The Stage

No Man’s Land

Published Wednesday 8 October 2008 at 16:25 by John Thaxter

It must have been Pinter himself who, when asked what his play is about, replied “about two hours”. On the surface it seems simple enough - Hirst, a wealthy poet, has picked up Spooner, a failed versifier with delusions of grandeur, and invited him for drinks in his elegant house. But this is a limbo world between dementia and death, run with brutal efficiency by Hirst’s two strutting minders, members of a criminal underclass who recognise Spooner as a dangerous territorial invader.

Rupert Goold’s shimmering Dublin Gate production, a well-stocked bar of high class booze as its centrepiece, goes some way to unravel the enigma as David Bradley’s sponger takes his character down from Hampstead heights to Chalk Farm seediness, suggesting a literary take on Pinter’s first success with The Caretaker.

Things start slowly as Bradley’s monotone Spooner addresses the silent Hirst, David Walliams gives a cool edge to Foster’s cocksure chirpiness, while Nick Dunning plays Briggs as a taut, muscular bully rather than the crafty factotum of previous incarnations.

But Michael Gambon as Hirst delivers a superb masterclass on how to play drunk, a performance that in the course of a brilliant evening outstrips even his mentor Ralph Richardson who first created the role.

His second act entry, transformed from a recluse into a breezy aristocratic host, is a classic piece of Gambon comedy that supercharges the evening as he and Bradley enjoy a game of nostalgic name-dropping, hilariously suggesting these two crossed paths in some sunny pre-war world of sexual rivalry and clubbable bonhomie.

But the mood change is sudden as the morning daylight is banished and the play moves into its powerful, reflective closing scenes, Bradley delivering a superb aria of self-promotion as Hirst’s would-be chevalier and Gambon, drink in hand, speaking his satisfyingly final few words.

The closing curtain was also deeply touching as the author gestured to the cast from his seat in a box.