REVIEW: Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky at Southwark Playhouse 10 - 17 October 2026
“rich and engaging adaptation” ★★★★
On a floor-projected old map of London, under a dark night with rising mist, a would-be author is tortured by his dreams and rues his choices. He cuts a lonely figure in this dramatic, film-noir-esque landscape. Bob (Jordan Scowden) is not in a good place. What brought him here? Like many who dream of being full-time writers, Bob has a day job at The Midnight Bell pub, a magnet for the lost and lonely. It’s here we meet most of the key characters whose lives in this rich and engaging adaptation by Simon Reade, intersect but never quite entwine.
Originally written as a trilogy of stories by British playwright & author Patrick Hamilton between 1929 and 1934 (The Midnight Bell, 1929; The Siege of Pleasure, 1932 & The Plains of Cement, 1934) in which characters overlap, loop in time and criss-cross, this production of Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, directed by Matthew Iliffe and produced by Ashley Cooke for Troupe, distils, amplifies and makes chronological sense of the trilogy. This is 1929, between wars with burbling discontent and uncertainty in the background: the Wall Street Crash, National Strikes and short haircuts for women.
The Midnight Bell, around which all the events coalesce, is represented by a pub sign and a minimal bar. It’s a plaintive, melancholy name for a pub, recalling John Donne’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’—itself a meditation on human connection—and this is a location of unrequited love, achy yearning and desire. Joe’s co-worker, barmaid Ella, a guileless soul, has eyes on Joe. But Joe’s head is turned by Jenny Maple, a glamorous woman and regular, also a prostitute. Mr Eccles meanwhile, a well-upholstered, well-to-do- older man from an army family fancies Ella, which puts her in a fluster of incomprehensibility. Do any of these attractions or love affairs have hope of blossoming into something meaningful?
The characters, their needs and wants are all clearly wrought and the cast is engaging and entertaining. Michael Maloney as Ernest Eccles brings a wealth of thespian experience to the role. Performative and theatrical, he offers great comic timing twined with moments of intense sadness. Yanexi Enriquez dazzles as Jenny Maple. With her marcel waved hair and purple fur-collared coat, she plays her role with seductive, persuasive charm. Formally, a factory worker and domestic servant, the economic circumstances around her professional switch are powerfully demonstrated. When she is preyed upon by George Perry, a sneering, disingenuous, amoral middle-class man, who plasters her with drink and rapes her, she falls with hesitancy, nuance and feeling into a different social strata and world. Alex Bhatt as George Perry is unspeakably odious as the toffee-nosed predator, a lizard in sock suspenders. Jenny didn’t have a chance.
At a well-paced 2 hours 20 mins with an interval, everyday economics and exploitation bind all the characters in Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky. What is vividly shown in this depiction of 1929 London is a clear pecking order with women at the bottom.
The inequalities of the class system are embodied by the entitled and confident Eccles and Perry - there are no middle-class women in this story. There are sub-stratas in this hierarchy and little evidence of sisterhood. Ella, although she's not “a lady with haitches,” distinguishes and distances herself from Jenny, who she describes as “a creature”—the lowest of the low. But exploitation works both ways and Jenny, who has learnt to be a survivor, soon divests Joe of his savings.
Best known for his work that has been turned into films—Rope, Gaslight and Hangover Square, Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky is an excellent introduction for newbies to Patrick Hamilton who wrote evocatively about London and its dwellers, “the weird teeming aquarium of the metropolis.” Although almost a hundred years old, the demands of the capital that drive the characters are ones that audiences will recognise. This remains a city underscored by economic uncertainty, hard times and class division. Its inhabitants, crowded into these twenty thousand streets, still come to chase dreams, make money and find connection.
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky produced by Troupe will play at Southwark Playhouse from 10 - 17 October 2026
CAST:
Emily Beck: Understudy
Alex Bhat: George Perry
Yanexi Enriquez: Jenny Maple
Lucy Gray: Prunella / Landlady / Waitress
Rosalind Lailey: Ella Dawson
Michael Maloney: Ernest Eccles
Jordan Scowen: Bob
CREATIVES:
Patrick Hamilton: Author
Simon Reade: Adapter
Matthew Iliffe: Director
Ellie Wintour: Set and Costume Designer
Alex Musgrave: Lighting Designer
Elizabeth Purnell: Sound Designer and Composer
Sam Spencer-Lane: Movement Director
Jess Tucker Boyd: Intimacy Director
Alice Stokoe: Costume Supervisor
Lois Sime: Stage Manager
Elysia Beaumont: Assistant Stage Manager
Amber Charlie Conroy: Assistant Director
Lewis Champney for eStage: Production Manager
Kate Morley PR: PR
Mobius Industries: Marketing
