The Lover and The Collection by Harold Pinter

The Lover:

A married couple who live a private kind of life in the middle of somewhere or other, comfortably off financially and seemingly happy. However, their sex life has deteriorated and they decide to uncomfortably change that.

But as you’d expect from a Pinter play, there’s rather more to it and as we get to know the couple better and their double existence, their refined deception- both are prisoners of the repetitive mechanisms of life. A dark comedy that explores illusionary behaviour and identity, but still preserves its timely relevance and uncontainable strength with an almost Pirandellian piquancy.

The Collection:

On the same sort of lines of The Lover, though the sexual element here focuses on bisexuality, trust and jealousy. Bill is a fashion designer who lives with his older partner Harry. One day a strange man, James, phones at 4 am to speak to Bill. Then he comes round to Harry's house unannounced, helps himself to some vodka and a grape or two, and accuses Bill of having slept with his wife Stella, in a hotel while on business in Leeds. Bill at first denies the accusations, but the matter is never clarified or resolved satisfactorily in spite of Stella's denial. The Collection was first written and presented as a TV play in 1961 and then produced on stage by the RSC in London. The Financial times chronicled the play as “an under praised little masterpiece”

Harold Pinter:

One of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1960), The Homecoming (1964), Betrayal, (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works. He was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005.

Critics say…

Nicholas de Jongh for THE EVENING STANDARD says, "Harold Pinter has never offered us more illuminating, sexually related pleasure than in these two exquisite one-acters." Michael Billington for THE GUARDIAN says, “There is a lot of comedy here” Benedict Nightingale for THE TIMES says, Two fascinating, funny, elusive one-acters.

With Sarah Somerville, Michael Lawrence, Rachelle Duncan, Edward Newborn, Richard Thompson and Matthew Sunderland.

The Lover directed by Paul Gittins

The Collection directed by Michael Lawrence

Design by John Parker

Lighting Design by Michael Goodwin