Pinter at the Pinter

[bgarde]

Caught the matinee today (and very crowded it was too). I enjoyed Landscape the most and Tamsin Greg's melancholy was very affecting. Also enjoyed one or two of the other short plays - although couldn't stand Lee Evans' mugging; admittedly I was in the vast minority as the rest of the audience were having a riotous time and I felt like a very bad sport. Alaska was well acted but a trifle dull.

[joem]

At the matinee too. Tamsin Grieg was excellent in "A Kind of Alaska". I didn't find it dull, but touching. Lee Evans - was he told to mug by Jamie Lloyd or did he make it up all on his own? There is a vast difference between comedy or laughs in a serious play and comedy as a genre or stand-up. I'm sure Pinter didn't write in all that gurning and it detracted from the efforts of some of the rest of the cast. The guy with the braying laugh behind me could have a second career as a foghorn.

I wondered whether "Landscape" might not have started from a similar premise to "Alaska". Is the wife there or "not there"?

The sketches were a mixed bag. Some had a Pythonesque feel, others were quintessential Pinter.

[bgarde]

Telegraph review of 3 and 4...they loved the gurning.

www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/pinter-three-pinter-four-harold-pinter-theatre-review-devotion/

I do think I'd have enjoyed Alaska more if I'd not had to endure some of the trivial bits. I understand that it's the fractured mature of his mind to show all the different sides of Pinter etc. but some were just "here's some men wearing female wigs- laugh!".

[Stephen]

I saw 4 the other evening. Moonlight was interesting and I had very different ideas about it than my companions. Staff were very nice at the Pinter too. I like the programme/poster idea for £1 (now on my wall) Night School was a bit of comedy relief after the first part although so far I don't find Pinter particularly funny. Maybe Lee Evans will win me over but that is more performance than the writing. The very loud drumming throughout Night School worked well for me and the completely different and stripped back set was refreshing after the small claustrophobic one used for Moonlight.

Much as the loose ends of his plays annoy me, I'd love to have taken a journey inside Pinter's mind. There be genius in there.

More ramblings after 3.

[joem]

Also saw 4. Moonlight was different to the production I remembered with Ian Holm. A more disjointed play than his other full-length plays but the dialogue between the two sons was harking back to his early plays, that sort of music-hall double-act type of dialogue. Good to see Robert Glenister back after that problem he had.

I disliked the intrusive interval music. Far too loud and fairly irrelevant to the plays. But the staff did well to open the auditorium earlier to avoid crushes as it was pouring with rain and the theatre lobby is really tiny.

[Dr Tom]

Pinter 3 last night. Clear view from Row O of the Stalls (the pillar was just far enough away). Seemed pretty full.

Not the best audience. Constant chair movements which you can hear everywhere. The chap next to me had one of those smartwatches that kept lighting up when he got a notification. They should be turned off just the same as a mobile.

The format for this one. One play, about five sketches, then the interval. Then back for the second half with more sketches and the second play.

The two plays were essentially performed by Tamsin Greig and Keith Allen (plus a little Meera Syal in the final one). The other cast were just there for the sketches.

It was obviously the Lee Evans show for the audience. He commanded the stage with his typical loud performance and visible facial expressions, so much only his sketches got applause at the end. To me, the sketches were rather mixed in quality, but I guess this is like a retrospective where you try and perform everything the Two Ronnies wrote, not everything will have stood the test of time.

Landscape was rather dull. Lots of restless people around.

A Kind of Alaska is an interesting piece. My first thought watching it was the film Awakenings and I've just found out that both were inspired by the same book (although the Pinter piece came before the film). Could do with more volume from Tamsin Greig (for the first play, she had a microphone), but this one is worth a watch.

A bit disappointing that we don't get Penelope Wilton as she is only doing about half the Pinter 3 performances, but I wouldn't go back just to see her additional monologue.

I'd rate this one ahead of Pinter 1 and 2, but behind Pinter 4.

