Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Toby Jones, Henry Goodman, Stephen Rae, Maggie Steed, Peter Wright, Jamie Winstone.

Harold Pinter’s first major play, The Birthday Party, has either captivated or underwhelmed audiences since it first came to the stage sixty years ago. Even in 2018 as it was revived with Zoe Wanamaker, Stephen Mangan and Pearl Mackie amongst its cast, it left confusion in its wake, taken to heart by many, but leaving some distrusting of the playwright’s ultimate question which never truly gets spoken out loud.

The problem perhaps often lays in how the play is presented, it requires the understanding of the state of mind and the time in which was written in, it is obliged to present the present danger in such a way that it leaves the audience no doubt of the intention of the state and the overreaching control in which it seeks to dominate; it also demands the part of Stanley be played by an actor who can command both loathing and sincere joy in equal measure in the role, a part that arguably Toby Jones does with absolute conviction.

It is to the fast-paced confrontation between the Toby Jones’ Stanley and the malevolent forms of Goldberg and McCann, portrayed with unabashed malign vindictiveness by Henry Goodman and Stephen Rae, in which the who atmosphere of Harold Pinter’s play is held fast, a tightening  noose of antagonistic conversation which moves like a physical form of lightning chess, the only difference being instead of a tug of war between two equally matched opponents, the field of corrosive attrition is akin to torture, a three sided game of open warfare in which one has no choice but to concede to the inevitable and slowly lose one’s mind.

It is a confrontation which when performed with no hesitation or inward projection can be seen as amongst the finest in theatrical staging, the fact that this particular verbal onslaught is produced for radio, only encourages the three actors to really allow the grinding down of will to be the highlight of the play, and one to which brings out the very best in three actors already renowned for their muscular prowess at capturing the essence of the bitter and abrasive.

With the rest of the cast adding the extra dimension of wilful destruction and the feeling of self-harm to the characters, and the pulse of the play allowing the listener to readily accept the unique vision that Pinter brings to the shabby down heel of Britain and the alluded too constant need of the state to control its population, The Birthday Party is arguably one of the greatly appreciated productions of the year.

Ian D. Hall