In what promises to be an exciting event within the Pinter at the Pinter season, Lee Evans will appear in an eclectic mixed bill alongside stage and screen favourite Meera Syal. They join the previously announced Keith Allen and Tamsin Greig from 25th October to 8th December, for 23 performances only.
Evans will perform the poignantly witty Monologue and a selection of Pinter’s most hilarious comedy sketches. Evans and Syal will perform, amongst other pieces, the sketch Apart From That, whilst Syal also joins Allen and Greig in A Kind of Alaska. The play, performed alongside Landscape, movingly captures the oneiric nature of memory.
A multi-award-winning actor and comedian, Evans last performed Pinter’s work in 2007 when he starred in The Dumb Waiter at Trafalgar Studios.
Lee Evans said: “Working with Harold Pinter was one of the most incredibly exciting experiences of my life. Of course, I found Harold to be, along with his incredible wife Antonia, two of the most generous, kind and considerate people one could ever wish to meet; a couple so desperately keen to pass on anything they could to encourage and help young actors and directors, no matter who, what or where you might be from. It didn’t matter to Harold - the most important thing to him was the work. Most of all, Harold loved it when his work allowed you, the performer, to shine. Thanks, Harold - my hero.”
Landscape is a minimalist marvel: a woman is locked in a beautiful memory and her husband demands to be heard. In A Kind of Alaska, Deborah awakes from a twenty-nine-year sleep and is suspended between the conscious and unconscious worlds. In Monologue, a loner addresses an absent friend who disappeared many years ago.
Clarence Derwent Award-winner Jonjo O’Neill (The Prudes, Unreachable) joins Paapa Essiedu, Kate O’Flynn, Sir Antony Sher and Maggie Steed in the explosive opening of the season, which features plays including One For The Road and Ashes to Ashes. O’Neill will appear in Mountain Language and The New World Order, as well as the first major revival of the sketch Press Conference, originally performed by Harold Pinter himself, and the World Premiere of The Pres and an Officer. The evening plays for 23 performances only from September 6th.
Marking the 10th anniversary of the revered playwright’s death, Pinter at the Pinter features all Pinter’s short plays, alongside a selection of his poems and sketches.
The season is presented by The Jamie Lloyd Company, ATG Productions, Ben Lowy Productions, Gavin Kalin Productions and Glass Half Full Productions.
About Pinter at the Pinter
Pinter at the Pinter is an unparalleled event featuring the short plays written by the greatest British playwright of the 20th Century, in the theatre that bears his name. They have never been performed together in a season of this kind. Each play runs for a limited number of performances.
The season will be presented in repertoire by a world-class cast, many of whom were Harold Pinter’s friends and frequent collaborators. The cast includes Keith Allen, Jessica Barden, Ron Cook, Phil Davies, Danny Dyer, Paapa Essiedu, Lee Evans, Martin Freeman, Rupert Graves, Tamsin Greig, Jane Horrocks, Celia Imrie, John Macmillan, Emma Naomi, Tracy Ann Oberman, Kate O’Flynn, Jonjo O’Neill, Abraham Popoola, Sir Antony Sher, John Simm, Hayley Squires, Maggie Steed, David Suchet, Meera Syal, Luke Thallon, Russell Tovey, Penelope Wilton and Nicholas Woodeson.
Mark Rylance will make two special charity performances of Art, Truth and Politics, Pinter’s Nobel Prize Lecture, in aid of the Stop the War Coalition.
Direction is by Jamie Lloyd, Patrick Marber, Lyndsey Turner, Ed Stambollouian and Lia Williams, with season design by Soutra Gilmour, lighting by Jon Clark, Elliot Griggs and Richard Howell, and sound and music by George Dennis and Ben & Max Ringham.
The season is presented by The Jamie Lloyd Company, ATG Productions, Benjamin Lowy Productions, Gavin Kalin Productions and Glass Half Full Productions.
Pinter 10
Pinter at the Pinter is part of the Pinter 10 partnership with the BFI, The Harold Pinter Estate and Faber & Faber, which is marking the 10th anniversary of Pinter’s death with a series of events celebrating the life of the most important British playwright of the 20th Century.
BFI Southbank will commemorate the anniversary with a season of Pinter’s film and television productions; Pinter on Screen: Power, Sex & Politics will take place at BFI Southbank until the end of August.
SCHEDULE
Thursday 6 September – Saturday 20 October 2018
Press day – 27 September 2018
One for the Road
The New World Order
Mountain Language
The Pres and an Officer
Directed by Jamie Lloyd
Ashes to Ashes
Directed by Lia Williams
Opening the Pinter at the Pinter season is a dynamic collection of Harold Pinter’s most potent and dangerous political plays.
The incendiary One for The Road is Pinter at his most terrifying. A ruthless government official interrogates a dissident and his family, but is the torturer more tortured than his victims? The New World Order explores how the abuse of power is legitimised in the name of freedom and democracy, as two brutal interrogators prepare to inflict their terrible punishment on a blind-folded insurgent. Pinter investigates the suppression of ideas and the supposed threat of non-conformity in Mountain Language: a group of captives attempt to find a voice when their shared language is banned by the state, and the World Premiere production of Pinter’s newly-discovered satirical sketch, The Pres and an Officer.
