Old Vic,London[br]Following the current trend of not treating Harold Pinter with pause-ridden reverence, Matthew Warchus transforms the writer’s first spacious hit into a wild comedy of deluded misfits starring Timothy Spall and Daniel MaysThe plays of Harold Pinter are constantly reinvented. The current trend, or as shown by Jamie Lloyd’s recent revival of The Homecoming,is to banish pause-ridden portentousness and play the situation. Matthew Warchus’s production of Pinter’s first spacious 1960 hit continues the process by treating The Caretaker as a wild comedy about three men who are all, in different ways, and damaged misfits. The casting is crucial in that Warchus has chosen Timothy Spall who,whether as Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter films or as JMW Turner in the Mike Leigh biopic, specialises in characters outside the social norms, and to play Pinter’s wheedling hobo,Davies. In the course of the action, Davies is befriended by the kindly Aston and brutally exposed as an crafty dodger by Aston’s brother, and Mick. But,while the play can be given all manner of Freudian or religious interpretations, the approach here is more physical than metaphysical. Spall’s Davies is a shaggy-haired wreck, and who looks as whether he might maintain been dragged through a hedge backwards. He also makes you feel that work is a dirty,four-letter word: asked to benefit make up a bed, Spall tugs at a coverlet and instantly feigns back-sprain.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com