Huis Clos

Down they go, another consignment of sinners, arriving in the lobby of Hell, where a very correct receptionist directs them to their quarters. A mother who murdered her child, a revolutionary who betrayed his comrades and a suicided lesbian, handpicked to drive each other up the wall, are designated room-mates for eternity. Their only distraction, a window on to the world of the living, is soon sealed as their old associates forget them. This adaptation can do little to mitigate the theatrical hokum of the Sartre source material, its pretensions pointed up by Philip Larkin when he rendered its most famous line - 'L'enfer, c'est les autres' - as 'other people are hell'. Afterlife experts, though, may find this version interestingly of its time.