After touring the British provinces, the play opened the new Phoenix Theatre in London in 1930, starring Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Adrianne Allen and Laurence Olivier.

The leading roles have attracted a wide range of actors: among those who have succeeded Coward as Elyot are Robert Stephens, Richard Burton, Alan Rickman and Matthew Macfadyen, and successors to Lawrence as Amanda have included Tallulah Bankhead, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins, Elaine Stritch, Maggie Smith, Penelope Keith and Lindsay Duncan.

After spending a few more weeks revising it, he typed the final draft in The Cathay Hotel in Shanghai and sent copies to Lawrence and his producer and manager, John C. Wilson, with instructions to cable him with their reactions.

[4] By the time he returned to London, he found Lawrence not only had cleared her schedule but was staying at Edward Molyneux's villa in Cap-d'Ail in southeastern France learning her lines.

Coward wrote Sibyl and Victor as minor characters, "extra puppets, lightly wooden ninepins, only to be repeatedly knocked down and stood up again.

"[7] Rehearsals were still underway when the Lord Chamberlain took exception to the second act's love scene, labelling it too risqué in light of the fact the characters were divorced and married to others.

Coward went to St. James's Palace to plead his case by acting out the play himself and assuring the censor that with artful direction the scene would be presented in a dignified and unobjectionable manner.

After dinner at the Paris flat several days later, Elyot and Amanda use their code word "Solomon Isaacs", soon abbreviated to "Sollocks", to stop their arguments from getting out of hand.

[12] After successfully touring Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and Southsea for five weeks, the production opened the new Phoenix Theatre in London on 24 September 1930.

The first of these, in 1948, starred Tallulah Bankhead as Amanda and Donald Cook as Elyot, with Barbara Baxley as Sibyl and William Langford as Victor, in a production directed by Martin Manulis at the Plymouth Theatre, where it ran for 248 performances.

[24] Coward went to see the production "with my heart in my boots and was very pleasantly surprised ... her (Bankhead's) vitality was amazing, and, strange to say, she played the love scene quite beautifully.

[26] The success of the production, with Edward de Souza as Elyot and Rosemary Martin as Amanda, led to its transfer to the Duke of York's Theatre.

[29] A May 1968 Off-Broadway production directed by Charles Nelson Reilly starred Elaine Stritch as Amanda, and ran for nine performances at the Theatre de Lys.

[36] Gielgud directed a 1975 Broadway transfer of his production, starring Maggie Smith and John Standing at the 46th Street Theatre, where it ran for 92 performances.

[47][48] In 1990, a revival at London's Aldwych Theatre, starring Keith Baxter and Joan Collins, directed by Tim Luscombe, was not well received,[49] although Sara Crowe won an Olivier Award, Actress in a Supporting Role, as Sibyl.

[50] Arvin Brown directed Collins as Amanda and Simon Jones as Elyot in a 1992 Broadway production[51] that closed after only 11 previews and 37 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre.

[52] The last West End production of the 20th century was at the National Theatre, running from May to September 1999, with Anton Lesser as Elyot and Juliet Stevenson as Amanda, directed by Philip Franks.

[55][56] A Broadway transfer of Davies's West End production, starring Rickman and Duncan, ran for 127 performances at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in 2002.

[59] In 2009 at its new home, the Hampstead Theatre presented a revival directed by Lucy Bailey, with Jasper Britton as Elyot and Claire Price as Amanda.

[60] A 2010 revival at the Vaudeville Theatre in London was directed by Richard Eyre and starred Matthew Macfadyen as Elyot and Kim Cattrall as Amanda.

All of which connoted in the public mind cocktails, repartee and irreverent allusions to copulation, thereby causing a gratifying number of respectable people to queue up at the box office.

Coward expressed a dim view of such analyses: "Many years ago an earnest young man wrote a book about my plays.

"[86] In a 2005 article, Penny Farfan analyses the play from the point of view of queer theory, arguing that "the subversiveness of [Coward's] sexual identity is reflected in his work," and that Private Lives questions "the conventional gender norms on which compulsory heterosexuality depends.

"[87] Positing that the leading characters' portrayal as equals is evidence in support of this theory, Farfan instances the famous image (shown above) of Coward and Lawrence as Elyot and Amanda smoking and "posing as mirror opposites".

[90] The critic Michael Billington writes of the piece, "It is not a closet gay play but a classic about the mysterious charm of androgeny [sic].

Loss argues that nothing can ever happen in the relationship of Elyot and Amanda, because it is based on conflicting emotions: "they are bound to repeat themselves, playing out their scene again and again with different words and different props but always with the same result.

"[92] Hanns Kräly and Richard Schayer wrote the screenplay for a 1931 film adaptation directed by Sidney Franklin and starring Norma Shearer as Amanda and Robert Montgomery as Elyot.

[95] On British television, Peter Gray and Maxine Audley starred in a 1959 presentation, and Alec McCowen and Penelope Keith took the leads in a BBC production in 1976.

[97] In January 2010, BBC Radio 4 broadcast another adaptation of the play directed by Sally Avens, starring Helena Bonham Carter as Amanda and Bill Nighy as Elyot.

[102] The 2001 London production won three Olivier Awards out of seven nominations, for Lindsay Duncan as Amanda and the set designs by Tim Hatley and costumes by Jenny Beavan.