Sponsored by
Theatre: The Birthday Party at Stamford Arts Centre
THE 50th anniversary of Harold Pinter's enigmatic play The Birthday Party is honoured in the latest Stamford Shoestring production.
THE 50th anniversary of Harold Pinter's enigmatic play The Birthday Party is honoured in the latest Stamford Shoestring production.As Stamford Arts Centre resident theatre company, Stamford Shoestring's spring production celebrates the popular play.
Initially slated by bewildered critics, its run at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith closed after just one week. Then, on March 22, 1960, it played to 11 million TV viewers, and The Birthday Party became an overnight success.
Audiences were introduced to a juxtaposition of terror and hilarity enhanced by trademark Pinteresque pauses.
In a run-down seaside boarding house, the absent-minded landlady Meg produces endless brews of stewed tea and thinks fried bread is haute cuisine.
Stanley Webber is the only lodger. When Meg and her deck-chair attendant husband, Petey, discover it's Stanley's birthday, they decide to hold a party.
But then two sinister strangers, Goldberg and McCann, arrive and the party becomes scary and out of control.
Director Ken Walsh said: "Pinter is too often presented as a "difficult" playwright. Nothing could be further from the truth.
"In The Birthday Party, he offers us an intriguing and often hilarious mix of the mundane and the grotesque, with characters we recognise - but often rather wish we didn't."
Reflecting Shoestring's aim of making the widest possible range of theatre available in Stamford, Ken Walsh hopes that those who have not previously experienced Pinter will seize this opportunity to try his work for themselves.
The play runs at the arts centre from March 9 to March 13. Tickets cost 8 from 01780 763203.
For more information, visit www.stamfordshoestring.com.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Peterborough
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 12 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: East
Your view
Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.