Hindle Wakes (play)

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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 was first performed in 1912.

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, during the town's wakes week. Their families pressure them to get married, but the young woman refuses. She is disowned by her people but manages to get her job at the mill back.

It seemed quite a controversial and subversive piece at the time it was written.

Performances

The 100th anniversary of Stanley Haughton's Hindle Wakes was marked in 2012. It was first performed in 1912 where the character Fanny was played by Sybil Thorndike. In September 2012, the first London revival in over 30 years took place at Finborough Theatre (Earls Court) from the 11th to the 29th.

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 grittier TV movie version of it (1976), starring Donald Pleasence and co-directed by Laurence Olivier.

The 1931 film starred Belle Chrystal as the mill girl and John Stuart as the employer's son, with Sybil Thorndike, Edmund Gwenn and Norman McKinnel. Parts of it were filmed in Blackpool.

See also

  • Chronology of stage, film and television performances given by Laurence Olivier

External links

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