Sadler’s Wells, London
The choreographer draws rich inspiration from the lonely, thwarted characters of the novelist Patrick Hamilton in this beautifully danced new work
Sexy, smouldering and sad, Matthew Bourne’s new full-evening work is based on the semi-neglected novels of Patrick Hamilton. But it also belongs in the world of Hamilton’s contemporary the playwright Terence Rattigan, and those terrible inequalities of passion that are never quite spoken but tear lives apart.
Melancholy, frustration and desire seep out of the limbs of all the characters we meet in the surroundings of a pub called The Midnight Bell, the title of one of Hamilton’s books and the key setting for this piece. They seek solace at the bottom of a glass, then stretch in longing, pushing their bodies into one another, propelled by terrible loneliness and the need for human contact.
The Midnight Bell is at Sadler’s Wells, London, until 9 October, and touring until 27 November
