Matthew Bourne Talks About The Midnight Bell

Matthew Bourne’s acclaimed dance-theatre company New Adventures returns with The Midnight Bell – a poignant, atmospheric piece inspired by the novels of Patrick Hamilton. Exploring loneliness, longing and connection in 1930s Soho, it features six intertwining stories told through expressive choreography and a deeply evocative score. Matthew spoke about the production ahead of it coming to Sheffield…

When did you first become aware of the work of Patrick Hamilton?
In fact I toyed with the idea of staging Rope, as a play, some years ago, having seen the famous Hitchcock movie. The novels came later for me and they represent a very different world to the plays. I think Hamilton was consciously trying to write something with popular appeal for his theatre work and he succeeded in creating two of the most commercially successful melodramas of their day. However, the novels tell a different story borne out of mostly bitter personal experience and failed relationships. Painfully honest, but also beautifully observed and even finding humour in these mesmerising tales of lonely lives looking for love.

What aspects of his novels appealed to you as a storyteller?
Hamilton’s world could be seen as the flip-side of his close contemporary, Noel Coward. Hamilton wrote about the working man (and woman), borne out of years of observation and social interaction at his favourite location – the rather unglamorous London Pub. The characters are therefore very relatable, and their “voices” ring true. These characters and stories require us to “dig-deep” and find a non-verbal language to do them justice.

You can learn so much about 1930s attitudes to sex and relationships through Hamilton’s novels and I must admit that much of it was revelatory and unexpected. Hamilton has been called “a connoisseur of alcoholic behaviour” and this aspect appeals greatly to me as a non-verbal storyteller as it suggests “altered states” and even “gin-soaked” fantasies that are particularly useful when exploring the inner life of a character.

Rather than a straightforward adaptation, this is a devised piece inspired by Hamilton’s world. How did you approach it?
The main novels that we have explored in the piece are Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky, Hangover Square, The Slaves Of Solitude and the Gorse Trilogy, taking characters and situations from all novels and sometimes even suggesting relationships with characters from different novels! We weave six interconnecting stories or relationships throughout the piece, creating a kind of “essence” of Hamilton’s world. The only thing that they all have in common is that they are all regulars or employees of The Midnight Bell pub that gives our show its title.

Much of Hamilton’s work was deeply personal, so it was with some trepidation that I have taken the liberty to include a touching gay story amongst our Soho tales. There is much evidence that gay pick-ups and cruising would be a regular occurrence at the very Pubs that Hamilton regularly frequented in Fitzrovia.

Can you tell us about working with composer Terry Davies?
The first thing that I said to Terry was that I didn’t want a 1930s “pastiche” score. I wanted a contemporary score that reflected the emotion and inner-life of the characters – loneliness, furtive relationships, erotic obsession, drunken oblivion and bittersweet longing. Terry also loved the Hamilton books and our work together has been driven by a desire to be true to the “atmosphere” of the novels and characters. We have though added the odd period “surprise” in our score that reflects the words and music our characters may have been listening to at that time.

You’ve brought back some original team members and dancers from Play Without Words
New Adventures is a family that sticks together! This is a very unglamorous, nicotine-stained, fog-bound, slightly seedy world that we are delving into and that is inspiring us all too… Sometimes it’s finding the beauty in a battered old armchair or the golden fractured light coming through the stained glass of a tavern window that creates a memorable image. It’s certainly a gift for Lez Brotherston (Set and Costumes) and Paule Constable (Lighting Design). I was thrilled to have such an incredibly generous and talented cast to create with including some dancers who have been with me for over 20 years along with some of our brightest young talent.

What does The Midnight Bell say to audiences today?
One of the reasons that many New Adventures productions can be revived again and again is that they deal in universal and timeless truths. I originally created this piece as we were slowly emerging from the pandemic, which saw many of us isolated from loved ones. Four years on we continue to deal with some of those universal truths of loneliness and the need to connect… it seems like a trip to The Midnight Bell could be the perfect way to spend an evening?

The Midnight Bell runs at the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield from Tuesday 23 – Saturday 27 September 2025

Image: Hugo Glendinning