Harold Pinter, despite his Nobel Prize, is not especially fashionable; so it is good to see revivals of his work.
Pauses, menace, comedy – the old, dark magic is still discernible under David Black's direction.
It is odd to think that a critic once, when phoning in a Pinter review, could not make himself heard above the shouts of angry playgoers.
In The Du
mb Waiter, the playwright uses the device – also seen in Beckett and Stoppard – of a pair of fall-guys threatened by off-stage forces.
Steve Humfress and Sam Ward as the hapless duo could be Laurel and Hardy as gangsters. Their comic attempts to fulfil the dumb waiter's increasing demands are pure Theatre of the Absurd.
Noel Coward, surprisingly, admired Pinter's exact use of language. This is seen in the hitmen's tetchy dialogue, so well delivered, and also in the second play.
The Lover is a "games people play in marriage" piece. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Killing Of Sister George are in the same category.
You could hear a vein of Coward in the sinister formalities, hiding a worm in the bud, of a couple who lead a strange sexual life.
Pete Webb and Laura Green carry this one off with great aplomb, fast fading from one personality to another, as the characters' fantasies take them.
The
Mere Players have shone in musicals and safe classics; but shows a new maturity here when succeeding with less cautious material.
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