Pinter at the Pinter

Tuesday's performance is cancelled!😕

More details in The Stage here:
www.thestage.co.uk/news/2018/actor-left-crying-and-whimpering-on-stage-after-injuring-herself-during-west-end-pinter-season/

Oh dear, I hope Isis Hainsworth makes a speedy recovery. How awful for her.

Isis Hainsworth was one of " Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour" at the Duke of Yorks Theatre, the most young and innocent one, whose character was unwell.

She is very good in "Moonlight," where she opens the play, as the ghostly young daughter, sets the tone of the whole thing, and gives a very touching, delicate, hopeful and fragile performance throughout.

Her role in "Night School" is minimal, really, though once again she did open the play, along with Jessica Barden. In "Night School," she forms part of a young protective female posse, along with Abbie Finn, that surrounds the enigmatic lead character played by Barden. At the opening of the play, as Finn cranked up her drumming, and the stage started to revolve, Barden and Hainsworth together raced and skipped their way from backstage to the very front, giggling conspiratorially, as if to suggest an irrepressible youthful female energy and solidarity.

It is such a shame that the mechanics of this show have gone wrong somehow, as for sheer energy, the spinning stage, and drumming actress, and the ducking and diving of the characters was utterly compelling for me. I hope it still is when they work the safety aspects out.

I got the name of the director wrong, I see. His name is not Ed Stamboulian, but "Stambollouian."

Pinter 3. Finished 9.55, started few, maybe 5 mins late.
Some kind of Alaska. Wow. Pretty sure I was sitting there with staring eyes, mouth open. Pretty special.
Landscape which I've seen before but apparently forgotten probably least favourite, perhaps as it was first off and I hadn't yet mellowed into, 'it's Pinter, just accept and don't worry if you're confused' and was also thinking 'how have I forgotten this entire thing?'.
Lots of short pieces, all rather delightfully done on the revolving stage with actors often hoovering in background of other scenes. Acting very impressive, I'd booked for Tamsin Greig and wasn't wild about seeing Lee Evans or Keith Allen but all credit to them.
N7 pillar seat fine, pillar not an issue, fidgety wiggly head man in front was hugely but presumably he isn't there every night. Fidgety audience, maybe they weren't all as spell bound as me by the end.

I was there on Friday when it happened. First there was a technical problem with the revolving stage: they did the scene as described, the turn didn't seem complete  when Brid Brennan was already on her way starting to speak. They stopped the performance and the stage management told us, that there was a technical problem. It is not possible to put down the safety curtain, so we coud see they were trying out to let the stage revolve, pushing it etc. Then the stage management said the show would continue. The scene was started again at the moment wit all three young women on the stage till very close to the end of the scene (they are putting different stuff like chairs onto the stage), Isis Hainsworth stepped backwards off stage, it looked very much like she twisted her ankle, I could see the pain in her face (I was sitting in Row B) and she had tears in her eyes before she started sobbing, she tried to get up, but couldn't. My first thought was: torn or sprained ligaments. Seems very likely it is a stretched ligament and nothing broken if she can come back so soon. 

Jamie Lloyd came on stage and asked to bear with them before they could continue. But soon realized - Isis still sobbing and not being able to getting up, that the performance had to be cancelled.


Today-Tix informed me today the money for the performance will be refunded, yesterday they only offered to rebook for a later performance. Such a shame I missed Night School, but unfortunately I have no other oppertunities to see it. But relieved nothing more serious happened to Isis and I easily get the money back.

Jamie Lloyd has previously been disparaged here for doing Pinter in a way that it shouldn't be done. I don't know about that, but I did enjoy The Hothouse, so if he's doing Pinter "wrong" then at least he's doing it in a way that non-Pinter fans can get behind. If you're not mad keen on either writer and you have no strong opinion on either director, it's okay to make your decision by cast, all of which is a slightly long-winded way of saying "go for the Pinter, at least you get to watch Tamsin Greig that way".

Assuming the programme is the same as for Pinter 1 it's just a cast list and running order, no background info.




I think I'd go for Pinter as well. Likely to be shorter for a start (Wild Duck is pushing 3 hours I think?) and since this is a set of short pieces you can always duck out at the interval and still have seen a complete piece!

Well ... in that case as The Wild Duck is sold out on quite a few dates I'd stick with Pinter as the Almeida will take the ticket back and put it on sale if the performance is sold out.

THE WILD DUCK is unmissable.

B

Just back from the matinee of Pinter 4.

Sat in Row T of the Stalls. Slight restriction with the Pillar blocking the right edge of the stage, but it didn't really bother me. And all of the actors projected well.

The Stalls were packed until the interval, but quite a few empty seats during the interval. And people leaving during the second play. I think the 30 minute interval didn't help here.

Also, unfortunately, this is not the place to sit if you want a well-behaved audience. Lots of phone light in particular.

Running times, if you're interested:
Moonlight 2:30pm to 3:40pm
Night School 4:10pm to 5:05pm

To me, these both came across as very traditional Pinter. I've seen 1, 2 and now 4 and this was the strongest of the lot.

Moonlight is a tale of a man on his deathbed and the people who come in and out of his life. There's a lot of mystery to it.

Night School is the stronger of the two pieces. A rather black comedy about a quest for love. There's a (loud) drummer on stage throughout, which is rather odd and only loosely ties into the story (unless I missed something), but it keeps everyone awake.

Just seen the comments about the unfortunate injury last week involving the set as a revolving box. I didn't pick up on a revolving set at all, so they might have reworked it since then. The staging of Night School was simple but worked.

I've still got to see Pinter 3, but I'd recommend this the most out of those I've seen so far. Although I do hope they cut the interval down a bit.