Troupe has announced the world premiere of Simon Reade’s stage adaptation of Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, based on Patrick Hamilton’s classic novel about three lonely Londoners navigating desire and obsession in the late 1920s.
The production opens at Southwark Playhouse Borough on 16 September 2026, with previews from 10 September, and will run until 17 October.
The cast will be announced soon.
Reade said, “Hamilton declares ‘I’ll show you life with a capital L’ in this semi-autobiographical story of ‘the small fish in the weird teeming aquarium of the metropolis.’ It’s a dark celebration of a seedy, smoggy, smutty London where heart-breaking, heart-broken people just strive to survive and attempt to have fun in those twenty thousand streets from the Euston Road to Soho, the West End to Hammersmith. What an amazing thing to stage this story now, for the very first time.”
Ashley Cook for Troupe said, “Working with Simon Reade for our 2022 production of A Single Man was an utter joy; I’m delighted to be renewing our collaboration to bring his visceral and deeply moving adaptation of Patrick Hamilton’s raw, evocative novel to the audiences at Southwark Playhouse Borough this autumn.”
Set in 1929, the story centres on the Midnight Bell pub, where barman Bob longs to be a writer and barmaid Ella longs for Bob. Bob becomes infatuated with Jenny Maple, an enigmatic prostitute, spending his savings in an attempt to save her.
Adapted from Hamilton’s work, which includes Gaslight, Rope and Hangover Square, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky has long been regarded as an evocative portrait of London life. The novel was previously adapted for television in 2005.
The new stage version is directed by Matthew Iliffe, whose credits include Bacon, Foam, The Niceties and Maggie May. His work has won multiple awards including the Off West End Award for Best Director.
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
