Harold Pinter Theatre Archives

10Feb

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

The Years – Harold Pinter Theatre

This is a very engrossing and imaginative dramatisation of Annie Emaux's partly autobiographical book. It charts the progress of a woman's life chronologically from 1941 to 2006. The woman is unnamed, as are all the men and women that she comes into contact with. The play uses five actresses of different ages to sequentially play the different periods of her life as she experiences childhood, adolescence, early sexual encounters, including a rather horrific abortion, and then moves through marriage, motherhood and divorce. The changing social mores, political events, technological changes and the evolving consumer society of those 80 years are the accompaniment to the changes in her own life. The Years was formerly presented at the Almeida Theatre to great critical acclaim. The stagi...

Your Lie In April – Harold Pinter Theatre

8Jul

By Kira DanielsNo Comments

London

Your Lie In April – Harold Pinter Theatre

A musical about musicians and for everyone, the play is based on the manga by Naoshi Arakawa and operates with a clear respect for the conventions of its source material and culture of origin. With a new English book by Rinne B. Groff, music by Frank Wildhorn, and lyrics by Carly Robin Green and Tracy Miller, the story is told concisely and movingly. Jason Howland’s music arrangement and orchestration is tremendous, and the work is as much a pleasure to listen to as any musical that so highly prizes musicianship. Directed and choreographed by Nick Winston, this production has a surreal gracefulness to it as transitions between scenes and musical numbers coalesce seamlessly and lend a magical quality to every encounter between character and audience. The venue is pushed to its full ph...

First look at new West End musical Your Lie In April

8Jun

By NewsdeskNo Comments

NEWS

First look at new West End musical Your Lie In April

Zheng Xi Yong and Mia Kobayashi star in the new West End musical Your Lie in April by Frank Wildhorn, set in the highly competitive world of classical music competitions. Based on the manga worldwide sensation, it will open at The Harold Pinter Theatre for 12 weeks from from June 28th. Photo: Matt Crockett Kōsei Arima (Zheng Xi Yong) is a brilliant young piano prodigy, dubbed the “Human Metronome” for his mechanical accuracy, who has won many prestigious classical music competitions. But his mother’s sudden death leaves him bereft and unable to play music. He strikes a friendship with the brilliant violinist Kaori Miyazono (Mia Kobayashi), who slowly encourages him to perform again. As Kaori continues to lift Kōsei’s spirits, he realises that he loves her. But is their relation...

The Hills of California – Harold Pinter Theatre

10Feb

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

The Hills of California – Harold Pinter Theatre

Jez Butterworth graces us with another play with depth and wonder, beautifully directed by Sam Mendes. The play currently resides at Harold Pinter Theatre in which the world is clear and grand as we walk into a house with a huge staircase, old wooden design and a little bar filled with very old alcohol. The staircase seems like it goes up and on forever, set in a hotel in the 80s which once in the past housed very many visitors but always 4 young girls and their mother. We switch from present day to past, now the mother is dying, the girls all await their eldest sister Joan to come say goodbye. In the past we watch the mother run the home, military style as the girls practice their singing and dancing with the biggest dreams of making it to the London Palladium. Their mother also, pushing ...

<strong>Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons – Harold Pinter Theatre</strong>

1Feb

By Aditi DalalNo Comments

London

Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons – Harold Pinter Theatre

Bernadette and Oliver meet at a cat's funeral. One of them is an aspiring musician and the other is a lawyer. One of them has parents who ‘live in a castle’ and the other doesn’t want to have anything to do with the circumstances they worked their way upwards from. As they begin to get to know each other, their past and present, they’re presented with a challenge - they have a strict limit on the amount of words available to speak each day. How many do they need at work and how many can they use at a party? How many are they left with to communicate with each other? What happens when one of them has more words left than the other and what happens when they run out completely? While they use made-up abbreviations and morse code to navigate the literal challenge, what does not having enough ...

14Oct

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Good – Harold Pinter Theatre

The Harold Pinter theatre brings us a revival from C.P Taylor exploring the idea of what makes a person ‘good’. Set in the early stages of World War 2, Halder (David Tennant) is picked up by the SS regarding his writing about Pro-Euthanasia after recently having his mother move in. His best friend Maurice (Elliot Levey) acts as a soundboard to his ramblings and stories as he endures the slow evil creeping upon his Jewish community. Meanwhile, Helen (Sharon Small) plays the part of wife at home although finding it more and more difficult to keep it all afloat. This piece explores brilliantly the idea that evil can suffocate us without acknowledging it, that a person may continue to convince themselves they’re good although actively contributing to the disaster. Tennant’s character is fla...

24Sep

By Gaurav SinghNo Comments

London

Blithe Spirit – Harold Pinter Theatre

Noel Coward’s comedy about death and spirits has been playing at theatres around the world since 1941. Enjoying immense success during a time of war when death hung over every household like a persistent mist, it tapped into our innate fascination with the supernatural to tell us more about our present circumstances. Not only was it been adapted into a musical and a feature film, but it also continues to remain a popular choice for adaptation by theatre companies around the world. I remember seeing a version of Blithe Spirit myself in the University of Delhi, wherein the story had been contextualized for an upper class contemporary Indian society. This universal relatability of the text and its characters is an ode to its timeless nature, still drawing packed audiences to date. In this pro...

West End transfer for Ralph Fiennes’s FOUR QUARTETS by T.S. Eliot

1Jul

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

NEWS

West End transfer for Ralph Fiennes’s FOUR QUARTETS by T.S. Eliot

Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Royal & Derngate, Northampton are delighted to announce that Ralph Fiennes’s world premiere stage adaptation of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets will transfer to London’s Harold Pinter Theatre for 36 performances only from 18th November to 18th December 2021. This critically acclaimed production re-opened Theatre Royal Bath in May 2021, and launched Royal & Derngate’s Made in Northampton season as well as helping reopen theatres across the country by touring to Oxford Playhouse from 14th – 26th June Cambridge Arts Theatre 28th June – 10th July, Southampton MAST 12th – 17th July, Malvern Theatre 19th – 24th July and York Theatre Royal 26th – 31st July 2021 Nobel Prize winner T.S. Eliot is one of the giants of modern literature. Compelling, moving a...