No Man's Land

**
With the death of the legendary playwright Harold Pinter on Christmas Eve, it felt appropriate that my first show of the new year would be the last night of this. However, the disappointment I felt was worsened by guilt at having to remember him through this mediocre production.

I confess that I have never seen any of Pinter's work onstage before (and this is also only the third play I've seen) but I have studied a couple of his plays and am familiar with his style and the fabulous subtext within his plays. The use of language was undoubtedly brilliant, but the lack of action and abundance of confusion made it occasionally boring, made worse by the trademark silences that rarely contributed to the atmosphere.

It is difficult to decipher what No Man's Land is about (and that's not just me, it's all you could hear the audience wondering during the interval). No Man's Land cleverly creates an atmosphere in an odd environment entirely unlike it's war namesake. Hirst (Michael Gambon) is an alchoholic, senile poet living with two shady characters, Foster (David Walliams) and Briggs (Nick Dunning) doing all manner of jobs for him. Hirst meets wordsmith Spooner (David Bradley), on Hampstead Heath and invites him home for a drink but is locked up there for the night.

No one but Spooner seems to have any definite character. Hirst swings from mood to mood, and memory to memory so often the audience feel as confused as he must. Foster and Briggs appear menacing in Act One during the night but vulnerable and polite the next morning. Gambon and Bradley have brilliant comic timing, and Walliam's moments of self pity are the most emotional of this static play but Dunning is unconvincing as mouthy Briggs. Despite Walliams bad reviews, I found his ominous presence as he stalked about the stage a highlight of the show.

As always, Adam Cork's music was perfect, however Giles Cadle's bland set was impersonal and Rupert Goold's direction not at it's best, although the light relief of the comedy couldn't have been better.

No Man's Land may create an intriguing world true to it's namesakes atmosphere, "which never moves, which never changes, which never grows older, but which remains forever icy and silent" yet it isn't right for the theatre, too puzzling and failing to stimulate the audience with it's boring, repetitive script about nothing in particular.

Veronica Grubb