Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell

Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell photos

Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell description

A remarkable dance-theatre event awaits you in the shape of Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures. The Midnight Bell is a new show inspired by the English novelist Patrick Hamilton (Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, Rope, Gaslight, Hangover Square), who wrote Midnight Bell in 1929. He's known for his bleak, cynical approach to 1930s working-class London, its street culture and its poverty. The production brings the dodgy underbelly of the capital's cheap boarding houses and smoggy streets to life in a story set in a Soho pub, The Midnight Bell, where the lost and lonely meet to play out their frustrations, longings and dreams.

The actor-dancers are Cordelia Braithwaite, Reece Causton, Glenn Graham, Daisy May Kemp, Hannah Kremer, Michela Meazza, Andy Monaghan, Liam Mower, Dominic North, Bryony Pennington, Edwin Ray, Danny Reubens, Ashley Shaw and Alan Vincent. The show is directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne himself, with music by Terry Davies, set and costume design from Lez Brotherston, lighting design by Paule Constable and sound design by Paul Groothuis. Don’t miss this amazing dance-theatre experience that, despite everything, still offers hope. Powerful, emotional, extraordinary.

Playing at Sadlers Wells (venue info)