Review – Moonlight, Donmar

Sorry. We’ve only just troubled you with some of the differences between the Whinger but here’s another one, as though you cared.

Some years back Andrew swore that he would never permit Harold Pinter to darken his theatregoing door again.

Phil, on the other hand, had been put off Pinter when he studied The Caretaker at school (Andrew expresses surprise at this, surely a more contemporary playwright for Phil would have been, say, Congreve?) but was understandably converted by seeing Dora Bryan in a NT production of The Birthday Party many, many moons ago.

Andrew should have known better. But even Phil really should have known to draw the line at the Donmar’s Moonlight, having yawned through the original, rather starry (Ian Holm, Anna Massey, Douglas Hodge, Michael Sheen, Claire Skinner, Edward de Souza) production at the Almeida in 1993.

But whether the result of a gluttony for punishment or optimism wrestling experience to the floor and sitting on its chest, the Whingers gamely trotted off to the Donmar to – it turns out – stick proverbial pins in their eyes yet again.

Review – No Man’s Land by Pinter, Duke of York’s Theatre

Act 1: An October Night. A rather grand living room in Kentish Town or possibly in Vauxhall.

Two quite old men meet for the first time. Or have they already met? Or do they in fact meet at all?

SCHOONER is standing (albeit somewhat unsteadily).

THIRST sits staring into space enigmatically. The lights come up. There is a long silence.

Then another, longer one.

[At this performance the parts of SCHOONER and THIRST are played by Andrew and Phil respectively]