Back to Before: The Theatre - THE MIDNIGHT BELL at Sadler's Wells

On 10th March 2020, I went to Covent Garden to see Liam Scarlett's SWAN LAKE.

On 9th October 2021, I went to Sadler Wells to see Matthew Bourne's THE MIDNIGHT BELL.

In the lockdown months I wondered what production would lure me back to sit in an auditorium with, like, germ-riddled strangers.  It would have to be something amazing, a favourite choreographer embracing the works of a favourite author maybe?  "Hold my pint" said Matthew Bourne, putting down his copy of HANGOVER SQUARE...

Patrick Hamilton has a strange legacy; his fame was as the writer of two very successful plays that were made into famous films GASLIGHT and ROPE but more importantly now are the books he wrote before, during and after WWII which chronicle the pathetic lives of those who skulk in the shadows of London and commuter towns; nervy spinsters, predatory tarts and anonymous men who pass you by on the street but who might bore you at the pub, fleece you of your money or worse.

 

The quiet desperation that drives his characters poured from Hamilton - his life hit a critical peak in the late 1920s when the pain from an obsessive love for a prostitute only heightened when he was run over by a car which disfigured him.  An alcoholic for most of his life, he died aged 58 of cirrhosis of the liver.

Luckily the two plays were huge successes which helped finance his novel-writing, and if you have ever read his magnificent trilogy TWENTY-THOUSAND STREETS UNDER THE SKY (1935), HANGOVER SQUARE (1941) or THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE (1947) they will have seeped into your memory and Matthew Bourne has brought Hamilton's memorable characters to life in THE MIDNIGHT BELL.

Although he has taken the pub setting from TWENTY THOUSAND STREETS, Bourne gives us Hamilton fans the wonderful premise of the main characters from his greatest novels all meeting there - Bob, Ella, Jenny and Ernest Eccles (TWENTY-THOUSAND STREETS), George Harvey Bone and Netta (HANGOVER SQUARE), Miss Roach (SLAVES OF SOLITUDE) and Ernest Gorse (THE GORSE TRILOGY).  In an inspired move, Bourne has invented two new characters: west end chorus boy Albert and a secretive pub customer Frank who become covert lovers.

 

In the early 1930s, Bob and Ella are co-workers in The Midnight Bell pub in Marylebone; their easy cameraderie hides Ella's unrequited love for him,  One night, Bob is attracted to a young prostitute Jenny when she visits the pub.  Bob becomes obsessed but the relationship is unbalanced by Jenny being sometimes loving, sometimes dismissive.  Sadly watching from the sidelines, Ella finds herself hounded by pub bore Ernest Eccles.

 

Also in the pub, lonely Miss Roach is singled out for attention by the swindler Gorse when he spots how wealthy she is, Albert and Frank send coded flirtations in the bar and end up in an unhappy relationship, while George Harvey Bone devotedly trails behind the disdainful Netta, an out-of-work actress who delights in humiliating him, although she is unaware that Bone is subjected to sudden schizophrenic fugues.

I loved THE MIDNIGHT BELL - well I would wouldn't I? - at only two hours long Bourne packs so much into his scenario and allows his choreography to stay grounded in a hypnotic style; content dictates form here and he has not fallen back into his regular choreographic style which can sometimes not serve the story - here his more signature moves are used to heighten the mood of the storyline: the gay lovers furtive love-making on a park bench echoes the gay lovers in THE INFERNAL GALLOP, a sprightly pas-de-deux danced by Bob and Ella illustrates a film musical watched in a cinema - unlike the real life Bob and Ella, musical lovers are always happy.  The approach is perfectly captured in the opening: Bob dances a solo worthy of Astaire which ends abruptly when his alarm going off and he is back in the drab bedroom over the pub.

His cast of ten dancers make a wonderful ensemble but there are a few real standouts: last seen as Bourne's neurotic Romeo, Paris Fitzpatrick made an equally lovelorn Bob, tormented by the noncommital Jenny, very well danced by Bryony Wood as she slowly becomes a blank-eyed tart. Bourne regular Michela Meazza added another fine portrayal to her repertoire as the prim Miss Roach falling in love with the nasty Gorse while another Bourne veteran Daisy May Kemp was an imperious nasty Netta. 

