Patrick Hamilton Hangover Square


(3.2 stars; 2 reviews)

Hangover Square Dramatised by Sam Boardman-Jacobs Patrick Hamilton's novel is set in pre-war Earls Court. Everyone is frantically pursuing a good time, and George is obsessed by Netta, a bit-part actress and pace-setter of a fast-living crowd. George Harvey Bone: Nicholas Farrell Netta: Amanda Redman Peter: David Thorpe Enid: Sara Coward Johnnie: Christopher Scott Eddie Carstairs: John Webb Ellen: Patricia Gallimore Albert Drexel: John Baddeley Alex: Richard Pearce George's aunt: Veda Warwick Eddie's secretary! barmaid: Louise Papillon Director Sue Wilson Saturday Night Theatre:  Sat 20th Aug 1994 19:50 on BBC Radio 4 FM Written in the shadow of the approaching second world war, the novel tells the tale of a man at battle with himself and the world around him On Christmas Day 1939 Patrick Hamilton began writing Hangover Square, a novel that adopts those agonising weeks and months as its backdrop and brings the reader as close as possible to the feeling of a society – a world – unable to arrest its slide into the abyss. Yet it is another sort of abyss – an entirely personal one – that is the focus of Hamilton’s story. At the very instant we meet his protagonist, George Harvey Bone, he has plunged into one of his “dead” moods, a fugue state in which his mind shuts down and he proceeds through the world as an automaton, an experience akin to “a silent film without music”. . . . The Guardian. 2016

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.

Chapters

Hangover Square 1:28:24