Matthew Bourne’s The Midnight Bell – New Adventures

Intoxicated tales from darkest Soho.

Matthew Bourne’s new world premiere for New Adventures explores the under-belly of 1930s London life where ordinary people emerge from cheap boarding houses nightly to pour out their passions, hopes and dreams in the pubs and bars of fog-bound Soho and Fitzrovia. Step inside The Midnight Bell, a tavern where a lonely-hearts club gather to play out their lovelorn affairs of the heart; bitter comedies of longing, frustration, betrayal and redemption.

Inspired by the great English novelist Patrick Hamilton (Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky, Hangover Square) who created some of the most authentic fiction of his era; stories borne out of years of social interactions with the working man and woman at his favourite location – the London pub.

Master storyteller Bourne once again joins forces with the Olivier and Tony award-winning team of Terry Davies, Lez Brotherston, Paule Constable and Paul Groothuis for this brand new production. The cast features twelve of New Adventures’ finest performers in roles that will challenge and reveal the darker reaches of the human heart.

The Midnight Bell contains scenes of a sexual nature, including sexual violence and mental distress.

Image description: The image shows four people dressed in 1930s style seated in a row, all holding pints or glasses of wine. The picture is cropped at shoulder height, focusing attention on the position of bodies, legs and feet. A woman in a black dress is snuggled close to a man in wide-legged brown trousers. He reaches behind her to squeeze the knee of a man in pinstripes and spats, with whom the woman in black is playing footsie. The pinstriped man is turned towards the fourth drinker, a woman in a print frock whose legs are demurely crossed at the ankle.