Experience rating: 9/10

By Shomit Dutta

Directed by Guy Unsworth

Venue: Hampstead Downstairs

Date: Saturday 15th July 2023

          What a lovely little gem this piece is, putting both Beckett and Pinter through some of the torments, pauses and repetitions their characters had to endure, most notably in Waiting for Godot and The Dumb Waiter. The performances were excellent, and the writing captured their styles and connected playwriting themes brilliantly, with the humour working well with or without any specialist knowledge. We’ve seen work by both writers, of course, but while we both love Pinter’s style, we find Beckett less interesting. Not a problem in this play: we could happily see it again, and although some of the references to other works may have escaped us, our years-long dedication to playgoing stood us in good stead overall.

          The stage was small and with a beautifully designed set. A heavy gilt frame surround enclosed a tiny bare stage with wooden flooring. The walls were painted a blue/green colour in a scumbled texture. There was a doorway at either side, a bench in the middle, and a gilt framed window at the back which revealed a 3D model of a cricket pavilion, while a scoreboard front left showed 25 runs, 2 wkts, 9 overs. A cricket bat and gloves were against the right wall, and to suit the countryside setting, birds twittered away happily before the start. We sat in the front row, almost within touching distance of the action, if we can call it that.

          The first act took place during a cricket match. Beckett (Stephen Tompkinson) was sitting on the bench, keeping the score, and popping over to update the scoreboard every so often between overs. When Pinter (Andrew Lancel) arrived, Beckett’s main concern was that he pad up, as he (Beckett) was next in with Pinter to follow. Pinter, on the other hand, was more concerned by his sore ankle, and eventually wandered over to the pavilion to get some ice to put on it. The pavilion door obligingly opened up, and a pack of frozen peas emerged. Later on there would be cups of tea, biscuits and beer produced from the same source.

          While waiting to go on, the pair chatted about various things: Pinter’s acting, his plans for a new play (from the descriptions of the characters, The Homecoming), the last time they each played cricket, and the match they were watching, amongst other topics. Beckett shared very little about himself, apart from his increasing worry over Pinter’s lack of pads, but his personality and dry wit came across very clearly. The rhythm of the dialogue, the interruptions and changes of subject were all resonant of their own work, and the audience responded well to the humour from the early stages. With a batsman finally out, Beckett had to go on, and having removed his coat and picked up his bat and gloves, he made to step off the stage through the frame towards us – blackout.

          After a short pause, the lights came back up on the village green at night. The pavilion had disappeared, and in its place stood a small weeping willow. Pinter arrived first, followed by Beckett who had a bandage on his head with some blood showing through. Both were carrying their cricket bags. During the previous act, they had briefly discussed getting a lift home from one of the other players. They didn’t know his name, but had been told to wait at the green to be picked up.

          They passed the time by discussing their performances in the match earlier. We learned fairly quickly why Beckett had the bandage on his head: Pinter had hit a full toss straight at Beckett’s head, leaving him dazed and out of his ground. The ball had ricocheted off his head and been caught, but as it had been called a no ball, the fielder shrewdly threw the ball at the stumps and Beckett was out. Beckett described all this with a richness of language which was absolutely hilarious, and continued by detailing how Pinter had then, by giving conflicting calls, run out the next batsman, who was considered the best in their team. They lost.

          As the night wore on with no sign of their lift, they tried to figure out who the mystery driver was. It dawned on them that the chap whom Pinter had run out, nicknamed Doggo by the pair, was, in fact, the chap who was supposed to be picking them up. A certain amount of menace crept into the scene, especially when a nearby phone began to ring. It turned out they were near the cricket pavilion, and when Pinter answered (offstage) it was Doggo informing them that he couldn’t come because he had an unexpected plumbing emergency. Comedy and menace in the same package. They spotted a dark figure under the tree, and when they tried calling the number for Doggo, a phone rang in the pavilion. Finally they decided to leave for the station, but then a car arrived, and with Beckett heading off, Pinter got ready to confront the man from the car. Blackout.

          The next act was set at Addlestrop train station, with the window showing the other platform, complete with timetable. Pinter was lying on the bench, asleep, and when Beckett arrived he woke him up. No sign of a bandage on Beckett’s head. They drank some whisky, talked about when the next train would arrive and which direction was the right one to get back to London. We heard the sounds of the trains: at first they didn’t stop and then they did, but on the other platform.

Finally the phone rang again, allowing Beckett to have a chat with the stationmaster. Pretending to be the Queen’s surgeon, he managed to arrange for transport by horse to Banbury station, where they could catch another train to London. When the sound of horses’ hooves approached, they went in different directions, with Pinter returning soon after, having decided he couldn’t get on a horse. While he waited, he lay down on the bench again as at the start of the scene, and soon afterwards Beckett reappeared, this time with the bandage on his head. He woke Pinter up, and they went into a mini-reprise of the scene, with neither of them remembering what had happened, nor knowing why there was a man with horses waiting out the front. The phone rang again, they looked at each other with concern and the oft-repeated three-word phrase ‘yes, no, wait’ was begun with the ‘yes’ and ‘no’, but after a long pause followed by a blackout. It was a neat ending, and we expressed our very enthusiastic appreciation in the usual way.

For such a short play it contained a lot of meat, much like the writers’ own work. It had a lot of humour, but introduced tension and menace at times as well. The performances were judged to a nicety, and there were a lot of little details which I couldn’t keep noting down. For example, they did attempt to step out of the frame a few other times during the play, but each time they pulled back as if fearing some unexpected disaster would befall them if they carried on. I hope this gets another run somewhere, sometime, as I would love to see it again.

© 2023 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me