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Strikingly modern in its cold-eyed depiction of sexuality and gender politics, Les Liaisons Dangereuses has inspired numerous stage and screen adaptations, often updated to more contemporary settings: Cruel Intentions (1999) was set in modern-day Manhattan, while a recent Chinese remake took place in 1930s Shanghai. The hunter gets captured by the game, with lethal consequences. But their duplicity backfires when the vengeful Marquise manipulates Valmont into sleeping with both teenage convent girl Cecile de Volanges (Morfydd Clark) and the religiously devout Madame de Tourvel (Elaine Cassidy), awakening long-dormant feelings of real love and bitter jealousy in these jaded old predators. The plot revolves around the Marquise de Merteuil ( Janet McTeer) and the Vicomte de Valmont (West), gleefully amoral ex-lovers who treat sex as a sadistic spectator sport, relishing the social and emotional ruin they inflict on the romantic dupes that they seduce and abandon. A 2008 Broadway revival with Laura Linney and Ben Daniels drew a more muted reception. Hampton’s crisp, sardonic, innuendo-heavy stage adaptation was first mounted 30 years ago by the RSC and director Howard Davies, with Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan as co-stars, winning awards both in London and New York. Published in 1782, Les Liaisons Dangereuses began its long literary afterlife as a scandalous epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, a career soldier who narrowly escaped the guillotine during the French Revolution, later becoming a minor general under Napoleon. It will also screen in cinemas in January as part of the NT Live program. Already sold out for its initial two-month run, possibly due to the marquee appeal of its male star Dominic West, this tragicomic tale of bed-hopping sociopaths clearly has the potential for an extended West End transfer, and possibly further afield too. Director Josie Rourke’s respectful revival of Christopher Hampton’s celebrated stage adaptation is a handsome and mirthful affair, albeit low on sex or surprises. An 18 th century French classic that still has plenty to say to modern audiences about sex and power, Les Liaisons Dangereuses is proof that there will always be a healthy audience for salacious menage-a-cinq plotlines.