The evening culminates with Ashes to Ashes, a richly atmospheric and compelling play in which the dark nightmare of human atrocity infiltrates a couple’s living room. Directed by award-winning actress and long-time Pinter collaborator, Lia Williams.
Cast includes Paapa Essiedu, Kate O’Flynn, Jonjo O’Neill, Sir Anthony Sher and Maggie Steed
Thursday 2 October – Harold Pinter’s Art, Truth and Politics Lecture performed by Mark Rylance
Thursday 13 September – Saturday 20 October 2018
Press day – Thursday 27 September 2018
The Lover
The Collection
Directed by Jamie Lloyd
Two miniature comedic masterpieces from the 1960s, The Lover and The Collection, which explore secrets, lies and seduction, are directed by ‘major Pinter interpreter’ (Financial Times), Jamie Lloyd.
Playful and provocative, The Lover features a conventional, suburban couple in unconventional circumstances. The Collection, hailed as one of the outstanding plays of the 20th Century by Laurence Olivier, delves into the intriguing mystery of two London couples linked by sexual desire and a quest for supremacy.
Cast includes John Macmillan, Hayley Squires, David Suchet and Russell Tovey
Thursday 4 October – Harold Pinter’s Art, Truth and Politics Lecture performed by Mark Rylance
Thursday 25 October – Saturday 8 December 2018
Press Night – Thursday 15 November 2018
Landscape
A Kind of Alaska
Monologue
Directed by Jamie Lloyd
Landscape and A Kind of Alaska, directed by Jamie Lloyd, are spellbinding evocations of loneliness, isolation and the strange mists of time.
Landscape is a minimalist marvel: a woman is locked in a beautiful memory and her husband demands to be heard. In A Kind of Alaska, Deborah awakes from a twenty-nine-year sleep and is suspended between the conscious and unconscious worlds. In Monologue a man sits alone addressing an absent friend, their close relationship having been pulled apart many years ago.
Cast includes Keith Allen, Lee Evans, Tamsin Greig and Meera Syal
Penelope Wilton will perform Tess on 19th, 21st, 22nd, 24 (mat), 26th, 28th, 29th November and 1st (mat), 3rd, 4th, 6th, 8th December
Thursday 1 November – Saturday 8 December 2018
Press Night – Friday 16 November 2018
Moonlight
Directed by Lyndsey Turner
Night School
Directed by Ed Stambollouian
The brutality of family life and the subjectivity of memory are explored in the emotionally raw and richly funny Moonlight, directed by Olivier Award winner Lyndsey Turner, in which the past haunts the dark, lonely recesses of a dying father’s bedroom.
An East End criminal returns home from prison to find his room has been occupied by a mysterious woman with a secret. Set in the sweaty nightclubs and claustrophobic boarding houses of 1960s London, this is a rare opportunity to see the brilliantly witty and vivid Night School, directed by the inventive young director, Ed Stambollouian.
Cast includes Jessica Barden in Night School
Thursday 13 December 2018 – Saturday 26 January 2019
Press Night – Thursday 3 January 2019
The Room
Family Voices
Victoria Station
Directed by Patrick Marber
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?
Cast includes Rupert Graves, Jane Horrocks, Emma Naomi, Luke Thallon and Nicholas Woodeson
Thursday 20 December 2018 – Saturday 26 January 2019
Press Night – Friday 4 January 2019
Party Time
Celebration
Directed by Jamie Lloyd
A scathing and bitterly amusing attack on the increasingly powerful and narcissistic super-rich, set against the backdrop of terrifying state oppression, the highly pertinent Party Time is paired with Harold Pinter’s final play, Celebration.
Celebration is an irresistible comedy about the vulgarity and ostentatious materialism of the nouveau riche, set in a fashionable London restaurant. An evening of social satire that chimes with our times, directed by Jamie Lloyd.
Cast includes Ron Cook, Phil Davis, Celia Imrie, Gary Kemp, Tracy Ann Oberman, Abraham Popoola and John Simm
Thursday 31 January – Saturday 23 February 2019
Press Night – Wednesday 6 February 2019
A Slight Ache
The Dumb Waiter
Directed by Jamie Lloyd
The Pinter at The Pinter season culminates with two unmissable comedies that explore the political machinations of the powerful and the powerless.
When a mysterious figure enters their elegant country home, the lives of Flora and Edward are changed forever.
Gus and Ben, two hit-men, await their next job in a derelict building - but what is the cost of their quest for meaning?
A Slight Ache and The Dumb Waiter, both written in the late 1950s, are directed by Jamie Lloyd.
Cast includes Danny Dyer and Martin Freeman in The Dumb Waiter
Details of special rehearsed readings of Tea Party, The Basement and Silence, are to be announced at a later date.
Ticket prices
£65, £45, £35, £25, £15
Premium price tickets are available
25,000 tickets across the run are available at £15 for people aged under 30, key workers and those receiving job seekers allowance.
Season passes are available for those wanting to see all productions at £100 for Band D seats and £420 for Band A seats
