Private Lives Video Footage
These are a variety of clips and footage for students to watch and consider as part of AO1, AO2 & AO5 of the A Level Syllabus.
Digital Theatre Plus provides a range of teaching resources, as well as a full-length filming of the 2013 production starring Anna Chancellor and Toby Stephens. Click here to get your free trial.
Private Lives Footage
Penelope Keith Private Lives movie
An episode of the radio anthology series "Screen Guild Theater", broadcast 13 October 1940.
Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence recording of Act I
An episode of the radio anthology series "Screen Guild Theater", broadcast 13 October 1940.
Excerpt from Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan production
Interviews with cast & directors of Private Lives
Andrew Marr interviews Toby Stephens and Anna Chancellor (also features an excerpt from Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens’ production in 1974)
Jonathan Kent on directing Private Lives at the Gielgud Theatre
Anna Chancellor and Toby Stephens in This Morning discussing Private Lives
Kim Cattrall speaks about Private Lives in relation to her other most famous role as Samantha in Sex and the City and the ability to bring the audience with her
Rupert Wickham on playing Elyot at the Nottingham Playhouse, 2011
Kim Cattrall on playing Amanda at the Music Box Theatre, Broadway
Janie Dee on playing Amanda at Nottingham Playhouse, 2011
Contemporary footage
Below are a series of clips taken from YouTube which show contemporary examples of themes also prevalent in Private Lives.
Dancing on the Edge is set in the early 1930s and follows black jazz musicians, the Louis Lester Band, as they find fame amongst the parties and performances of London's upper class society.
Dancing on the Edge Episode 1
Clip explaining the importance of an actor’s awareness of the 1920s political context in Downton Abbey. This is also an important part in the process for actors taking on a role in Private Lives.
Contemporary ‘Comedy of Manners’ examples
Friends
Seinfeld
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Seinfeld
Sex and the City
Modern Family