Picture from everyman.com

Originally published by L.S. Media. October 4th 2009.

Cast: Jonathon Pryce, Tom Brooke, Peter McDonald.

Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker celebrated it’s fortieth birthday this year and thankfully the Everyman decided to take full advantage of the timing by making it part of their production schedule for the autumn. Not only that, but by making sure that one of Britain’s best and well loved actors was involved, the Everyman has hit upon a recipe for success and one that insures the crowds will flock to this production.

Jonathan Pryce is no stranger to Liverpool, having spent his childhood Christmas shopping with his mother here and more importantly it was the Everyman that gave Jonathan his start in professional theatre. From those days as a jobbing actor, he has gone on to enjoy accomplishment in the West End and in major films such as media megalomaniac Eliot Carver in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies and Juan Peron in Evita.

Jonathan was joined on stage by Tom Brooke and Peter McDonald, both of whom gave performances to match that of the elder statesman. Tom Brooke excelled as the menacing younger brother Mick and Peter McDonald was marvellous as that as the quieter, seemingly kinder but just as unstable Aston.

The set was wonderfully cluttered with used paint pots, bundles of paper neatly tied up with frayed string, a Buddha atop a disused oven and other broken and unloved bric-a-brac which made the stage area seem even more constricting and tense to the sold out audience.

In amongst this waste of humanity, the three actors made the most of the space that was left to them and filled it between them with the range of acting rarely seen in such close confines.

There were genuine moments of typical Pinter mirth in the play, one of the highlights being the exchange of Pryce’s character Davies’s bag between the three actors, each clutching, for a brief moment the soiled remains of Davies life.

The play though hinged on the uncomfortable surroundings that Aston and Davies lived in, with Davies never making good on his promise to himself to get down to Sidcup to get his papers, with excuse after excuse not to go. The moment where Aston eventually finds him a good, solid pair of shoes to walk about in is a gem of theatre writing.

A must for anybody serious about the theatre.

Ian D. Hall