Harold Pinter - A Celebration

Hard to sum up last night’s Harold Pinter tribute at the National.

Some of the best actors of our generation – including [deep breath] Eileen Atkins, David Bradley, Kenneth Cranham, Janie Dee, Andy de la Tour, Lindsay Duncan, Colin Firth, Henry Goodman, Sheila Hancock, Douglas Hodge, Lloyd Hutchinson, Jude Law, Gina McKee, Sophie Okonedo, Stephen Rea, Alan Rickman, Michael Sheen, Indira Varma, Samuel West, Lia Williams, Penelope Wilton, Susan Wooldridge, Henry Woolf – came together to celebrate the greatest dramatic writer of the 20th century.

And the audience wasn’t bad either - a few rows in front, Peter Hall and Trevor Nunn share a joke with Ronald Harwood, while the autograph hunters outside seem particularly excited by a sighting of David Walliams.

It was billed as a celebration, and celebration – hilarious, raucous, stylish, and good-naturedly moving – it undeniably was. To pick out highlights would be invidious, but it’s been a while since I have laughed so deeply in a theatre as I did when David Bradley shuffled on as Davies (from The Caretaker), and delivered his stinging rebuke to Luton’s religious orders: 'Them bastards at the monastery let me down again’.

And Douglas Hodge’s readings from Mac were superb. It’s a work I was only vaguely aware of, and the incision of the writing was a revelation. It’s typically generous of Pinter to allow us to share the triumphs (Othello at two in the morning to a roisterous Irish audience on St Patrick’s Day, among others) of this remarkable figure from the days of rep, and Pinter’s gentle teasing tone never masks his affection.

Similarly, for all the belly-laughs at last night’s event, nothing could obscure the memory of and love for the man who wasn’t there, but whose portrait dominated the Olivier stage at the end. His presence was everywhere, and somehow, among le tout-London mingling in the auditorium, I kept expecting to see him

Comments

[Jamie Andrews]

This just in from The Guardian's Michael Billington
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jun/08/harold-pinter

[acting coach los angeles]

Harold Pinter is a great dramatic writer and that is one good reason why we should celebrate for Harold. So many actors came, i wish i was there.

-peter