The Homecoming

Synopsis

From the exterior it is a quiet London suburban house occupied by a father and his sons. But inside this male dominated household lurks a hotbed of Vice, Lust and Violence. The third son Teddy arrives from America bringing with him his enigmatic new wife. She soon becomes the focus of fascination for the father and his sadistic sons. They have plans for her. But who is the manipulator and who the manipulated? Pinter's trademark exploration of underlying menace and irrational violence is at it's best in this classic of barely repressed sexuality.

Our Review:

8 February 2008

After the hors d’oeuvre of the early television plays The Lover and The Collection at the Comedy comes the main course, the full length-work which succeeded them in 1965, The Homecoming, one of Harold Pinter’s indisputably classic early plays.

How do you remember the piece? That huddle of four men smoking cigars at the top of Act Two? Ruth, the cool and enigmatic wife of the older son, Teddy, crossing her legs provocatively in sheer stockings? The sudden collapse of mild-mannered Uncle Sam, the cab driver, and Teddy’s “I was going to ask him to drive me to London Airport”?

Ever since Peter Hall’s monumental, all-grey premiere at the RSC, brown and sepia – the designer here is Jonathan Fensom -- have been creeping into the North London household where the barbaric retired butcher Max (Kenneth Cranham) holds cruel sway over his sons Lenny the pimp (Nigel Lindsay) and J...

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Latest User Review

Paul Wallis - 15 March 2008:

If I didn't know this play had been around a long time, I'd have thought it had been written with Kenneth Cranham in mind. He totally inhabits the part of Max and makes it his own with an outstanding performance that covers a whole range of emotions. This play is performed with a real intensity and the acting throughout is excellent. I was particularly impressed with Jenny Jules as Ruth who teases and flirts with the men around her. It is a well judged performance in a very fine production of this Pinter classic...

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