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Harold Pinter: Histories & Legacies

An AHRC-funded project (Universities of Leeds, Birmingham & Reading)

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Tag Archives: The Birthday Party

‘possibly apocryphal’: Anecdotes and Memories of Pinter

Harold Pinter: Histories & Legacies avatarPosted on 10th May 2019 by Catriona Fallow2nd July 2019

Much of our time on the Harold Pinter: Histories and Legacies project is concerned with locating, exploring and documenting ‘official’ historical traces of the life and work of Harold Pinter via various archives, libraries and published works. What we have also discovered however, is that a project of this scale focused on the creative output of one person is bound to uncover, solicit or otherwise happen across its fair share … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Influence, Interview, Legacy, Stage | Tagged Mixed Doubles, National Student Drama Festival, Night, The Birthday Party, The Questors, Vivien Merchant

Power to the People: Pinter, Amateur Performance and the Questors Theatre

Harold Pinter: Histories & Legacies avatarPosted on 11th February 2019 by Catriona Fallow11th February 2019

There can be little doubt that Pinter’s professional career benefitted hugely from the commercial theatre sector in the West End and Broadway, from state-subsidised organisations like the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, or public broadcasting services like the BBC. One of the primary aims of the Harold Pinter: Histories and Legacies project is to trace, chart, archive and contextualise every professional production of Harold Pinter’s plays in the … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Influence, Interview, Legacy, Production, Stage | Tagged Amateur Theatre, Archives, The Birthday Party, The Questors

Pinter at the BBC: What the Censor Sees.

Harold Pinter: Histories & Legacies avatarPosted on 28th January 2019 by Billy Smart28th January 2019

The long-awaited BFI DVD collection, Pinter at the BBC, is released today. Over five discs, the anthology includes 10 versions of Pinter plays made by the BBC between 1965-88. As all ten are new to any home video format, the release increases the amount of Pinter UK television material publicly available by 500%. In addition to the plays, the collection also includes a wealth of supplementary material – four of … Continue reading →

Posted in Television | Tagged A Night Out, A Slight Ache, BFI, Billy Smart, DVD, Landscape, Monologue, Mountain Language, Old Times, Tea Party, The Basement, The Birthday Party, The Hothouse

A Dialogued Review: Ian Rickson’s ‘The Birthday Party’ 2018

Harold Pinter: Histories & Legacies avatarPosted on 29th March 2018 by Basil Chiasson3rd April 2018

The following dialogue explores the recent production of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, which is playing at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End from 9 January to 14 April 2018. The production is directed by Ian Rickson and stars Peter Wight as Petey, Zoë Wannamaker as Meg, Toby Jones as Stanley, Pearl Mackie as Lulu, Stephen Mangan as Goldberg and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as McCann. Set design is by … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Influence, Legacy, Production, Stage | Tagged Betrayal, Harold Pinter Theatre, Ian Rickson, Pearl Mackie, Peter Wight, Quay Brothers, Samuel Beckett, Stephen Mangan, The Birthday Party, Toby Jones, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Zoë Wanamaker

The Peartaker: Pinter, Rudkin, and the Midlands

Harold Pinter: Histories & Legacies avatarPosted on 10th October 2017 by Catriona Fallow10th October 2017

This is the shine, the powder and blood, and here am I, Straddled, exile always in one Whitbread Ale town, Or such. Pinter, New Year in the Midlands (1950) ‘[I]n this gaudy, bawd-filled Midlands pub one even wonders if there is a glimpse of Pinter himself in “the clamping/ Red shirted boy ragefull, thudding his cage.”’ Billington, The Life and Work of Harold Pinter (1996) Ahead of the project’s first … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Influence, Legacy, Poetry, Production, Stage | Tagged Afore Night Come, Aldwych Theatre, Birmingham, David Rudkin, New Arts Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Dumb Waiter

‘A jolly jumble of theatrical cliches’: 1958 ‘Cherwell’ review of ‘The Birthday Party’

