Hindle Wakes

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For the Lancashire poultry dish see Hindle Wakes (dish).

Hindle Wakes is a stage play by Stanley Houghton written in 1910.

It has been filmed four times, twice in the silent era (1918, 1927), and twice in the sound era (1931, 1952) although the film versions have tended to open out the play considerably. There was also a fairly straightforward TV movie version of it (1976), co-directed by Laurence Olivier.

[edit] Plot

The play is set in the fictional mill town of Hindle in Lancashire in England, and concerns two young people who are discovered to have been having what would now be called a "dirty weekend" during their holiday. Their families pressurise them to get married, but the young woman refuses.

It seemed quite a controversial and subversive piece at the time it was written, although now dated.