Pinter's dark thriller returns triumphant to the Lyric

One reviewer dismissed it as "non-sequiturs, half-gibberish and lunatic ravings." Another said that it was "vintage Hitchcock thriller edited by a cross-eyed studio janitor with a lawn mower."

On Sunday, too late to save the play, The Sunday Times critic Harold Hobson, putting his reputation on the line, declared that Pinter was the most original, disturbing and arresting talent in theatrical London and that more would be heard of him and the play.

It is a salutary thought that, had it not been for Hobson's review, there might have been no more Pinter plays, for, earlier in the week, Pinter had decided to give up theatre and concentrate on novels.

The setting is a seedy seaside boarding house. Stanley (Justine Slinger), a dirty, slovenly concert party pianist, is in hiding. Why he is in hiding, who the two strangers are and why they have come to get him is never made clear.

When Alan Ayckbourn, who was playing Stanley in rep, had the temerity to ask Pinter what the play meant, he was told in no uncertain terms to "mind his own fucking business."

Fifty years on, audiences are used to being left in the dark by Pinter.

The two men (played by Nicholas Woodeson and Lloyd Hutchinson) could be male nurses taking Stanley back to the lunatic asylum, but they behave more like the professional killers in Pinter's The Room.

Their brutal verbal assault on Stanley, a surreal parody of Gestapo torture, also has religious connotations, both Irish-Catholic and Jewish Orthodox.
Pinter has said that the most important line he has ever written is: "Don't let them tell you what to do."

Stanley, who is driven insane by their methods, attempts to strangle his landlady (Sheila Hancock) and rape the next-door neighbour.

However, the line of demarcation between those who are to be locked up and those who do the locking up is very thin.

The Birthday Party is the best thriller in town. Nicholas Woodeson is the perfect actor for Pinter and his performance is absolutely spot on.

You will have to be quick if you want to see the play. Inexplicably, David Farr's production is running for only two weeks.

Plays until May 24. Box office: 0871-22-117-26.

ROBERT TANITCH