 

Richard Winsor has had an extended break from the New Adventures world with a regular role in "Casualty" but he's back in the fold and was marvellous as the dangerously schizo Bone.  Liam Mower, another longtime Bourne dancer, was great as the aloof chorus boy who seduces the new pub customer who hides a secret.

Bourne has reunited with his longtime production collaborators too and all contribute to the show's success: Lez Brotherston's spare, evocative design places it in the drab pubs and back bedrooms of Soho and Fitzrovia, Paule Constable's lighting design illuminates a word of shadow and cigarette-smoke haze while Terry Davies' mournful score is punctuated, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN style, by perfectly chosen 1930s pop songs which provide a bittersweet counterpoint to the characters' sad lives; the artists included are Hutch, Elisabeth Welch, Arthur Tracy and the incomparable Al Bowlly.

 

It's two-month tour is coming to it's end with dates in Oxford, Poole, Coventry, Inverness and Bath, do see it if you can but hopefully it won't be too long before it returns for a longer stay.  It deserves it.  So, back to theatres - will it last?  One has to wonder as in the two venues I have visited I was disappointed how what I assumed would be knowledgable audiences, most were not masked.

Stay safe, Constant Reader...

DVD/150: MADONNA: TRUTH OR DARE (Alek Keshishian, 1991)

After watching Madonna's MADAME X film, I decided to revisit TRUTH OR DARE, known in the UK as IN BED WITH MADONNA.

Thirty years on, it is still one of the best rock documentaries, capturing the offstage madness and onstage magic of the Blond Ambition tour.

As exciting as the colour onstage footage is, with iconic performances of HOLIDAY, KEEP IT TOGETHER, LIKE A VIRGIN and EXPRESS YOURSELF, the b&w offstage stories are the ones that have lived longer in the collective memory.

It's fascinating to watch Madonna's reticence at Keshishian's backstage cameras slowly change to her revealing more and more.

Also revealing is her wilting relationship with Warren Beatty, exposed by the ever-present cameras.

Madonna's supporting cast - onstage and off - are her seven dancers and two backing singers; the tricky balancing act between being surrogate mother and employer is revealing too.

Truth or dare? Truth: I love it.

Shelf or charity shop?  Oh please. From soundman Keith needing a new asshole to Kevin Costner, from Keith Haring's memorial gig to Pedro Almodóvar, from shopping in Chanel to Vichy bottled water,  from "the Fascist state of Toronto" to the Vatican, from the NY Gay Pride march to male dancers Gabriel and Slam snogging as a dare, from her schoolgirl idol to the Ciccone men, from Bernhard to Banderas... supposedly Alek Keshishian's first cut ran over three hours - now there is a director's cut that needs releasing!

DVD/150: THUNDER ROCK (Roy Boulting, 1942)

An intriguing film version of US writer Robert Ardrey's anti-isolationist play.  

It flopped on Broadway but, unsurprisingly, was a huge success in London in 1940 starring Michael Redgrave as David Charleston, an idealistic journalist who has withdrawn from a world that has allowed Fascism to thrive.

Between appearing in the play and film, Redgrave had joined the Navy but was invalided out after 16 months. 

Boulting's expanding of the backstory slows the plot down but it eventually hits it's stride.

Charleston has become a lighthouse keeper on Lake Michigan, only seeing people during a monthly supplies drop.

Charleston has found the logbook from an 1849 shipwreck and nightly imagines it's victims: Captain Stuart, Doctor Kurtz, Mrs Kurtz and daughter Melanie, Miss Kirby a feminist, and Mr Briggs and his pregnant wife.

He cynically judges them but slowly discovers they were good people and realises life must be engaged with.

