That was the record in the log and that is faint praise. A superb cast including Alan Howard, Bernard Cribbins and Anne-Marie Duff . Richard Eyre directing. What’s not to like?
I rated this “good” but frankly I rated it higher than Janie did. I have always been partial to a bit of Joe Orton, while Janie finds the farce element of Orton’s plays not to her taste.
This production pushed my Orton boundaries somewhat as Phyllida Lloyd certainly accentuated the farce aspect.
Some rare long intervals between visits to theatre and concert hall that summer, all down to the dawning of my business Z/Yen, which took up ludicrous amounts of time including weekends.
Janie and I rated it “very good indeed” at the time. I do recall it being a very interesting play and the RNT production was top notch, as RNT productions were wont to be at that time.
We do like a bit of Pinter. I was especially keen to see this one. I’d never seen the play performed live; this 1994 production was the first London production since the West End production in the 1960s. But I had seen the wonderful 1980s TV version with Pinter himself as Goldberg.
I’d also previously seen excerpts from the play performed live; not least by my own school mates in the late 1970’s when Dan O’Neill was selected for the role of Goldberg ahead of me because he could do a much better Goldberg accent than me. I don’t bear grudges but I do retain a sense of unjust cultural appropriation to this day, not least because I still cannot do a Goldberg-style accent. I played Aston in The Caretaker instead, but I digress.
In theory this National theatre production should have been amazing. Alan Howard, Frances de la Tour, Sheila Gish, a young as yet little known Jude Law…
…but my log reads, “not bad. Not the greatest either”. That means we didn’t like it all that much.
I liked this play and production far more than Janie did. Where I liked the intellectual aspects of the content, Janie found them pretentious and at times confusing.
Billington on Magia Sat, Jul 15, 1995 – 28 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Coveney on Magia Sun, Jul 16, 1995 – 77 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
