You can still see it with a small telescope

Back in September 2021, J and I went to the Cheltenham Everyman for the premiere of Sir Matthew Bourne's New Adventures 'The Midnight Bell'.  It was my chance to go to something which was entirely new, and something I'd probably never get the opportunity to do again.  And I really enjoyed it.

This summer the production is being revived and yet again, to great excitement on my part, the first performance was in Cheltenham.  I booked tickets as soon as booking opened, and got excellent stalls seats.



As I said when I originally reviewed this piece, it's very much Sir Matthew Bourne does fan fiction.  The Midnight Bell is based on a pub and the characters from six of Patrick Hamilton's books: the trilogy 'Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky', 'Hangover Square', 'The Slaves of Solitude' and 'The Gorse Trilogy'.  I had read the books prior to going the first time, and knowing their stories does help a bit with the characters, but it isn't essential.  The dancers and the set were excellent and the music fits in perfectly.



As for the fanfic - take ten characters from different books, put them in the same venue, but use dance instead of written words.  For three of the couples keep to canon pairing, for one couple take characters from two different books who have never met, and finally add two original characters.  

Because it was the first performance, Sir Matthew Bourne was in the audience, sitting three rows directly in front of me.  Sitting next to him was Etta Murfitt, associate artistic director of New Adventures.  As we left after the performance, both were standing in the side aisle.  J said to Sir Matthew that he'd really enjoyed the performance, and then I got to say that it was brilliant, that we'd been at the very first performance and how delighted I was to be able to see it again.  And all without getting totally tongue-tied and spouting rubbish.  Which, as you can imagine, made my evening!

We had a full day tour around Jersey looking at a number of the sites of the German occupation.