Harold Pinter: Histories & Legacies avatarPosted on 25th September 2017 by Billy Smart27th September 2017

Elkan Presman’s 1958 review of the original production of The Birthday Party in the Oxford University student newspaper Cherwell is one of the very earliest Pinter reviews to have been published, and has not been reproduced in its entirity since. A striking aspect of the review is the impression that it gives the reader of how (some of) its original audience might have registered the play – functioning through “a … Continue reading →

Posted in Stage | Tagged Oxford Playhouse, Peter Woods, The Birthday Party

Sir Peter Hall, 1930-2017

Harold Pinter: Histories & Legacies avatarPosted on 15th September 2017 by Mark Taylor-Batty2nd July 2019

The Pinter: Histories and Legacies team were saddened to learn earlier this week of the death of Sir Peter Hall. Without any doubt, Hall was the most important figure in post-war twentieth-century British theatre, a director and visionary whose own history is a map of that period, and whose legacies are interwoven into the fabric of the British cultural landscape. He modernised the British theatre, elevated the role and artistry … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Influence, Interview, Legacy | Tagged A Kind of Alaska, Betrayal, Family Voices, John Gielgud, Landscape, Michael Codron, National Theatre, No Man's Land, Old Times, Peter Hall, Ralph Richardson, Royal Shakespeare Company, Samuel Beckett, Silence, The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Collection, The Homecoming, Victoria Station

Harold Pinter at the RSC: Beyond The Homecoming

Harold Pinter: Histories & Legacies avatarPosted on 15th September 2017 by Catriona Fallow15th September 2017

Harold Pinter’s affiliation with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), the impact of the works he produced there, and his artistic relationship with its founding director Peter Hall are typically discussed in relation to early seminal productions such as The Collection (1962), The Homecoming (1965) or Old Times (1971). These mainstage productions at the Aldwych Theatre – the RSC’s first London base from 1961 to 1983 – have become canonical both … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Influence, Legacy, Production, Stage | Tagged Aldwych Theatre, Michael Kustow, Old Times, Peter Hall, Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, The Birthday Party, The Collection, The Dumb Waiter, The Homecoming, Theatregoround

Harold Pinter on DVD and Blu-ray: A Guide

Harold Pinter: Histories & Legacies avatarPosted on 20th July 2017 by Billy Smart14th August 2017

When looking for DVD or Blu-ray copies of Harold Pinter’s work on screen, a simple rule generally applies – if it was made for television it is unlikely to have been commercially released, whereas if it was a film it almost certainly has (but it might well now be deleted). This article is intended to serve as a simple guide to what has been made available and (where it applies) … Continue reading →

Posted in Adaptation, Film, Television | Tagged A Night Out, Accident, Adam Hall, Aidan Higgins, Alan Bates, Anthony Shaffer, Armchair Theatre, BBC, Betrayal, Butley, Christopher Morahan, Clive Donner, Comfort of Strangers, David Jones, Elia Kazan, Elizabeth Bowen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Franz Kafka, Fred Uhlman, Harry Burton, Heat of the Day, Helen Mirren, Ian McEwan, Jack Clayton, Jerry Schatzberg, John Fowles, John Irvin, Joseph Losey, Karel Reisz, Kenneth Branagh, L.P. Hartley, Langrishe Go Down, Laurence Olivier, Malcolm McDowell, Margaret Atwood, Melvyn Bragg, Michael Anderson, Nicholas Mosley, Nobel Prize, Paul Rogers, Penelope Mortimer, Peter Hall, Philip Saville, Reunion, Robin Maugham, Russell Hoban, Simon Gray, Sleuth, The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Collection, The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Go-Between, The Handmaid's Tale, The Homecoming, The Last Tycoon, The Pumpkin Eater, The Quiller Memorandum, The Servant, The Trial, Turtle Diary, Volker Schlondorff
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