HANGOVER SQUAREby Patrick Hamilton. Adapted for the Stage by Fidelis Morgan. Set in darkest Earls Court just before the outbreak of the Second World War and written by local author Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square is at last performed in its natural home - at Earls Court's Finborough Theatre, opening on 9 July 2008 for a four-week run. Alcoholic George Harvey Bone is hopelessly infatuated with a young actress. Netta is cool, hopelessly desirable and utterly contemptuous of George. He is adrift in a hellish darkly comic world of seedy, fog-bound saloon bars, lodging houses and boozing philosophers, except in his 'dead' moments, when something goes click in his head and he realises, without doubt, that he must kill her. "George Harvey Bone, condemned to live in Hangover Square,
is a triumph of compassionate creation" his adored Netta
with her friend Peter, seems to represent some principle of evil.
And all the group, forever aimlessly drifting and pub crawling,
some-how suggest the London of 1939, and far better than
novels of the period. He became one of the most widely admired
novelists of his generation. I feel a great many younger readers
will be caught by Patrick Hamilton's intensely personal vision
of life, his enduring sense of homelessness, of the loneliness
and solitude so many have known. The world he secretly
regarded with horror, in the dark outside the lighted saloon bars,
is not better than when he was writing these novels, it is if
anything worse". Patrick Hamilton (1904-1962) was the author of Rope (filmed by Alfred Hitchcock) and Gaslight (recently revived at The Old Vic). His work has undergone a huge revival in recent years and, in 2007, the audio version of Hangover Square was Book of the Week in The Sunday Times. The novel is adapted by actress and writer Fidelis Morgan. Her stage plays include adaptations of famous novels including Pamela and Hangover Square (last seen at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1990). Her non-fiction includes The Female Wits, the first study of female playwrights of the Restoration stage. Starring Matthew Flynn as Bone with Claire Calbraith and Caroline Faber sharing the role of Netta, in a cast that also includes Jamie De Courcey, Antony Eden, Jonathan Kemp and Gyuri Sarossy. The production is directed by Gemma Fairlie and designed by Alex Marker, with lighting by Trevor Wallace, costumes by Penn O'Gara, sound by Steve Mayo and is a Swoop Production for the Earl's Court Community Festival. "A masterly novel - you can almost smell the gin." "One of the most widely admired novelists of his generation." "A marvellous novelist." "If you are looking to fly from Dickens to Amis with just one over night stop then Hamilton is your man." "Morgan's stylish adaptation - this is a whydunnit at its best." "Fidelis Morgan's skilful adaptation." "Hangover Square has been well served by its adapter Fidelis Morgan... it is not a realistic staging of its parent novel, but an
expressionistic nightmare hung on its bones" "Theatrical in the best sense, atmospheric, inventive and highly enjoyable." |
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