Young British playwright Alistair McDowall won the 2018 edition of the “Harold Pinter Playwright Award”, the prize established by Harold Pinter’s wife to support a new generation of playwrights. Lady Antonia commented: “I believe this award is exactly what Harold would have wanted. Because he had experienced the devastating rejection of his early work, he
Read More
In Memory of Michael Anderson
British director Michael Anderson departed from us a few days ago, he was 98 years old. He was known to most for the film “Around the world in 80 days” , based on the famous novel by Jules Verne and which in 1956 won 5 Oscars. Born in 1920 Anderson started his career in the
Read More
Daniel Murphy aka Spud struck by Harold Pinter
Fans of the cult movie Trainspotting, the 1996 film directed by Danny Boyle – based on the novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh – will remember him in the role of Daniel Murphy, aka Spud, a shy and aloof lad who lives in the outskirts of Edinburgh, carrying out petty thefts with his group of
Read More
Harold Pinter the gangster
Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise were amongst the audience at London’s Royal Court on that summer evening of 1995 when the twenty-five year-old playwright Jez Butterwoth, debuted with his first work “Mojo”, directed by Ian Rickson, also director of many of Harold Pinter’s works. The play was a success with enthusiastic reviews, and the young
Read More
Harold Pinter: truth in art, the truth in life
Below are extracts from the speech Harold Pinter gave in 2005 on the occasion of the acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature. A warning to all of us, as people and as citizens. Because today more than ever we have the duty keep a critical minds and awareness alive, and never cease to search
Read More
The time Quentin Crisp inspired Pinter
“You can never be too sure of these univeristy productions, the quality varies considerably… but this young author has hit the target”. So wrote the Bristol Evening World in May 1957 on the day after the performance of “The Room,” Harold Pinter’s first theatre production. His dear friend, Henry Woolf, who had to present a
Read More
Josef K. and Mister Pinter
“Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.” Franz Kafka enthusiasts, but not only, will have recognized in these few words the opening of one of the most captivating novels of 20th century literature: “ The trial”. Written between 1914 and 1917 it was pubished
Read More
Pinter’s Awakenings
“Something is happening”. Yes, Deborah is awakening, in fact she is reawakening…. from a long sleep which has lasted thirty years. This is how “A kind of Alaska” begins. The work is a harrowing, and paradoxically sometimes funny, one-act play which Pinter wrote in 1982, by his own admission inspired by the book “Awakenings” written
Read More
This is Klimowski. And he is not afraid.
“A few words about Klimowski? Impossible. You can’t capture an imagination such as his in a sentence or two. He is a free man and you’ll never catch him. He looks at things head-on but at the same time inside out and upside down, round the corner and through a shattered keyhole. His eye is
Read More
Harold Pinter and David Mamet
The news was given just a few days ago. Playwright, screenwriter and dramatist David Mamet, 1984 winner of the Pulitzer prize will be bringing the Harvey Weinstein scandal to the theatre. Details are scarce: in an interview with “The Chicago Tribune”, Mamet only revealed that the project will go by the title “Bitter Wheat”. The
Read More