Press acclaim for 'Our Private Life' at the Royal Court Theatre

Our Private Life by Pedro Miguel Rozo, translated by Simon Scardifield opened at the Royal Court Theatre on 11 February 2011 and attracted a wealth of praise from the national press. The play was part of the international playwrights season and was supported by the Genesis Foundation who celebrated 15 years of pioneering international work with the Royal Court Theatre in 2011.

Since 1996 the Royal Court Theatre has travelled the world, running long-term play development projects and building relationships between playwrights, directors, actors and translators. They have now worked with hundreds of international playwrights from more than 60 countries, with the support of the Genesis Foundation and the British Council.

Our Private Life (Nuestras Vidas Privadas) was written by Pedro Miquel Rozo, a playwright, director and telenovela writer from Bogotá, Colombia. He first worked with the Royal Court in Bogotá in 2004 and developed this play during the 2009 Royal Court International Residency in London. Praise for the play from the UK press can be found below.

The Daily Telegraph 4*
A frisky, often ferociously funny comedy is one promising work within the Royal Court’s International Playwrights Festival…The Court is flying the flag for our need to look overseas – all too rarely done in our theatre.
Dominic Cavendish

The Independent 4*
One of the hottest tickets in Theatreland at the moment is The Children’s Hour with Keira Knightley, but Our Private Life, by Colombian author Pedro Miguel Rozo, knocks spots off Lillian Hellman’s 1934 analysis of the destructive effects of false rumour. It has the wonderfully frisky, darkly droll elan of an early Almodóvar movie and shows how scandal can flush out discomfiting underlying truths.
Paul Taylor

The Times 4*
The play is fascinating in content, form and expression…
Jeremy Kingston

The Guardian 3*
You certainly come out with a heightened awareness of a country in the throes of traumatic transition.
Michael Billington

The Financial Times 3*
Nuestras vidas privadas premièred in Pedro Miguel Rozo’s native Colombia in 2009, where it won an important playwriting competition. It is, in Simon Scardifield’s eminently playable English translation, both witty and intelligent.
Ian Shuttleworth

The Metro
Rozo pulls no punches with his child abuse storyline. His attack on the price people are willing to pay to get on in the world is starkly delineated in Lyndsey Turner’s fast-paced, farce-tinged production and O’Donnell’s taciturn portrayal makes the ending all the more chilling.
Siobhan Murphy