No Man's Land

Synopsis

Hirst, a respected and wealthy poet, comes across Spooner, a fellow poet who has fallen on hard times, in a chance meeting at Jack Straw's Castle, his local public house. They retire to Hirst's Hampstead home to continue their drinking and conversation. Later, two younger men, Foster and Briggs, arrive claiming to be Hirst's guardians. Nothing, however, is as it seems. First performed in 1975, No Man's Land is one of [Harold Pinter's most darkly comic, savagely disturbing - and seldom seen - plays. The tenuous nature of memory, and the primal, aggressive nature of men struggling to maintain their status in an unrelenting world are forged together in this modern classics.

Our Review:

8 October 2008

Yes, but what does it all mean? Kenneth Tynan railed against the “gratuitous obscurity” of Harold Pinter’s poetic 1975 play when it was first produced by Peter Hall at the National starring John Gielgud as the supplicant versifier Spooner and Ralph Richardson as his host Hirst, patron and supporter of the arts. But the play is always gloriously enjoyable as an off-kilter vaudeville of friendship and dependency.

And with David Bradley as the crow-like attendant, a sort of straggle-haired Wurzel Gummidge of the pub poetry scene, and Michael Gambon as the aghast, haunted literato with a head full of secrets, Rupert Goold’s production for the Gate Theatre in Dublin, settling for a season in St Martin’s Lane, seems more than ever like a reminiscent re-run of Waiting for Godot, Hirst and Spooner trapped in their roles, and memories, in a cold limbo which is forever icy and forever silent.

There is a theory that Godot is about alcoholism, the tramps’ nicknames...

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Latest User Review

joella - 12 January 2009:

the whole damn play was pretty shit if you ask me, for goodness sake i couldn't even keep awake. what an awful production. fair enough theatre is full of exaggeration and predictable storylines, but thats whats so great and exciting about it. i got no joy from watching this mess what so ever. ...

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