[Deleted]

Just noticed that I could get rush tickets for Pinter 3 tonight on TodayTix, even at 2.30. I was sort-of tempted to book via ATG to get the Hiddleston pre-sale, but the prices on the website are still ludicrous.

[crowblack]

Nov 15, 2018 14:33:25 GMT @happysooz said:

rush tickets for Pinter 3 tonight on TodayTix

I might be returning seats for the Pinters next Saturday matinee and evening (one very cheap seat for each) - I'm not sure yet but will keep you updated if you're interested.

[david]

Having just watched Pinter 4 tonight (this is the first of the Pinter season I’ve booked for) overall I thought both plays where very well done, though Night School in my opinion was the better and definitely funnier than Moonlight which was definitely darker in tone. Brid Brennan and Janie Dee were absolutely hilarious as the two aunts and where the highlight of the night for me.

It was really nice to see Rob Glennister in great form and really delivered as the dying Andy in Moonlight. I preferred him in that than in Night School.

As others have said it was interesting to have two contrasting set styles for the two plays. The more claustrophobic set for Moonlight and the stripped back one for Night School. Both sets I thought worked well in their respective plays.

I don’t know how well 1-3 have sold, but tonight there where plenty of empty seats in the stalls tonight. Theatre management must of decided to close the upper levels of the auditorium at the last minute as there where plenty of people being shown to the empty seats causing a late start to the evening.
Also, after Moonlight, there seemed to be even more empty seats. Though the interval music really does need to be turned down a notch or two.

Having the £1 poster programme was a nice idea rather than having a traditional programme.

For £15 I thought it was a good night out and definitely worth the money as I was sat in M10 and couldn’t fault the view from my seat.

[Marwood]

Saw Pinter 3 this afternoon, I have to say I admired rather than liked Landscape and ...Alaska, and apart from the musical number I could have done without the sketches to be honest - I also didn’t find Lee Evans as ‘hilarious’ as some of the audience did.

[learfan]

Saw Pinter 3 and 4 today. Def the Lee Evans show in 3. Kind of Alaska bit meh, maybe just hasnt stood test of time. 4 was interesting mix. Moonlight dark memory piece. Night School hilarious with Janie Dee and Brid Brennan a great double act. 5 and 6 next up in January.

[samuelwhiskers]

The only bits of Pinter 3 I really liked were some of the comedic sketches. Alaska had some real quality but was overlong. Landscape was so boring I couldn't concentrate. I refused to see Pinter 4 so all in all a disappointment compared to the wonders of Pinters 1 and 2.

More excited by 5 and 6.

[Deleted]

I enjoyed Pinter 3 more than others seem to have done - in fact I think it was my favourite so far. Liked the structure with the two longer pieces bookending the sketches, and also the way the sketches flowed into each other with the cast mostly staying on stage for the whole time.

[Steve]

Nov 18, 2018 14:16:40 GMT @xanderl said:

I enjoyed Pinter 3 more than others seem to have done - in fact I think it was my favourite so far. Liked the structure with the two longer pieces bookending the sketches, and also the way the sketches flowed into each other with the cast mostly staying on stage for the whole time.

I also saw Pinter Three at yesterday's matinee, and loved the structure, with the longer pieces bookending the shorter pieces.

Some spoilers follow. . .

I felt Jamie Lloyd's structure focused on the value of listening. In the first half, the characters do not listen to each other, whereas in the second half, they do listen to each other, but listening proves painful. The thematic takeaway of the structure, for me, was that listening trumps not listening, despite the pain it brings, or maybe because of the pain it brings, because communication makes life worth living.

So in the opener, "Landscape," neither Tamsin Greig nor Keith Allen are listening to a word the other says. Greig is worse than Allen, at first appearance, because not only is she not listening, but she doesn't even care if she is listened to, either. She faces away from Allen, in an isolated reverie, all her own.

