Bourne again

The wonderful inventive world of dance is being explored once more by the brilliant choreographer Matthew Bourne - here, he chats about his newest creation based on the novels of Patrick Hamilton

- 

NNOVATIVE choreographer and dancing Sir Matthew Bourne (surely one of the finest working in the world today) is bringing his newest work, The Midnight Bell, to Cheltenham's Everyman from today.

Performed by Matthew's company, New Adventures, and based on the work of the great English novelist, Patrick Hamilton - we had a chat with Matthew about the author to find out why he decided to put this particular show together...

When did you first become aware of the work of Patrick Hamilton?

Patrick Hamilton's most famous works, and the ones that kept him financially secure throughout his life, were actually two very successful plays. Rope (in 1929) and Gaslight (in 1938), and it was through the film versions of these plays that I first became aware of Hamilton as a writer. 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?

I think initially I just fell in love with these characters and the truthful way that Hamilton gets to the heart of them. Hamilton's world could be seen as the flip-side of his close contemporary, Noel Coward, whose witty and glamorous world of cocktails and high society was the epitome of 1930s fashion and imagery.