The theatrical world never lost sight
of Patrick Hamilton to the extent that the literary world did; his
novels might have been remembered chiefly in that 1980s televisual
bowdlerisation
The Charmer,
but his plays
Rope and
Gas Light were regularly revived as
well as existing in classic film versions. His bilious, merciless prose
masterpiece
Hangover Square
(1941, here in Fidelis Morgan’s 1990 stage adaptation) now comes home
to the district in which it is principally set, Earl’s Court. (The
programme notes on both Hamilton and the area make extensive use of
their respective Wikipedia entries.)
To be honest, the production gains little from a heightened sense of
locality, but benefits greatly from the particular venue. Director
Gemma Fairlie makes skilful use of the tiny Finborough space to bring
out the claustrophobia of the existence of protagonist George Harvey
Bone and his circle: they may venture into the West End or even down to
Brighton, but all the time they remain psychically in the same
postage-stamp-sized territory. Bone dreams of making a banally perfect
life for himself in the (for him) impossibly exotic location of
Maidenhead; as used here, it forms the missing link of bathetic
southern English ideals between Basingstoke in Gilbert & Sullivan’s
Ruddigore and Sidcup in
Pinter’s
The Caretaker. But
he has three strikes against him: first, the uncaring exploitation
practised upon him by his beloved, failed actress Netta; second, his
frequent “dead moods” in which a secondary personality takes over,
obsessed with killing Netta (and, in Morgan’s adaptation, spurred on by
a second, internal Netta); third, the boozy indulgence which is all he
and his tiny circle seem to exist for.
Matthew Flynn’s Bone stumbles or trudges, glassy-eyed, from one
inebriation to the next, between alcoholic episodes and psychopathic
ones, between Caroline Faber’s and Clare Calbraith’s portrayals of
Netta (switching roles several times between exterior and interior
Netta). Even though Netta’s other close friend Peter (played urbanely
by Gyuri Sarossy) is a British Fascist, what is conspicuous is how
little impression the slide to war through 1939 makes upon these
characters; they are stupefied to it. Fairlie knows not to labour the
parallels between individuals and an entire subculture sleepwalking
towards their extinctions; the sense of self-destruction comes over
potently enough of itself.
Written for the Financial
Times.