{"title":"Books by Harold Pinter","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780571178445","title":"Harold Pinter Plays 1","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis volume contains Harold Pinter's first six plays, including \u003ci\u003eThe Birthday Party\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Birthday Party\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStanley Webber is visited in his boarding house by two strangers, Goldberg and McCann. An innocent-seeming birthday party for Stanley turns into a nightmare.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Mr Pinter's terrifying blend of pathos and hatred fuses unforgettably into the stuff of art.' \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Room\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Dumb Waiter\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn these two early one-act plays, Harold Pinter reveals himself as already in full control of his unique ability to make dramatic poetry of the banalities of everyday speech and the precision with which it defines character.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Harold Pinter is the most original writer to have emerged from the \"new wave\" of dramatists who gave fresh life to the British theatre in the fifties and early sixties.' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Hothouse\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Hothouse\u003c\/i\u003e was first produced in 1980, though Harold Pinter wrote the play in 1958, just before commencing work on \u003ci\u003eThe Caretaker\u003c\/i\u003e. In this compelling study of bureaucratic power, we can see the full emergence of a great and original dramatic talent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'\u003ci\u003eThe Hothouse\u003c\/i\u003e is at once sinister and hilarious, suggesting an unholy alliance of Kafka and Feydeau.' \u003ci\u003eSpectator\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201728184498,"sku":"9780571178445","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571178445.jpg?v=1786013427"},{"product_id":"9780571160785","title":"The Birthday Party","description":"\u003cp\u003eStanley Webber is visited in his boarding house by strangers, Goldberg and McCann.  An innocent-seeming birthday party for Stanley turns into a nightmare.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Birthday Party\u003c\/b\u003e was first performed in 1958 and is now a modern classic, produced and studied throughout the world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201785233586,"sku":"9780571160785","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571160785.jpg?v=1786013375"},{"product_id":"9780571160792","title":"The Caretaker","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eYou remind me of my uncle's brother. He was always on the move, that man. Never without his passport. Had an eye for the girls. Very much your build. Bit of an athlete. Long-jump specialist. He had a habit of demonstrating different run-ups in the drawing-room round about Christmas time. Had a penchant for nuts.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a dilapidated house in West London, three men – kind but damaged Aston, the shambling tramp he invites to stay, and Aston’s violently unpredictable brother Mick – fall into an unsettling and darkly funny tussle for power.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Caretaker\u003c\/i\u003e was first performed at the Arts Theatre, London, in April 1960.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘\u003cb\u003eThere’s such craft and concision to Pinter’s depiction of a triangular territorial battle in a run-down West London attic that it still sets the bar inspirationally high. \u003c\/b\u003eThe play is both of its period and timeless, conveying the wider human condition in its tightly particular evocation of hardship and dispossession, its dialogue so wryly attuned to the way ordinary speech can be loaded and weaponised that it even got its own classification: “the comedy of menace”.’ \u003ci\u003eDaily Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'\u003cb\u003eA modern classic, a spiritual shocker, tough, cruel and brutally funny\u003c\/b\u003e . . . Pinter transfixes the modern human condition in which people are both intruders and prisoners, aggressors and victims, pushers and fantasists. \u003cb\u003eThis is your life.\u003c\/b\u003e' \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43399055737010,"sku":"9780571160792","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571160792_c21af6ae-ee4e-405e-864d-19dc1c13b8fe.jpg?v=1786013377"},{"product_id":"9780571305483","title":"Betrayal","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Betrayal is a new departure and a bold one . . . Pinter has found a way of making memory active and dramatic, giving an audience the experience of the mind's accelerating momentum as it pieces together the past with a combination of curiosity and regret. He shows man betrayed not only by man, but by time - a recurring theme which has found its proper scenic correlative . . . Pinter captures the psyche's sly manoeuvres for self-respect with a sardonic forgiveness . . . a master craftsman honouring his talent by setting it new, difficult tasks' \u003ci\u003eNew Society\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'There is hardly a line into which desire, pain, alarm, sorrow, rage or some kind of blend of feelings has not been compressed, like volatile gas in a cylinder less stable than it looks . . . Pinter's narrative method takes \"what's next?