Carole Angier
His English Elements
Pinter in the Theatre
By Ian Smith (ed)
Nick Hern Books 234pp £14.99
In 1957, when he was twenty-seven, Harold Pinter sat among the audience for his very first play. It was ‘a remarkable experience’, he tells an interviewer here. How? ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I wanted to piss very badly throughout the whole thing, and at the end I dashed out behind the bicycle shed.’
That is vintage Pinter – comic, sardonic, shockingly real. And something more, which this book brings out better than anything else I have ever read about Pinter: deeply English. I don’t just mean lavatorial, but hanging out a No Entry sign as soon as anyone comes too close; using words not to communicate but to cover up, like his characters. Is there anything more English than that?
Yes, two things – Shakespeare and cricket. And Pinter, Ian Smith tells us, loves them both. In his introduction, Smith does full justice to the influence of Pinter’s Continental and Jewish background; but only he, perhaps, could measure Pinter’s unexpected Englishness. The two men met over cricket, and that is
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk