I didn’t want it to end. The Midnight Bell, Matthew Bourne’s latest dive into the aching hearts of ordinary people, is simply fantastic! Layered, moody, and completely absorbing.
Set in 1930s London, the show follows a group of lonely souls who drift in and out of a smoky, dimly lit pub, The Midnight Bell. Inspired by Patrick Hamilton’s novels it captures the hopes, disappointments, and quiet yearnings of people just trying to find connection. Bourne has said this piece, first toured in 2021, was also shaped by the isolation of lockdown, and you can feel that. The longing is real.
There’s no dialogue. Just a few lip-synced period songs, drifting in and out like memories. That means it’s up to you to work out who’s who, what’s going on, and what it all means, and that’s part of the brilliance. You start watching the way people move. How they slump, twitch, hesitate, reach out. It’s not always clear, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s emotional, physical storytelling and it trusts you to feel your way through it.
The first thing I noticed, sitting in Row D, was the stage. Lez Brotherston’s set is incredible. It somehow feels both huge and intimate, like it goes on forever, but every corner matters. Nothing’s wasted. You’ve got fragments of 1930s London scattered across it: a phone box, hotel sign, park railings, a dressing table, a single bed, and the infamous pub itself at the centre. All of these locations stay on stage together, layered like overlapping lives.
The cast is brilliant. Liam Mower and Edwin Ray stood out for me, their duet as a gay couple, one clearly still trying to come to terms with who he is, was just heart-wrenching. Tentative, tender, and full of things they couldn’t say. I also couldn’t take my eyes off Michela Meazza and Glenn Graham. Her, a lonely woman paying for a bit of company. Him, the jaded gigolo. It could have been played as a cliché, but it wasn’t. It was layered, sad, and totally believable. Bourne gives every character space to be more than a background figure. Every story matters.
They say time flies when you’re having fun, and it really did. I was completely hooked. I wanted to know what happened next. But that’s the clever thing: The Midnight Bell doesn’t tie everything up in a bow. It leaves you wondering. The characters stay with you. I still find myself thinking, what did happen next?
The Midnight Bell runs at Theatre Royal Brighton until Saturday 2nd August 2025, with performances at 2:30pm & 7:30pm on Thursday, 7:30pm on Friday, and 2:30pm & 7:30pm on Saturday. Go and see it, and let it get under your skin. Click HERE to book.