly conveyed the skittish, breathy Gilda, and Gillett and Speer excelled in the third scene with their high camp and evident glee at embarrassing her.

Ann Penfold, as brusque housekeeper Miss Hodge, also stood out and provided many hilarious moments.

Although the play seemed lacklustre at the beginning, it gathered momentum as it went on and the acting became louder and faster and funnier.

Coward's famous wit was played to its full effect and with obvious enjoyment.

The sexual overtones of the play no longer seem scandalous but the behaviour of the characters and their disregard for others in the pursuit of personal pleasure, leaves an audience feeling slightly guilty for liking them so much.

Nione Meakin

BANNED when it first appeared in 1933, Noel Coward's Design For Living still manages to seem slightly shocking 70 years on in this latest production.

The comedy focuses on a trio of artists in the 1930s who find they cannot live with or without each other.

To a backdrop of period glamour, the characters flit around, holding tortured discussions about their previous misdemeanours, before committing yet another.

After routinely destroying each pairing and hurting each other, they resolve to live as a threesome - a design for living.

Janie Dee as Gilda, Aden Gillett as Leo and Hugo Speer as Otto were excellent as the three corners of the love triangle. Dee perfectly conveyed the skittish, breathy Gilda, and Gillett and Speer excelled in the third scene with their high camp and evident glee at embarrassing her.

Ann Penfold, as brusque housekeeper Miss Hodge, also stood out and provided many hilarious moments.

Although the play seemed lacklustre at the beginning, it gathered momentum as it went on and the acting became louder and faster and funnier.

Coward's famous wit was played to its full effect and with obvious enjoyment.

The sexual overtones of the play no longer seem scandalous but the behaviour of the characters and their disregard for others in the pursuit of personal pleasure, leaves an audience feeling slightly guilty for liking them so much.

Nione Meakin