Rushen Players

Gas Light

by Patrick Hamilton
Rushen Amateur Dramatic Society
31st March & 1st & 2nd April 1954
Rushen Primary School

Gas Light is a 1938 play by the British dramatist Patrick Hamilton. The play is set in fog-bound London in 1880 at the lower middle class home of Jack Manningham and his wife Bella. It is late afternoon, a time which Hamilton notes as being the time "before the feeble dawn of gaslight and tea".

At the opening of the drama Bella is clearly on edge, and the stern reproaches from her overbearing husband (who flirts with the servants) makes matters worse. What most perturbs Bella is Jack's unexplained disappearances from the house: he will not tell her where he is going and this increases her anxiety. As the drama unfolds, it becomes clear that Jack is intent on convincing Bella that she is going insane, even to the point of assuring her she is 'imagining' the gas light in the house is dimming.

The appearance of a police detective called Rough soon leads Bella to realise that Jack is responsible for her torment. Rough explains that the apartment above was once occupied by one Alice Barlow, a wealthy woman who was murdered for her jewels but that the murderer never uncovered them.

In fact, Jack goes to the flat each night, searching for the jewels and causing the light in the house below to go down. Rough convinces Bella to assist him in exposing Jack as the murderer, which she does, but not before she takes revenge on Jack by pretending to help him escape. At the last minute she reminds him that, having gone insane, she is not accountable for her actions. The play closes with Jack Manningham being led away by the police.

Produced by	O S Wrangham
Cast
Bella Manningham	May Matthews
Mr. Manningham	Gerald Mangham
Elizabeth (cook-housekeeper)	Kathleen Squire
Nancy (maid)	June Edge
Rough (ex-detective)	Henry T Cubbon
Crew	Ron Harper
Stage Manager	R G Thomson
Assistant Stage Manager	H Brown
Stage Lighting	F Cooper
Scenic Design	W D Kaneen
Properties	Mrs. H Cubbon
Prompter	Mrs. J Moore