National Theatre Live: Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Writer: Christopher Hampton, based on the novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Director: Marianne Elliott

Memorably, Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of the eighteenth-century novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, was first staged by the RSC some 40 years ago. It featured astonishing central performances by Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman as Madame de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, the sophisticated former lovers who titillate one another by plotting the corruption of two high-born young women. The then youthful actors Lesley Manville and Juliet Stevenson played Cécile de Volanges and the recently married Madame de Tourvel. Lesley Manville, in this new production directed by Marianne Elliott, now plays Madame de Merteuil, with Aidan Turner as Valmont.

Before the first showing at Picturehouse Central, Lesley Manville, Marianne Elliot and Hannah van de Westhuysen (who plays Cécile), along with the playwright himself, appeared for a Q&A. Speaking of her vision for this new production, Elliot described its strong design features. In a set designed by Rosanna Vize, mirrored walls not only reflect the vanity of French society in the period, but also, Elliiot suggests, allow the audience to look at themselves (a feature that was obviously not apparent in the LiveScreen). For the card playing, which had such an important role in the original novel, she substituted some spectacular dancing. And indeed the dazzling swirl of dancers (choreographed by Tom Jackson Greaves with costumes by Natalie Roar) is central to the spectacle.

And this is a production that goes very firmly for spectacle. The original 1985 production made much of subtle, whispered communication between the protagonists, secretly conducting illicit affairs in a society which superficially was all grace and good manners. In the original novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, much of the action is narrated through exchanges of letters. Each of the various lovers may wait breathlessly for a response from their beloved, but the novel itself conducts itself with a certain stately pace. And it’s in the waiting that the real sexual charge lies.

In the original production, the performances were correspondingly subtle. The relationship between Rickman and Duncan was powerfully erotic because of the sheer restraint of their acting. Both were charming and deadly. Yet audiences found themselves caught up in their story of sophisticated and cruel deception. The first to fall prey to Valmont’s allure is Cécile de Volanges, fresh from convent school and being groomed for marriage. The scene in which, having successfully seduced her, Valmont writes a letter in her bed, using her naked back as a writing desk, was genuinely shocking and thrilling. The devastating change that later comes over Valmont as he grows closer to the chaste and pious Madame de Tourvel was enormously powerful in that production.

What Marianne Elliott gives us in her production is all out on show. It’s all about sex. The highly stylised costumes and sets suggest late-nineteenth-century decadence, and the amazing show provided by dancers and actors gives endless variations on erotic acts. In this world, it seems unsurprising that the two young women at the play’s heart will give in to sexual desire.

Aidan Turner is nothing if not smouldering: it’s what he does. He has recently smouldered to perfection in the DisneyPlus series, Rivals. There is certainly plenty in Les Liaisons that requires Valmont to smoulder too. But Turner is less convincing as the subtle, Machiavellian seducer that the play needs to create real impact.

Turner’s performance fits the vision of this production, but means it’s now uncomfortably close to #MeToo territory. He’s forever priapic, lusting and leering, casting brooding eyes, then affecting affront only to grin wolfishly moments later. His face is constantly mobile: camera close-ups in the Livescreen probably don’t work in his favour; his acting may work better from a distance. The audience needs to believe that perhaps even this Don Juan is capable of conversion and that he begins to feel real love for Mme de Tourvel (a convincing Monica Barbaro).

The action becomes increasingly melodramatic, culminating in Hampton’s altered ending of the play. And by the end, we may feel Valmont has become dangerously close to seeming a common-or-garden sex pest.

 In cinemas from 25 June 2026