It’s been a long time since I have been in the Mumford Theatre. The last time was back in the 1980s, when I was on-stage appearing as ‘Ollie the Onion’ in a play about healthy eating (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall take note!). This time however I was in the audience to witness the Horseshoe Theatre Company’s rendition of this classic Pinter play. Set entirely in a dilapidated one-room set, we see a lone person staring around the room in a mixture of disgust and dismay focussing eventually on a lone bucket suspended implausibly in mid-air; there is no dialogue. I have been led to believe that this is typical of Pinter. The man leaves, shortly afterwards two other people arrive in the flat and the story starts to unravel. Aston, a tall and ponderous fellow leads Davies, a man on the streets, into his room, having pulled the tramp out of a sticky situation. In this scene we learn a fair amount about Davies and his problems with shoes, or lack of them, and also the various difficulties in getting to Sidcup where his personal papers are stored. The short of the long is that Aston (played by Phil Burrows) offers Davies a place in the room for the time being, just "’till he gets himself sorted out". What unfolds over the next couple of hours is an unsettling but amusing exploration of relationship-haggling and manipulation. This is the first time I’ve seen Pinter, and whilst I admit it is not the sort of thing I would have enjoyed as recently as 5 years ago I did enjoy the well composed and performed dialogue. I would have to read the original script to see if it was a theatre company addition, but the strange bucket added a certain menace over the proceedings. Keith Parry (as Davies the tramp) gets to really steal the show with his stereotypical but not overly-hammy tramp behaviour, the shoe-testing routine borders on the slapstick. Meanwhile Allan Cutts as Aston’s brother Mick performs his manic role well. Special note certainly goes to Phil Burrows whose timing performance of the placid Aston seemed to me to be exceptionally well-disciplined. One final note must go towards praising the Mumford itself. I found it to be a very comfortable theatre, certainly much more involving and comfortable than some London theatres that I have had the displeasure of forking out much more money for. **** (out of 5)
