We launch the Pinter Legacies database with a new interview with Samuel West
We are delighted to formally launch the Harold Pinter Histories and Legacies database today. To mark this event, we are releasing an interview with Samuel West that was conducted by Alexander Lass for the Pinter Legacies project in February this year. You can hear the interview on our Soundcloud account.
West is an actor and director with a significant profile in the history of the production of Pinter’s works in the UK. As he recounts in the interview, his first experience of Pinter’s work was at University, and shortly after, as a professional actor, he first worked on a film of one of Pinter’s screenplays, Reunion (Jerry Schatzberg, 1989). Between 2005 and 2007 he was Artistic Director of the Sheffield Crucible Theatre, where he arranged a Pinter festival in 2006. He reminisces on events at that festival in the interview, including working with Jamie Lloyd on his first main production, the 2006 The Caretaker. he recalls working with both his mother and father in Family Voices at part of that festival. He goes on to discuss acting in Betrayal at the Donmar Warehouse in 2007, and working beside Pinter himself in a radio production of The Homecoming that same year.
West provides insights into the craft behind populating Pinter’s drama, and speak eloquently on the experience and challenges of inhabiting Pinter’s characters as an actor. It is a delightful and thoughtful interview, and we hope you enjoy listening to it. A transcript is available on Samuel West’s profile in the database.