Gaslight

Gaslight

by Patrick Hamilton

“Eerie isn’t it?  Now we are almost in the dark… Why do you think that has happened?”

The Manninghams are a well-to-do couple living in a large house in nineteenth century London – but Mr Manningham is an overbearing bully, while Mrs Manningham is living on her nerves for fear of offending her husband.  Manningham is convinced that, like her mother before her, his wife is succumbing to mental illness and she is terrified that he may be right.

In Patrick Hamilton’s atmospheric play, which gave us the term ‘to gaslight’ to describe coercive control, Mrs Manningham struggles to understand her husband’s abusive behaviour towards her – until one evening, while her husband is out, a stranger arrives asking to speak with her…

Directed by Dick Hebbert

Photography by Charlie Swinbourne

Wharfeside Theatre