FAMILY favourites Patricia Hodge and Nigel Havers star in a new staging of Noël Coward’s comic masterpiece Private Lives as The Nigel Havers Theatre Company launches its first production at Bath’s Theatre Royal later this month.

Noël Coward’s gloriously entertaining and popular play opens at the Theatre Royal from Thursday, October 28 to Saturday, November 6 as The Nigel Havers Theatre Company launches its inaugural production, directed by Christopher Luscombe.

Private Lives stars Olivier Award-winning Patricia Hodge as Amanda and Nigel Havers, ever suave and thoroughly charming, as Elyot; the role taken by Noël Coward himself in the original production in 1930.

The cast is completed by Dugald Bruce-Lockhart as Victor, Natalie Walter as Sibyl and Aïcha Kossoko as Louise.

Noël Coward’s dazzling comic masterpiece is both a scintillatingly witty and scathingly vitriolic study of the rich and reckless in love.

Elyot and Amanda, who were once married to each other, find themselves in adjoining rooms in the same hotel on the French coast, both on honeymoon with their new partners.

Their initial horror quickly evaporates as, within no time, they’re sharing cocktails and a romantic serenade. But when they daringly elope to Amanda’s Paris flat their lust thaws as quickly as it had reignited.

Nigel Havers said: “I’m so glad I’ve got my own company and for our first production I’ve chosen Private Lives as I’ve never done it before.

“In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever done a play by Noël Coward and I couldn’t be more excited especially as I’ve got my favourite actress, Patricia Hodge, to play Amanda. The whole point of the theatre is to be entertained and I want audiences to have a really great time.”

Tickets from the Theatre Royal Bath box office on 01225 448844 and online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk