Theatre News

Forgotten Pinter Sketch Discovered by British Library

| London's West End |

25 October 2011

An unknown theatre sketch entitled Umbrellas written by Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter has been unearthed at the British Library.

The sketch, which was recently discovered in the Lord Chamberlain’s collection by independent researcher Ian Greaves, was originally part of a revue entitled You, Me and the Gatepost, which was performed at Nottingham Playhouse on 27 June 1960.

Until 1968, all new plays had to be licensed by the Lord Chamberlain before performance, and the Chamberlain’s office retained a copy of every play.

Umbrellas is an early example of the many sketches that Pinter wrote throughout his career.

According to a press release from the British Library, “It takes the form of a dialogue between A and B, two sunbathing gentlemen who embark on a typically enigmatic discussion about umbrellas … In the script, Pinter designated a characteristic long pause after every line, giving the short sketch a running time of around ten minutes.”

The sketch would likely have remained undiscovered if Greaves hadn’t stumbled across it while researching the late playwright NF Simpson, who also contributed to You, Me and the Gatepost.

Jamie Andrews, Head of English and Drama at the British Library, said: “Discovering this previously unknown work not only underlines the richness of the British Library’s Lord Chamberlain’s theatre collection, but also offers an exciting and important opportunity for all lovers and scholars of Pinter to study a piece of writing that even the writer himself had not retained.”