The best antidote to boredom is love—or reading. When military adventurer Pierre Choderlos de Laclos published his epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1782, he appealed to both these appetites. Pre-revolutionary readers were invited to peruse the clandestine machinations of jaded fictional French nobles, who planned their reputation-destroying sexual conquests with all the nonchalance of a pair of dinner party hosts making strategic seating plan arrangements. Fun was the objective; other people’s hearts were the playground.
Two hundred years later, playwright Christopher Hampton, then a green Oxford undergraduate, uncovered the obscure novel on a college reading list. Its psychological acuity touched a nerve. Here was passion, power and a ruthless amorality, one that spoke to the 1980s—a near-sighted society that couldn’t see beyond the next glass of champagne. Despite numerous attempts to lure producers into backing it, Hampton had to wait until an RSC commission. Even then, fearful of disapproval, he kept his source material under wraps.
Now his storied adaptation returns, transforming the National Theatre’s Lyttleton auditorium into a ballroom fit for misjudged romances and delicious betrayals. At its centre is Marquise de Merteuil, played by Lesley Manville as a ravishing cougar, wounded by amorous rejection and (apparently) avenging the sexual dispensability of women. Aidan Turner’s Vicomte de Valmont is her accomplice, a roué who seems to have taken tips from a 2010s public schoolboy, with his false displays of chivalry and puppy-eyed performances of pity. Retaining his Irish accent and charm, he strategises his way into the beds and minds of two unsuspecting belles: Hannah van der Westhuysen’s Cécile and Monica Barbaro’s Madame de Tourvel.
For all this sexual scheming and swooning, high-octane acting is a requisite. The cast oblige in their energy and stage presence, yet the psychology of their characters often feels underdeveloped. Turner’s volte-face from seasoned seducer to penitent romancer feels more like self-deception than authentic love. Likewise, while Manville’s presence is as commanding as ever, where she should be as cold and impenetrable as a vanity mirror, too often she radiates quiet, maternal warmth.
Naturally the audience of Les Liaisons Dangereuses wishes to be seduced, too. Natasha Roar achieves this through blush-inducing bodices and silk satin dresses in colours that have been pinched from a jewellery box. (Fashionistas be warned, you will leave with serious dress envy.) The real flirtation, though, takes place in Hampton’s language. Expect ironies as sharp as rapier edges and aphorisms that snap like silk fans.
If the real dance is in the dialogue, what does not help this production is its fondness for stylised, modern choreography. One is flung into the passion-filled world of Argentinian tangos rather than the dainty, formalised dances Marie Antoinette would have practised at Versailles. Simmering restraint—the key ingredient of real sexual tension—is done away with. Jarring episodes of flying limbs and swooshing dresses bring to the surface sexual fluster.
Eighteenth-century devotees will rejoice, however, at the sumptuous staging. The vast space of the Lyttleton is artfully filled by ushering the audience onstage as conspirators through mirrored walls, hinting at contemporary vanity while making a play for intimacy. Lending a historic air to the production is the fresco tapestry of Watteau-like nudes which oversee the sexual frolics that rage on below. And fluidity is added to the design by using moveable walls, forming boudoirs and alcoves, ideally suited for erotic rendezvous.
But of course, sex isn’t really the point here. As Hampton’s writing makes clear, it’s just a weapon for the real payoff for these preened narcissists—psychological power and the gratification of their outsized egos. ‘Vanity and happiness are incompatible,’ Merteuil concludes, recognising her condition while tragically unable to overcome it. This is a play about heated passions which ultimately makes blood run cold.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
By Christopher Hampton
Director: Marianne Elliot
Cast includes: Lesley Manville; Hannah van der Westhuysen; Aidan Turner; Gabrielle Drake; Monica Barbaro; Darragh Hand.
Until: 6th June 2026
Running Time: 2 hours and 40 minutes, including a 20-minute interval.
Review by Olivia Hurton
1st April 2026