Shelf or charity shop?  I think Mr Charleston can hide away from society in my DVD storage box but it's a film that always impresses in my rare viewings. Boulting takes a long time showing Charleston's growing dislike of the world but it does settle down into it's gently unsettling atmosphere of a man living in his mind with the dead, helped by the fine cinematography of German Mutz Greenbaum.  By seeing the '49ers' initially through Charleston's misanthropic eyes then as they actually were, it allows the actors the chance to deliver clever shifts in their performances.  Finlay Currie, Barbara Mullen, Frederick Valk (who co-starred with Redgrave in the Ealing horror film DEAD OF NIGHT two years later) all excel while Lili Palmer is a delight as the initially frivolous then subdued Melanie, also good is James Mason as Charleston's delivery pilot friend; Mason had actually registered as a Concientious Objector at the start of WWII.  Michael Redgrave gives one of his finest screen performances as Charleston, unafraid to play a shut-down and disdainful character until he subtly shifts to show a man willing to face the world again. THUNDER ROCK is an under-rated gem.

DVD/150: LIZA WITH A 'Z' (Bob Fosse, 1972, tv)

Three months after CABARET was released,  director Bob Fosse reunited with Liza Minnelli and composers John Kander and Fred Ebb for LIZA WITH A 'Z', "A Concert for Television".

Fosse refused to shoot on videotape, as was usual with TV specials, and used eight 16mm cameras to give it a filmic gloss.

Wearing designs by Halston with music co-ordinated by Marvin Hamlisch, Liza explodes with energy and is rarely offstage, usually surrounded by a chorus of Fosse's favourite dancers.

I was reminded of Pauline Kael's critique that it was hard to accuse Liza of going over-the-top as that was her default position and here she is pure showbiz electricity but the setlist allows her to show her vocal and dramatic range.

This setlist includes comedy, pop and easy listening numbers as well as a sizzling CABARET medley.

And of course, Fosse's distilled, sexy, magnificent choreography still dazzles.

Shelf or charity shop?  Shelf!  My brother had seen CABARET first and was so knocked out he bought the soundtrack of LIZA WITH A 'Z' which I soon appropriated.  The show is still a great achievement, Fosse managed to capture the pure essence of his star.  Remarkably after winning four Emmy Awards, the programme vanished from view after two repeats.  Liza owned the rights to it but assumed it was lost until she heard from Michael Arick, a film restoration expert, that he had found a print and after a lengthy restoration period, it was re-released in 2005 - he even found the deleted "Mein Herr" number from the CABARET medley.  Liza and Fosse's  Emmy Awards joined their Academy Awards  for CABARET; Fosse's Tony awards for PIPPIN in the same year made him the only director to win the Best Director awards in theatre, film and television in a single year.

DVD/150: THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE (Josė Quintero, 1961)

Acclaimed Broadway director Josė Quintero made one film, an adaptation of Tennessee Williams' first novel.

Ten years after her Blanche Dubois in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, Vivien Leigh delivered another memorable Williams heroine in Karen Stone, a former actress living in Rome after a year of widowhood.

Hiding from friends and having lost her nerve for the stage, Karen drifts through days in an apartment by the Spanish Steps.  She is further unnerved by a young vagabond who seems to be watching her...

Drawn into a circle of wealthy emigres, she meets Magda, an ingratiating German Contessa who procures young men for them, living off their financial gifts.

Knowing of Karen's wealth, Magda introduces her to the charming but shallow Paolo but Karen suspects the truth and keeps him at arm's length.

She eventually succumbs but Paolo treats her with disdain. Karen is again alone but knows destiny awaits her...

Shelf or charity shop?  She had a spring, now she has a shelf.  A bit of an over-looked film, I have always enjoyed it and find it's enigmatic ending haunting. Vivien Leigh had been away from the screen for six years, unlike her character she was being a success on stage, but also suffering from recurring manic depressions that plagued her as well as her divorce from Laurence Olivier.  She gives a wonderfully nuanced performance: lost, rueful, disdainful and desperate and looks glorious, glowing in her Balmain couture.  Sadly Warren Beatty gives a skin-deep performance and is effortlessly outshone by Lotte Lenya, earning her Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress with a performance of glittering malice.  The extraordinary supporting cast include Coral Browne as Helen's friend Meg who knows her too well, Jill St John is great as a sly Hollywood starlet, silent screen actress Bessie Love as Karen's bossy dresser and it was the last film of Ernest Thesiger, best remembered as the eccentric Dr Pretorius in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.