Review Roundup: Critics Attend the Revival of Pinter's THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

Sonia Friedman Productions presents a new production of Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party which runs at the Harold Pinter Theatre, 60 years since the play's debut, from 9 January to 14 April 2018 with an Opening Night on Thursday 18 January 2018. Book tickets here!

Stanley Webber (Toby Jones) is the only lodger at Meg (Zoë Wanamaker) and Petey Boles' sleepy seaside boarding house. The unsettling arrival of enigmatic strangers Goldberg (Stephen Mangan) and McCann disrupts the humdrum lives of the inhabitants and their friend Lulu, and mundanity soon becomes menace when a seemingly innocent birthday party turns into a disturbing nightmare. Truth and alliances hastily shift in Pinter's brilliantly mysterious dark-comic masterpiece about the absurd terrors of the everyday.

Following critically-acclaimed productions of Betrayal, and Old Times, Ian Ricksonreturns to direct a new production of Harold Pinter's landmark play, The Birthday Party. Starring in this comedy of menace are trio of Olivier Award winners, Golden Globe Award-nominated Toby Jones (The Girl, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Infamous), Tony Award-nominated Stephen Mangan (The Norman Conquests, Jeeves and Wooster, Episodes) and Tony Award-nominated Zoë Wanamaker CBE (Electra, Passion Play, My Family). This will be the seventh Harold Pinter play that Sonia Friedman has produced, three of which have been directed by Ian Rickson, who also directed Pinter himself in his last performance as an actor in Krapp's Last Tape. It is also the ninth production directed by Ian Rickson that Sonia Friedman has produced.

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Michael Billington, The Guardian: Derided on its debut in 1958, 60 years on The Birthday Party has lost none of its capacity to intrigue. In Ian Rickson's starry production, it emerges not simply as a rep thriller filtered through a European sensibility - a cross between Agatha Christie and Kafka, as a German director once said - but as a play of intense psychological realism.

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: The beauty of Ian Rickson's superlative revival - marking the 60th anniversary since The Birthday Party's notorious premiere at the Lyric, Hammersmith, when it closed in a week, following derisive, dismissive notices - is that it powerfully makes the case for the play's since-gilded status and confirms afresh that it's a darkly comic masterpiece without in any way trying overtly to spruce it up for today's audiences.

Ann Treneman, The Times: There is an extravaganza of talent on that stage. Zoë Wanamaker is absolutely terrific as Meg, the landlady whose conversation is on endless repeat as she fusses over her husband, Petey, a deckchair attendant, and flirts with their only guest, Stanley, a permanent resident of nowhere.

Natasha Tripney, The Stage: Ian Rickson's production takes its time establishing its chosen tone of slightly queasy naturalism, of milk on the turn. The Quay Brothers' detailed set is one of gothic domesticity and gentile dilapidation, the gloomy wallpaper seemingly engaged in an act of escape, peeling away from the walls.

Quentin Letts, Daily Mail: Pinter addicts will find plenty to relish. Zoe Wanamaker is on tremendous form as Meg, the dotty, vulnerable landlady of the boarding house where the runty Stanley (Toby Jones) has taken refuge.

Paul Taylor, The Independent: Ian Rickson is a skilled Pinter hand; not only does he have excellent revivals of Betrayal and Old Times to his credit, but he directed the playwright himself in a masterly performance of Krapp's Last Tape. He knows better than to give this latest piece the kind of surreal make-over that Jamie Lloyd gave to The Homecoming recently.

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