Then of course, Allen appears to get frustrated and angry, because Grieg won't listen to his boring crap about his pub expeditions, and we sense that maybe she isn't listening for a reason, because he's downright unpleasant, bordering on violent. Whether this is true or not is unresolvable.

The worlds and sensibilities the characters lose themselves in are very different, which is interesting, but not so interesting that the play doesn't run out of steam before it ends..

The theme of "not listening" continued in the first half, including and especially in the skit "That's All," in which Lee Evans played the woman who babbles about Wednesdays and Thursdays, while nobody listens. Lloyd amps up the "not listening" theme by having Tom Edden play a third completely silent character staring off into the distance, who Evans periodically notices, jumping out of his skin at the sight of this uninterested spectre. This eye-bulging gurning of Evans got huge laughs from the audience, and as comic performance, was peerless. However, in my view, the piece was better served at the Gala, where Sheila Hancock babbled on to Felicity Kendal. Where Evans' comic gurning is genuinely compelling, causing comedy performance fans to sit on the edges of their seats, waiting for the character's every sudden lurch and eyeroll, Hancock was deliberately and infuriatingly boring. Where Evans was playing to the audience, Hancock ignored them, so utterly repetitive and self-involved, so uninterested in her audience, so dull and boring, that ultimately she was much funnier than Evans, because in her we recognised ourselves, our own impatience, our own desperation NOT to listen.

Evans' final "Monologue" was terrific though, addressing the tragedy of a friendship finished, with a Evan's dynamic and passionate character, so stuck in the past, he is left addressing an empty chair. The friend, who would once have occupied that chair, is gone, so nobody is listening, and by hiring the bouncy and eager-to-please Evans to give the monologue, Lloyd accentuates and nails loneliness. It's simple, but it works.

In Part 2, characters do listen, but what they hear isn't what they wanted to hear.

Everything Evans tells Edden's factory boss, in "Trouble in the Works," about his workers' opinions is the opposite of what he wants to hear, which I found very funny, as Edden was like Basil Fawlty and Evans like his irritatingly ebullient bringer-of-bad-news, Manuel.

It's a comic warm-up par excellence to "A Kind of Alaska," in which the same thing happens again, but tragically.

Here, Tamsin Greig's Rip Van Winkle character really doesn't want to hear about how much she has lost when she wakes up after 29 years asleep. She is in her head still a child, but her childish world is gone, and all there is is loss. The open and vulnerable Grieg was immensely good as someone listening to words that feel like bullets, yet letting them cut through her, for want of knowing. And I felt Allen was equally good, as the man who must tell her those things, matter-of-fact but loving. I had tears in my eyes.

Ultimately,

I'd give "Landscape" 3 stars;

The skits: 3 and a half stars;

Monologue 4 stars;

and "A Kind of Alaska" 4 and a half stars.

[Deleted]

Well. I'd never seen either of the plays in Pinter 4 but I was heartened to see that clearly Jessica Barden hadn't either so that made two of us. I don't think she'd even read the script before either. Maybe she had a thumb through it for 20 minutes before curtain up? At least that's how she delivered it. Like a bored Carey Mulligan. Which I hadn't thought possible before this.

Other than that, it's a mixed bag and there are a few laughs hidden in there. I'd have liked to have taken a baseball bat to that set of drums though and someone really needs to tell Janie Dee that it often helps to rehearse a bit before you do a play. At least that way you get a slight chance to get the words right. I don't think I've ever seen a performance of hers where she hasn't stumbled over her lines. It makes one very nervous. Perhaps she was annoyed at being outshone by Brid Brennan? Or was too busy concentrating on trying to work out which Victoria Wood sketch Brid had stolen her Julie Walters performance from.

Anyhoo, Pinter 4 is all about Al Weaver and quite rightly so. He's smashing. There's a hairspray moment that still makes me giggle although I imagine climate change fanatics may want to look away at that particular moment as he creates his own personal hole in the ozone layer.

[Deleted]

Did Janie Dee have line problems in Follies? I don't recall.

