The Midnight Bell Archives - North West End UK

Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell – Sheffield Lyceum

24Sep

By Nathan DunnNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell – Sheffield Lyceum

Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell arrived in Sheffield with all the pomp of a bold dance show and all the sincerity of a gripping drama. This piece of theatre is aptly both - a dramatic, human tale of intimate connections won, lost, enjoyed and destroyed. This New Adventures production is an acerbic piece of liquid, visual storytelling. The narrative is compelling, pulling inspiration from author Patrick Hamilton’s (of ‘Rope’ and ‘Gaslight’ fame) 1929 novel ‘The Midnight Bell’. A patient meditation on love, lust and relationships set on the backdrop of the titular Midnight Bell late night drinking spot rooted somewhere betwixt the alleyways of early 20th century London. The work covers all corners of human desire in romantic and sexual relationships. We share the intimate moments...

Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell – Liverpool Playhouse

17Sep

By Miranda GreenNo Comments

North West

Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell – Liverpool Playhouse

T.S. Eliot said that poetry can communicate before it is understood. The Midnight Bell is poetry in motion – not so much a linear tale as an evocation of a time and place, where love stories from the back streets of inter-war London swirl, intersecting and cross-referencing, before resolving into a tableau. Born in Covid and taking inspiration from the Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky novels of Patrick Hamilton, The Midnight Bell takes its name from a downtown pub, the narrative hub, where the small-time romances of chancers and spinsters alike play out. Certainly, there is something very Prufrockian about Lez Brotherston’s set, reminiscent of the “muttering retreats of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels” of Eliot’s antihero. The inside of a Soho boozer is wonderfully sum...

21Oct

By Lou SteggalsNo Comments

North West

Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell – Liverpool Playhouse

The bad boy of ballet is back with a sultry, sensual tale of lonely hearts and hedonism in 1930s London. Delivered by Bourne’s New Adventures company, we’re introduced to a multitude of characters from the underbelly of Soho, who congregate at night in a local pub, the Midnight Bell, trying to escape the mundanity of their daily lives and connect with whoever may have them. Heavily inspired by the novels of Patrick Hamilton, each distinct personality dances straight out of the pages of his work, to present an often-bleak view of the very human desire for love and acceptance. A true ensemble piece, our dancers weave in and out of each other’s spaces and stories with wonderful fluidity and awareness of each other. Immaculate choreography and timing pulls us into each picture post...

22Sep

By Tracey BellNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

The Midnight Bell – Sheffield Lyceum

It has been said that no other English author has written so accurately about sexual infatuation, embarrassment and self-illusion as Patrick Hamilton, a riveting dissector of English life up to and including the War. Hamilton’s novels are the perfect stimulus for master storyteller Matthew Bourne’s new work ‘The Midnight Bell’, which explores the transfixing tales of Soho’s bleak, darker side. A nocturnal event that follows the story of the frequenters of the 1930’s public house in Fitzroyd Square. The characters are taken from Hamilton’s various literary works including 20,000 Streets Under the Sky; Hangover Street and the works Gas Light and Rope; which were successfully made into film. The characters are thrown together in one time and place with a few added new ‘Hamiltonian’ feeling...