Pinter at the Pinter

Thank you. I have to admit I'd not heard of her, so will keep an eye out for her work. 

Apparently there were plans for a celebration of her work to coincide with the birthday, I think at the Royal Court, but she didn't like the idea of all the fuss.

Or maybe it's just resistance to asinine opinions in general? But no, I guess any excuse to reduce people to labels and demonstrate worthiness must be taken.

I’m sure you have all been holding your breath to know how I got on.

I got Rush tickets through TodayTix, so I am doing an at desk happy dance.

?

I quite want an olive.

That silly Donald Trump skit really derailed Pinter One for me. I thought the poem (Death) was a nice touch although a little unnecessary but I don't know why they felt the need to insert a third rate comedy sketch with a Trump impersonator in the midst of all the violence and horror of Mountain Language and One for the Road. If they had to include it for the sake of completion, surely it would have suited another of the collections better? Not sure how I really feel about unpublished notepad sketchings being used like this either, but I guess that's a whole other matter.

Pinter 2 was good fun yesterday. Loved the clothes!! Ostentatious over-laugher behind me was driving me crazy.

The kindle version of the short play compendium is £6.99 compared to £18.99 for the print edition if that's of any use to people!

Has anyone been to see Pinter Three yet? It started a week ago and thought someone would have voiced their opinions by now (I’m not seeing it until the 17th)

Also there for 3 and 4 on the 17th, what is the coll collective noun for Boarders, it looks as if there will be a few of us there that day.

I am also going to Pinter 3 on Nov 17th....an audience of board members? An ovation?

Not seen Pinter Three, but Pinter Four is an absolute gem, in my opinion. "Moonlight" is very good, "Night School" a total and absolute revelation, an early Pinter that bears all his trademarks, but is also a superbly plotted conventional comedy, with director Ed Stamboulian getting everything right in pacing and energising the piece, and Al Weaver the best posturing, fearful, sympathetic Pinter schlemiel I've seen.

Some spoilers follow. . .

I had seen the David Bradley "Moonlight" at the Donmar, and while I liked it, somehow this one got to me more. I mean, this story of a man on his deathbed, bemoaning the sons that won't visit, is about as sentimental as Harold Pinter got, in my experience anyway, but when you have a tough guy like Robert Glenister, as Andy, clear-eyed and joking away his last hours with his wife, Bel, the super-spiritual Brid Brennan (who, like her Aunt Maggie Faraway in "The Ferryman, seems to have a foot in both worlds), the effect is to squeeze any sentimental leanings you have like a lemon until the juice spills from your eyes.

Director Lyndsey Turner chooses to stage the sons' Vladimir-Estragon-like inconsequential playful chitchat directly over the bed where Glenister's Andy remains lying, so that the sons he yearns for seem within his reach. The tough man no longer tough, the jokers at the end of their jokes, a wife and mother bridging worlds. There is also the ghost of a daughter, played desperately young and fragile and full of thwarted compassion, by Isis Hainsworth, flitting in and out of scenes.

This felt like how the world ends. Soppy Pinter can work, not an oxymoron after all.

After the break, we got Pinter's 1960 screenplay for television, "Night School." I've never seen it staged or on tv, but this production is fantastically furious and funny, as Ed Stamboulian, a Jamie Lloyd associate director from the days of "The Hothouse" and "The Pride" (which also featured Al Weaver), is inspired in every choice he makes. Placing a female drummer with a drum kit (Abbie Finn, who plays a character called Mavis) on a revolving stage, like a chorus, the play becomes a whirling frenzy of sound and fury, as her drum beats spur and comment on the action.

The action as such involves Al Weaver's Walter coming home after a stretch in prison to find his batty aunts, Brid Brennan and Janie Dee, have rented his room out to Jessica Barden's Sally. Barden is wonderfully inscrutable as Sally, an impenetrable wall of a person whose slippery sweet surface Walter is desperate to break, if only to get his room back. Pinter power games ensue, roping in not only the batty aunts, but also macho landlord, Solto, played with easy self-regarding confidence by Robert Glenister. The developments are as perfect as any plot I can imagine, and when this comedy drama ended I was disappointed only because I wanted more. Stamboulian makes every moment pure pleasure.

The acting ensemble for "Night School" is peerless: Janie Dee and Brid Brennan bounce off each other beautifully as the out-of-control aunts, deploying Pinter's penchant for pedantically sweating silly inconsequential stuff to delightful ends; Glenister glowers, Barden breezes; and through it all, the wonderfully weaselly Weaver sneaks and snivels and stutters his sweaty way through the plot, which includes one amazing scene which presages Pinter's subsequent "The Homecoming," a scene rendered so perfectly by Weaver and Barden that I thought it was better done here than there.

This is an absolute delight, resurrecting the audience's zest, supposing the sad poetry of mortality in "Moonlight" sank your spirits.

A brilliant double bill. This Jamie Lloyd programmed season is proving to be one of his best ever!

Moonlight: 4 and a half stars.
Night School: 5 stars.