[lichtie]

Saw Pinter 3 on Saturday and won't try and add to the analysis already presented here, but did feel overall it worked quite well. Mixing up the humour and straighter pieces meant that if there was one you didn't like another would be along soon that was more to your taste...

[Deleted]

I've been at Pinter 3 tonight. Jamie Lloyd is there again. Wanting me to join his Pinter Pirate gang no doubt.

He's definitely stalking me.

[callum]

Was this Dame Penny's first night?

[Deleted]

Nov 19, 2018 22:45:42 GMT callum said:

Was this Dame Penny's first night?

Yes. She opens the show.

Well. When she deigns to turn up of course.

[Deleted]

Well. Pinter 3 and I'm still being stalked by Jamie Lloyd with his pirate earrings. Ahoy me hearties!

Dame Penny Wilton was on first giving us a rather amusing sketch that wouldn't have been out of place on 'Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV'. Except for the filthy language at the end. She did mess up one of the punchlines but it was her first night and I suspect that she was a bit flummoxed by trying to manoeuvre her way onto the set which was spinning around at an alarming rate without ending up in the fourth row of the stalls. I'll forgive her though as she is Dame Penny Wilton and I do find it rather childishly amusing to hear a dignified older person spouting profanities.

Tamsin Greig gets the lions share of the hard work in the two longest sketches and quite rightly so. She's quite simply one of the most glorious actors in London's glitzy West End for my money. There's just something so very interesting and engaging about her, I couldn't take my eyes off her and her voice is simply wonderful. She carries off every challenge with aplomb, whether that's being saddled with a dreadful wig, spending her whole sequences sat down getting a numb buttock or two or working with Keith Allen. What a class act.

Elsewhere, the great unwashed were clearly there for Lee Evans and he didn't disappoint them, mugging for every line like he was begging for his life. Tamsin seemed to suggest in the Q&A that Jamie let him just get on with it. She tried to pass it off as a joke. I didn't believe her. Other than Tamsin and Dame Penny, it was Tom Edden who stole the rest of the show for me. He was funnier than Lee Evans in the sketches with him and delightfully touching in 'Night' with Meera Syal and hilarious in 'Girls'. He was also fascinating in the Q&A too, I imagine he is probably a really interesting person to spend time with, intelligent and rather scholarly in a way without being preachy. You'd learn something from him as well as getting a giggle methinks. Meera by the way gives us quite possibly one of the worst southern American accents I've heard for quite some time in her sketch about a preacher but clearly God loves a trier.

There was a Q&A afterwards with Jamie, Tom, Meera and Tamsin who all seemed to get on like a house on fire. I was all set to to put my hand up to ask "why are you stalking me Mr Jamie Lloyd? What do you want with me?" but I was too late. Too much time was taken up by people asking questions that made no sense. Which, one supposes, if you're going to ask that kind of question, a Pinter Q&A is the place to do so.

[Deleted]

I also want to mention that aside from stalking me religiously at each of these Pinterthon episodes, Jamie Lloyd really has gathered together a group of actors in all of the different shows with such wonderful voices. It's as much of a pleasure to hear lots of them as it is to see them on stage.

[crowblack]

Nov 15, 2018 14:33:25 GMT @happysooz said:

tickets for Pinter 3

Hi, if you're still interested I have single centre front row £15 tickets to this Saturday's matinee and evening plays that I won't be using. I don't know how to go about this but please message me or whatever if you're interested - they are collect at box office so should be transferrable.

[Stephen]

I enjoyed 'A Kind of Alaska' tonight and the cast were excellent throughout all of the plays.

Unfortunately the rest did fall a bit flat for me from a writing perspective. I do struggle with Pinter in general.

Lee Evans is extremely capable both comically and dealing with the intensity of the language. Met him after. He was lovely.

I think that's it for me with this season unless I decide to return for the Dyer/Freeman plays.

[zahidf]

How long is Pinter 4?