Pinter
Why disaffected actors often make excellent playwrights
Actors are easily bored on long runs. Phoebe Waller-Bridge once revealed that she staged distractions in the wings to amuse…
How tech ruined theatre
Poor John Dennis. In 1709, the playwright devised a novel technology to simulate thunder to accompany his drama Appius and…
The weasel under the cocktail cabinet
Macbeth at the Globe wants to put us at our ease and make us feel comfortable with the play’s arcane…
Quiet thunder
Hampstead’s latest play is a knotty rape drama by Naomi Wallace set in Kentucky. Four teenagers with weird names meet…
‘I had no interest in the theatre whatsoever’
Lloyd Evans talks to Keith Allen about Max Bygraves, how he fell into acting and the sensitivities of contemporary audiences
Minimalist’s dream
Love Letters by A.R. Gurney began life as an epistolary novella about two childhood friends, Andy and Melissa, whose on-off…
The odd couple
Collectors of TV titles that sound as if they were thought of by Alan Partridge will presumably have spotted Danny…
Danny Dyer is not so much an actor as a fairground attraction: Pinter Seven reviewed
The Dumb Waiter is a one-act play from 1957 that retains an extraordinary hold over the minds of theatre-goers. It’s…
A facile indulgence: Pinter Six reviewed
The cast of Party Time includes John Simm, Celia Imrie, Ron Cook, Gary Kemp and other celebrities. They play a…
One masterpiece, one dud and one interesting rediscovery: Pinter Five reviewed
One masterpiece, one dud, and one interesting rediscovery. That’s Pinter Five. Victoria Station is a hilarious sketch which might have…
Gary Kemp on pop, Pre-Raphaelites, politics and playing Pinter
The first thing Gary Kemp bought when Spandau Ballet started making money was a chair. He’s very proud of that…
One of the finest productions I’ve seen at the Globe – a triumph of crony casting: Macbeth reviewed
Michelle Terry, chatelaine of the Globe, wants to put an end to penis-led Shakespeare by casting women in roles intended…
Lee Evans’s acrobatic clowning is the best thing about Pinter Three
Pinter Three appeals to opposite poles of the play-going spectrum. The birdbrains like me will enjoy the music-hall sketches while…
Pinter comes across as an eccentric lightweight scribbler: Pinter Two reviewed
Pinter Two, the second leg of the Pinter season, offers us a pair of one-act comedies. The Lover is a…
Being and nothingness
Florian Zeller has been reading Pinter. And Pinter started out in repertory thrillers where suspense was created by delaying revelations…
Men behaving badly
Jamie Lloyd’s production of Pinter’s The Homecoming is a pile of terrific and silly ideas. Mostly terrific. The action takes…
GBH meets BS
When I was a kid, I was taught by a kindly old Jesuit whose youth had been beguiled by George…
