Pinter 5: The Room / Victoria Station / Family Voices

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10 January 2019 · Follow on Stagedoor

“You have only until the 26th January to catch parts 5 & 6 in Jamie Lloyd’s season. These two separate bills of lesser known Pinter plays are both rewarding in their own ways, with The Room (starring an unrecognizable Jane Horrocks as a woman under threat) reminding us how Pinter somehow sprung up as a fully formed talent. Pinter 6 is starrier still, featuring John Simm, Celia Imrie and Katherine Kingsley amongst others in a double bill comprising Party Time and Celebration. I really liked Party Time (even the title is treacherous). Celebration less so but the acting is peerless, and both evenings offer uneasy laughter and chills.”

Overview

Harold Pinter’s first play, The Room, features in a triple-bill directed by Pinter’s colleague and friend, Patrick Marber. An all-too-familiar and frighteningly topical brand of English xenophobia runs through this darkly funny and unexpectedly odd play from 1957. In the hilarious Victoria Station and the reflective Family Voices, isolated voices attempt to communicate, but can we ever truly express the depths of our feeling?

Critic reviews

It’s nuanced, careful, and tacitly manages to develop a sense of inescapable isolation over the course of the three plays, without ever explicitly mentioning it

⋅ A Younger Theatre

Patrick Marber has given Pinter Five the look and feel that is absolutely required for these three short plays. Each one is perfectly wrapped and delivered, making Pinter Five a wonderful post-Christmas gift

⋅ Theatre Weekly

It's a tour-de-force from McFarlane, whose Caribbean-accented controller goes from matey charm, promising shared holidays in Barbados, to savouring his wonderfully creative threats

Broadway World

The whole cast are cooking with gas

⋅ The Telegraph

The performances, like the plays themselves, are both complex and simple and entirely compelling. You feel yourself leaning forward, wanting to catch each breath

⋅ WhatsOnStage

Pinter’s menacing debut ‘The Room’ is the highlight of the Patrick Marber-directed portion of Pinter at the Pinter

⋅ Time Out

The cast of nine are having so much fun that, for a crazy moment, I actually wanted to join them on stage

⋅ The Times

Patrick Marber's production of Pinter's first play is the highlight of an intriguing, if not wholly satisfying, triple bill

⋅ The Stage

Jane Horrocks and Rupert Graves offer wonderful performances in a selection of Pinter's shorter works

⋅ The Independent

Jane Horrocks, Rupert Graves and others shine in Patrick Marber and Jamie Lloyd’s bold revivals of the playwright’s shorter plays

⋅ The Guardian