The Birthday Party (Harold Pinter Theatre) Verdict: Starry production but the play creaks

TOM

Vaughan-Lawlor simmers and clenches to fine effect as the thuggish McCann. Pearl Mackie does what she can with the flimsy part of Lulu.

Stephen Mangan plays Goldberg, senior of the ‘two gentlemen’ whose arrival brings such dread to Stanley.

Does Mr Mangan maybe overdo the leering and the comedy by a notch or two? I would prefer Goldberg to be flintier and maybe just a touch less prosperous. Mr Mangan struggles when Goldberg has his little moment of crisis.

The script’s cleverness can be hard to resist, as in the wordplay with ‘up’ and ‘down’ when Meg and Petey discuss Stanley’s waking time. ‘ Is he down yet?’ ‘ He can’t be up.’

Petey’s weakness — a deckchair attendant too flimsy to intervene — is captured by Mr Wight with the briefest, most artful flicker of guilt across his eyes.

Yet, as often with Pinter, I wondered if he underestimated the British contempt for authority. Rather than comply to bullies, is our national character not more likely to poke fun and flick a V-sign to swaggering blokes in shiny black cars? If anything, that tendency has increased since the Fifties.

Added to the drift in language and mannerisms and domestic details, that is why I came out of this show feeling I had seen a wellexecuted museum piece rather than a telling comment on 21st century life.