Not so much kitchen sink drama as living room floor, this is (as expected from Harold Pinter) one of those great old British play plays, where the words and the meanings and all that English ‘A’-level bumf are more important than what might appear to be going on. The League of Gentlemen did a great live routine about the Northern playwrights working around this time, plays about “up neeyaarth …”; this one’s very much about “dahn Saaf”. Paul Rogers is like a Cockney Brian Glover. It’s at turns bitter, creepy, strangely hilarious, and finally downright bizarre. It reminded me a little of old Mike Leigh stuff like Abigail’s Party.

I think this is my first experience of Harold Pinter’s work. It certainly didn’t put me off seeking out more of it. Considering it’s mostly just a filmed stage production (ie, not a great deal of locations, exteriors, etc), I really liked the camerawork here, too.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 18th, 2006 at 5:50 pm in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.