Review: Matthew Bourne's The Midnight Bell at Newcastle Theatre Royal
Matthew Bourne's The Midnight Bell is unlike any dance production we've seen before
Novelist Patrick Hamilton’s most famous works were two successful plays: Rope (even more so for the popular Hitchcock movie) and Gaslight, both of which have inspired genius storyteller Matthew Bourne. But it’s Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky, Hangover Square, The Slaves Of Solitude and the Gorse Trilogy that have inspired The Midnight Bell. Sounds complex? That’s because it is. Bourne has taken characters and situations from all these novels for this lockdown creation, and occasionally suggested relationships between characters from different novels. The characters are all guests or employees at The Midnight Bell, and we’re introduced to them all at the pub.
From a waiter and a barmaid to an out-of work actress and a romantic with schizophrenia, there are a lot of different characters involved but costumes and clever movements mean we can instantly differentiate them. A West End chorus boy holds his cigarette with flair and the new customer moves around the stage like a chess piece whilst others glide.
The staging is sophisticated, and very Hitchcock – not too dissimilar to sets used for plays such as An Inspector Calls – and there’s plenty of room for the characters to move around each other and for chairs to be thrown. Most impressively, the female dancers perform in heels, which are deliberately only heard during a jazz-style dance.
Matthew Bourne is known for his experimental productions, such as Swan Lake and Edward Scissorhands, and this is certainly one of them, with both traditional ballet music and 1920s–1930s sounds making up this two-hour long show (including an interval). In the interval we find ourselves guessing what might happen next, and act two is as dramatic as we had imagined it would be.
There’s no surprise this production is award-winning and with so much taking place on stage at once, we’d love to see it again, and again.
