The Lover / The Collection Tickets

Welcome to the Pinter at the Pinter season. The seventeen one-act Pinter plays being showcased in 2018/19 span seven different productions. They also cover the great man's glittering career, and they're being performed by a bunch of world-class actors including Danny Dyer, Martin Freeman, Tamsin Greig, Jane Horrocks, Celia Imrie, Emma Naomi, Tracy Ann Oberman, David Suchet and Nicholas Woodeson. Many of them were great friends with the playwright, which makes this season even more special.

Direction for the productions is by Jamie Lloyd himself, joined by fellow directors Patrick Marber, Ed Stambollouian, Lyndsey Turner and Lia Williams. And it's on at the Harold Pinter Theatre from 6th September 2018 to 23rd February 2019. If you're in the market for an unforgettable celebration of the "most influential, provocative and poetic dramatist of his generation" (The Guardian), here you are.

The Lover, like so much of Pinter's work, manages to be both serious and funny at the same time, a blend that very few writers achieve. You can see The Lover as either an ironic comedy or a tense drama – it works perfectly both ways. You start off thinking the play includes three characters, but in fact there are only two, wife and husband. The 'lover' is in fact the husband taking on a role, while the wife also plays the whore. We can't say more, since we'll spoil the plot, but suffice to say it's a rollercoaster of a ride and like all of Pinter's work, exceptionally clever.

Also written in the early 1960s, The Collection stars four characters: James, Stella, Harry and Bill. It's another classic Pinter comedy, typically ambiguous and rich in threat and danger thanks to the extraordinary colloquial language used, the seeming triviality of dialogue that isn't actually trivial at all, and the uncomfortably long pauses. Brilliant!

Who is this show for?
Best for mature over 16s, Pinter's work is complex and intellectual, created with grown-ups in mind. If you fancy treating yourself to a production or seven with sheer class at their heart and a whole lot to give, get tickets as soon as they're on sale to avoid disappointment.