Review Roundup: What Did Critics Think of PINTER AT THE PINTER?

The Jamie Lloyd Company presents an extraordinary season of Harold Pinter's one-act plays on the tenth anniversary of the Nobel Prize winner's death, performed in the theatre that bears his name.

Pinter at the Pinter is a unique event featuring all twenty short plays written by the greatest British playwright of the 20th Century. They have never before been performed together in a season of this kind.

Pinter One and Two just celebrated opening night.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

---

Marianka Swain, BroadwayWorld: This isn't merely an exercise in theatrical nostalgia, or one for the completists. The opening two productions - directed by Lloyd himself, apart from one piece helmed by Lia Williams - prove the fierce contemporary power of Pinter, and the necessity of his fearless gaze.

Henry Hitchings, The Evening Standard: Director Jamie Lloyd, the project's mastermind and a longstanding Pinter devotee, has assembled an impressive array of actors and these first two instalments are luxuriously cast.

Michael Billington, The Guardian: Jamie Lloyd has had the bold, bright idea of bringing together all of Harold Pinter's one-act plays in a season comprising seven separate programmes and lasting six months. And what exactly do you learn from the opening pair - Pinter One and Two - which can be seen on a single day? That Pinter has the capacity to both terrify and tantalise but, above all, that the division of his works into the political and the personal is ludicrously artificial: whether the context is the public or the private world, he is always fascinated by the roots of power.

Natasha Tripney, The Stage: Though the quality of some of the pieces is variable, these first two instalments in Lloyd's project allow audiences to see great actors work with Pinter's less frequently performed material and whet the appetite for what's to come.

Mark Shenton, London Theatre: The plays both revolve around mysterious cat-and-mouse games of sexual provocation and unfaithfulness - a regular Pinter theme which he returned to again and again - in domestic settings. But this being Pinter, there's as much unsaid between the parties as is said. The skill of the director and his actors is to fill in the gaps.

Paul Taylor, The Independent: Jamie Lloyd's rolling season of one-act plays by Harold Pinter is admirably ambitious...Pinter at the Pinter looks like a remarkable endeavour and it has a cool, youthful vibe.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

To post a comment, you must register and login.