Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Director: Marianne Elliott
Writer: Christopher Hampton
Based on: Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ epistolary novel
Cast: Aidan Turner, Lesley Manville, Monica Barbaro, Hannah van der Westhuysen, Darragh Hand, Cat Simmons, Gabrielle Drake
Seen on: 12.7.2026
[Here’s my review of the 2016 production of the play.]
[Here are all things Les Liaisons Dangereuses.]

Content Note: rape

Plot:
The Victome de Valmont (Aidan Turner) and the Marquise de Merteuil (Lesley Manville) are thick as thieves, united in their love to manipulate and destroy the people around them, a skill they have so artfully mastered that their ploys don’t fall back on them. Both have a new project: Valmont is trying to seduce Madame de Tourvel (Monica Barbaro) who is staying at his aunt’s (Gabrielle Drake) summer home and who is widely known for her morals and her loyalty to her husband. The Marquise, on the other hand, is looking for revenge on an ex-lover who just got engaged to the naive Cécile (Hannah van der Westhuysen) who has spent pracitcally her entire life in a convent. So she enlists Valmont’s help to completely corrupt Cécile.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses is one of my favorite books, problematic as it is. So I always pay attention when a new adaptation hits my radar, and so I jumped at the chance at watching this version of it. But unfortunatley, I hated a lot of it.

[SPOILERS]

I haven’t read Hampton’s adaptation, but this is the second time I saw a version of it. In both productions I saw, a woman directed and the ending is very different from the misogynist clusterfuck in the book – and from each other. In the 2016 production, I celebrated an ending that managed to not blame Merteuil for everything and judge her more harshly than Valmont. In this production, I actually recoiled and started wondering whether it wasn’t even more misogynistic than the original. This version, in an attempt, probably, to give some agency back to Cécile (after doing one of the rape-ier versions of her “seduction”), goes the All About Eve route and basically makes her the new bitch in town after dethroning Merteuil – and it didn’t work for me at all. I will give it that what it is trying to say is that in this patriarchal world, women either become cruel or they’re eaten alive, but this kind of message feels simplistic and pretty hopeless.

But my issues with the production started way earlier than the ending. Because its biggest problem is Aidan Turner. He might have the looks, but he really doesn’t have the acting chops to pull off Valmont. His Valmont is mostly a petulant child where one wonders how anybody could find this seductive. And the changes in his feelings towards Madame de Tourvel are basically unobservable and which brings the entire plot trajectory out of whack.

To be fair to the play and the production, not everything is bad about it. Lesley Manville is a revelation and she gets the necessary attire to make Merteuil sparkle and shine even more. I also found it interesting that she is that much older than Valmont (well, at least there are almost 30 years between Manville and Turner). And the play definitely has the comedic timing down – although I sometimes felt that it might have been leaning a little too much on the funny parts. It is not a funny story in the end.

The stage design was also pretty good, although I am not too much of a fan of this kind of black minimalism that seems pretty popular at the moment and has been for a while. But altogether, I am afraid that this won’t be a version of the play I’d like to revisit.

Summarizing: did not like it.