Review: Les Liaisons Dangereuses, National Theatre ★★★

Aidan Turner and Lesley Manville-in-Les-Liaisons-Dangereuses-National-Theatre-c-Sarah-Lee-1 — Aidan Turner and Lesley Manville
Photo credits: Sarah Lee

Review: Les Liaisons Dangereuses, National Theatre (Lyttleton)

Les Liaisons Dangereuses is currently playing at the Lyttelton Theatre, National Theatre, South Bank, London, directed by Marianne Elliott, starring Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner, until 6 June 2026.

When Pierre Choderlos de Laclos published his epistolary novel in 1782, French aristocratic society was just seven years from the guillotine. His story of idle nobles weaponising desire and correspondence to destroy one another caused uproar on publication. Some readers, so alarmed by its unflinching portrait of the ruling class, reportedly wrapped the novel in brown paper to conceal it. And yet it endured: through the French Revolution, through restoration, through adaptation after adaptation. Christopher Hampton’s celebrated stage version, first produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford in 1985, gave the story new life on stage, and the 1988 film with Glenn Close and John Malkovich, which won three Academy Awards, lodged it firmly in the cultural imagination. It is that film, perhaps more than anything else, that most audiences arriving at the Lyttelton carry with them: an expectation of dangerous elegance, of cruelty delivered with a smile and a fan.

This production delivers that, but only up to a point.

There is a great deal to admire, and much of it is visual. Set designer Rosanna Vize and lighting designer James Farncombe create some genuinely stunning images: large paintings preside over a world of doors and mirrors, and an enormous chandelier casts extraordinary light across the stage. There are moments when the staging is genuinely memorable. A church scene, spare and precisely composed, uses a luminous cross as its centrepiece, flanked by symmetrical doorways that frame the two figures below like figures in a moral allegory. A single candle flickers at the edge of the action. It is a beautifully balanced image, and a reminder of what this production can achieve when design and drama pull in the same direction.

When the full ensemble is deployed, Tom Jackson Greaves‘ choreography gives us vivid, physical pictures of court life and courtship alike. These set pieces use the Lyttelton’s considerable scale well, and remind you why this is one of London’s great stages. The costumes, by Natalie Roar, echo the refinement and excess of the ancien régime with considerable success.

And yet. The essence of this story is frisson. The Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil are not simply scheming; they are scheming because they are bored, because their world offers them nothing except each other’s admiration and the sport of ruining others. That current of dangerous mischief has to crackle off the stage. Here, it does so only intermittently.

Aidan Turner, known to most audiences as the brooding, bare-chested Poldark, brings an undeniable physical presence. But the quicksilver quality that Valmont demands, that sense that seduction is his native language and that he is always ever so slightly amused by his own performance, is harder to locate. His pursuit of the virtuous Madame de Tourvel, played by Monica Barbaro, never quite convinces. We understand intellectually that this is a conquest; we do not feel the dangerous current between them that would make it either thrilling or heart-breaking.

Lesley Manville is a different matter entirely. She has poise, precision, and a diction that cuts clean through the air. Her Merteuil is a woman who has learned to survive in a world that gives women no formal power, and who has become a master in the art of wielding influence without appearing to. It is worth noting that Manville was previously seen in the 1986 Barbican production in the very different role of the young Cécile: the arc of that career is itself a kind of story. The scenes between Manville and Turner are the production’s strongest. Yet even here, the devilish, coquettish spark that should sizzle between them is more warm embers than roaring fire.

The movement of the set, rooms assembling and disassembling to track the letters as they travel between chateaux and townhouses, is conceptually sound and practically accomplished. Some configurations are genuinely striking, with pieces that evoke the ornate interiors of the period with real conviction. The use of mirrors, too, has a certain logic in a world where everyone is perpetually watching and being watched. The difficulty is one of scale. Large, unbroken sheets of glass simply did not exist in 1780s France; even Versailles achieved its famous glittering effect through carefully arranged smaller panes. The anachronism pulls you out of the world rather than drawing you deeper in. And when exposed beams come into view, the effect is less aristocratic salon and more rural outbuilding.

It is also worth reflecting on what this story is really about: a tiny, extraordinarily wealthy class, insulated from consequence, filling their time with the destruction of others for sport. That is not as distant from our own world as we might like to think, and there is real intellectual pleasure in sitting with that discomfort.

But the core problem remains. The letters, which are the very bones of Laclos’ novel, must be felt as dangerous objects. Words, in this world, are weapons. The production gestures towards that truth, but does not always make us feel it.

This is a handsome, intelligent, and at times genuinely beautiful production, with a commanding central performance from Manville and ensemble work that is a real pleasure to watch. It is absolutely worth seeing, and the Lyttelton is a magnificent space for it. It simply does not quite deliver the sustained sense of peril and wit that this material demands. The pen, as they say, is mightier than the sword. Here, it occasionally feels like a very elegant fountain pen that has run slightly low on ink.

Manville commands, the stage dazzles, but the dangerous spark that should crackle between our leads proves elusive.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses runs at the Lyttelton Theatre, National Theatre, until 6 June 2026. Running time approximately 3 hours including a 20-minute interval.

Please note: the production contains depictions of sexual assault and grooming, strong language, violence, and flashing lights.

Discounts at the National Theatre: The National Theatre has some excellent options for younger and lower-income audiences. Check out the National’s own website for details, and read my guide to young person’s discounts across London theatres.