Harold Pinter Archive Blog

Golden Generation

Our exhibition on post-War British theatre opened today in the Folio Society Gallery at the British Library.

The exhibition – The Golden Generation: British Theatre 1945-68 -  demonstrates the variety, dynamism, and vision of actors, directors and writers that flourished in British theatre between the end of the Second World War in 1945 and the abolition of theatre censorship in 1968, using manuscripts, letters, oral history interviews, and photos from our collections.

I’m particularly pleased at the way we’ve combined iconic original items – handwritten drafts of Pinter, Osborne, Rattigan et al., the gloves Olivier wore in The Entertainer, a John Betjeman dust-jacket from Islington Library defaced by Joe Orton- alongside specially commissioned oral history interviews available at sound points. These interviews were conducted for the collaborative (with Sheffield University) Theatre Archive Project, and allowed those who visited or worked in post-War theatre to share their recollections for the first time. Interviewees featured include Murray Melvin, who played Geof in the stage and film versions of A Taste of Honey; Michael Seymour, a stage electrician at the Royal Court who looked down on the premiere of from high in the flies (despite his vertigo); Joe Aveline, Technical Manager at the National, who remembers Olivier giving a highly-strung Ingmar Bergman short shrift; actor Thelma Barlow falling over a sheep while playing in regional Rep.

One of the difficulties we found when structuring the exhibiton was where to put Pinter. In many ways sui generis, and deserving of his own section; and yet so thoroughly implicated in all aspects of post-War theatre as actor, designer, director…and writer. In the end, as with Olivier, we found he made appearances everywhere. A special case marks the opening of The Homecoming –and includes letters of congratulation from Beckett and Coward- but Pinter also appears in a section celebrating regional rep. This section shows how many playwrights who developed their talent while acting in rep – Pinter, as well as Peter Nichols, John Osborne, and Charles Wood - would equally find their writing careers boosted by early recognition from regional audiences and reviewers. A photo of Pinter as the eponymous Uninvited Guest in rep at Colchester in 1955 is exhibited alongside an image of a theatre programme featuring one ‘David Baron’, a letter in which Pinter sends news from the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, to Joe Brearley, and  Pinter's first scrapbook in which he pasted reviews of The Room- performed over two nights in a disused squash court in Bristol, the local Bristol Evening Post rather presciently noting that ‘Mr Pinter may well make some impact as a dramatist' (see image).

It’s open until 30 November 2008, and  has got good coverage so far- from Pink News to the Telegraph, and lots in between, including an interesting piece in the Guardian .

Dear diary...

I am currently working on the penultimate series of records, Harold Pinter's appointment diaries. The appointment diaries do exactly what they say on the tin - give details of appointments, meetings and events that Mr Pinter is to attend. They cover the years 1966 to 2005, although the diaries for 1968 and 1973 are missing from the series. The information contained in the diaries is very brief, but there is the odd note of interest. For example, the entry for 24 January 1993 is 'return Mauritius' and then a few days later 'finish Moonlight'. These entries support the claim made in Michael Billington's biography Harold Pinter that much of the play Moonlight was written during a holiday in Mauritius. This evidence is more compelling when coupled with the literary papers section for Moonlight, which includes notes for the play written on an 'Air Mauritius' notepad and a second draft that was posted from the island, still with the original envelope covered in Mauritian stamps. There are also some entries that must be fairly unusual - there can't be many people who have meetings with Arnold Wesker, John Mortimer, Robert Bolt, Tom Stoppard, Christopher Hampton, David Mercer, Peter Nichols and Ronald Harwood all on the same day (22 May 1974), or whose diaries contain a surprised little note stating simply 'Nobel Prize' (13 October 2005).

Simon Gray & Terence Rigby

I was saddened to hear of the deaths of the playwright Simon Gray last week, and the actor Terence Rigby this week. Both men had strong connections to Harold Pinter through their respective crafts and this is reflected by their presence in his archive.

Pinter directed many of Gray’s plays including Otherwise Engaged, The Rear Column, Close of Play, Quartermaine’s Terms, The Common Pursuit, Life Support, The Late Middle Classes, The Old Masters and Butley (the play and the film). There are sections relating to each of these plays within the professional correspondence series of the Harold Pinter archive. There is also a section of letters in the personal correspondence series between Gray and Pinter where they discuss these collaborative projects, other productions of their plays and personal matters. In addition to the letters, the archive holds some photographs of Pinter directing Alan Bates in the 1974 film version of Butley (album 4).

Terence Rigby was an actor who appeared in many Pinter plays, including the 1965 premiere of The Homecoming and the 1975 premiere of No Man’s Land. The photo albums have colour images of Rigby in the New York productions of these plays (Weissberger album) and some black and white shots of the London production of No Man’s Land (album 4). There are also several letters from Rigby to be found in the archive, in one he discusses his upcoming role in a 2003 production of The Caretaker, writing ‘on first reading yesterday the prospect appears an extremely formidable task - extremely’. In addition to this, Terence Rigby gave an interview for the theatre archive project where he talks about his experiences as an actor.

Harold Pinter's snaps

This week I have had the pleasure of leafing through Harold Pinter’s photographs. Sadly, there are no holiday snaps to be found in the albums, but there are lots of other interesting photos. Some of the many highlights include a couple of photos of Pinter as an 18 year old in a school production of Romeo and Juliet, playing the title role; a rare shot of Pinter in his repertory days, playing the uninvited guest in The Uninvited Guest in Colchester, 1955; and colour photographs of Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud in No Man’s Land in 1976. There are also some very familiar faces in the albums – John Hurt as a sprightly 23 year old in the first stage presentation of The Dwarfs in 1963; Judi Dench in the 1982 premiere of A Kind of Alaska; Bill Nighy in a 1991 production of Betrayal at the Almeida; and Pete Postlethwaite in The Homecoming at the Manchester Royal Exchange in 2002.

The fifteen albums contain photographs of stage, television, film and radio productions of Pinter’s plays from the UK and further afield. They also include images of Pinter in action both as director and actor and stills from some of the films he adapted. True to form, there is an index accompanying the albums so it’s easy to identify which performances are included in which album.

Above, photograph of ‘The Birthday Party’, Israel, 1965 (Album 2).