A friend and I went to see The Dumb Waiter, the Harold Pinter play, at the Harold Pinter theatre this afternoon.
My friend’s a well-known singer in the UK. So whenever we go out he tends to get recognised and buttonholed by someone, either a fan or occasionally some professional contact.
Today, the manager of the late French singer Charles Aznavour came up to say hello.
‘It’s such a shame that Charles passed last year,’ my friend said. ‘I really thought he had more time left.’
‘He was so healthy’, said the former manager. ‘But, there we are.’
Then they started talking about a potential concert in Paris to commemorate his death.
It was an interesting interlude, not least because I am a huge Charles Aznavour fan. And also, nice to get close to greatness, even if several steps removed.
Then, onto the play. It was a double-bill, actually, part of the long series of Pinter one-act plays that have been showing in the West End since last October.
The first presentation of the matinee was A Slight Ache. It was . . . interesting. The thing about Pinter—all Pinter—is that his plays give an impression of theatrical cohesion even when you really have no idea what the fuck is happening.
In other words, they look like plays, and sound like plays, and there is dramatic action. But they nevertheless remain impenetrable. It’s difficult to get behind them, to work out motivation, or even—sometimes—any very clear idea of what is going on.
A Slight Ache was a radio play written by Pinter in 1958. It concerns a married couple and a match seller who keeps mysteriously appearing at the bottom of their garden. Except we never see the match seller—just the husband and wife talking into a void, vocalising their fears, their desires, their confusion.
Does the match seller actually exist? Who knows. At the final moment, the husband steps out onto the stage dressed in a balaclava and holding a tray of matches. Was he the match seller all along? Is this a comment on the ‘other’ that always inhabits even the closest marital relationships? Perhaps. But it doesn’t matter much. Pinter is all about language and rhythm, and less about pat explanations and easy answers.
Danny Dyer in The Dumb Waiter
After the interval was The Dumb Waiter. This was the big ticket piece, the one we’d all come to see, for it starred Danny Dyer and Martin Freeman, two big UK TV stars.
The Dumb Waiter takes place in a shabby basement where two hitmen lay on beds, preparing themselves to go out on a job. They banter between themselves for a while, until the ‘dumb waiter’ of the title (that elevator contraption you get in certain restaurants where meals are sent up from the kitchen to the dining room) shoots down, with a handwritten note asking for a meal.
The gangsters panic. What are they to do? There is no food in the basement, other than what they have brought with them. How are they to satisfy the demands of the unknown diners above? And when will the call come for them to do their next hit?
Much of the pleasure to be derived from the production is seeing Dyer and Freeman act together. I am a fan of both, and Dyer in particular is a fascinating character, a mixture of East End tough (perfect for his current role in Eastenders, the UK soap opera) and classical actor. In this show he is mesmerising—twitchy and paranoid, in turn aggressive and nervous.
Freeman played the straight man to Dyer’s more comic turn—he too was excellent.
The afternoon was a lot of fun. As I’ve said before, whenever I see a Pinter play I feel as though I’m attending some strange religious ceremony, so affecting is his work. It has an odd quality all of its own—a mixture of Britishness and familiarity mixed with the bizarre and the sinister.
Most of all, though, seeing drama of that quality and spending time with my friend (who has always been uncompromising artistically) simply reawakens my own ambition. For I want to create great work too.
I want to write something that will cut through of the bullshit and stand up on its own.
I want to use the talent I have for writing to create something profound.
And while inspiration is great, I am aware that every day I’m not working towards my goal is another day wasted that I won’t get back.
You can currently buy all 8 of my game / dating books in a bundle called The Renegade Dating Blueprint for just $35 (total value $250) here.
And you should also check out the brand-new course by kickboxing champion, multi-millionaire playboy with a harem of 7 girls Andrew Tate, called How To Get Girls.
To read more about modern dating, go here.
