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...