\" out of the spectator's and replaces it with the rather deeper \"how?\" and \"why?\" Why did love pass? How did these people cope with the lies, the evasions, the sudden dangers, panic and the contradictory feelings behind their own deftly engineered masks? The play's subject is not sex, not even adultery, but the politics of betrayal and the damage it inflicts on all involved.' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFirst staged at the National Theatre in 1978, \u003ci\u003eBetrayal\u003c\/i\u003e was revived at the Almeida Theatre, London, in 1991. Twenty years after its first showing, it returned to the National in 1998.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43403435770034,"sku":"9780571305483","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571305483_e7415174-34e8-4c64-ad3e-4a53e6b697c8.jpg?v=1786014657"},{"product_id":"9780571177448","title":"Harold Pinter Plays 2","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe second volume of Harold Pinter's collected work includes \u003ci\u003eThe Caretaker\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Caretaker\u003cbr\u003eIt was with this play that Harold Pinter had his first major success. The obsessive caretaker, Davies, is a classic comic creation, and his uneasy relationship with the enigmatic Aston and Mick a landmark in twentieth-century drama.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The play remains a masterpiece.' \u003ci\u003eDaily Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Collection\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis one-act play for television explores the sexual manoeuvres between two couples in the clothing trade.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Taps the adrenal flow of contemporary guilt and anxiety.' \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Lover\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRichard and Sarah conduct themselves with apparent respectability in the mornings, whilst living out a sequence of erotic rituals in the afternoons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Beautifully written... the sexiest play I remember seeing on the television.' \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe volume also includes \u003ci\u003eNight School\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Dwarfs\u003c\/i\u003e, plus five revue sketches written during the same period.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291253649781,"sku":"9780571177448","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571177448_e5780f45-fb35-4b15-a2f3-6d3329744842.jpg?v=1786013417"},{"product_id":"9780571204977","title":"Celebration \u0026 The Room","description":"\u003cp\u003eA restaurant. Two curved banquettes. It's a celebration. Violent, wildly funny, Harold Pinter's new play displays a vivid zest for life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003cb\u003eThe Room\u003c\/b\u003e, Harold Pinter's first play, he reveals himself as already in full control of his unique ability to make dramatic poetry of the banalities of everyday speech and the precision with which it defines character.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHarold Pinter's latest play, \u003cb\u003eCelebration\u003c\/b\u003e, and his first play, \u003cb\u003eThe Room\u003c\/b\u003e directed by the author himself, premièred as a double-bill at London's Almeida Theatre in March 2000.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56292014424437,"sku":"9780571204977","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571204977_76e026f8-a7b2-4408-ac2f-bd329cfdb7e7.jpg?v=1786013514"},{"product_id":"9780571160938","title":"A Slight Ache","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis volume contains a selection of early works by Harold Pinter. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the title play, everything in Flora's garden is lovely, and would be for Edward too, if it were not for the slight ache in his eyes and the mysterious matchseller at the gate. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis edition also includes \u003ci\u003eA Night Out\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Dwarfs \u003c\/i\u003eand several revue sketches.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56292363075957,"sku":"9780571160938","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571160938_79c85d2f-1f07-45f1-b01a-e128269e14d7.jpg?v=1786013379"},{"product_id":"9780571193837","title":"Harold Pinter Plays 3","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis revised third volume of Harold Pinter's work includes \u003ci\u003eThe Homecoming\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eOld Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNo Man's Land\u003c\/i\u003e, four shorter plays, six revue sketches and a short story. 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You are fascinated, lured on, sucked into the vortex.' \u003ci\u003eSunday Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The most intense expression of compressed violence to be found anywhere in Pinter's plays.' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eOld Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'A rare quality of high tension is evident, revealing in \u003ci\u003eOld Times\u003c\/i\u003e a beautifully controlled and expressive formality that has seldom been achieved since the plays of Racine.' \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Harold Pinter's poetic, Proustian \u003ci\u003eOld Times\u003c\/i\u003e has the inscrutability of a mysterious picture, and the tension of a good thriller.' \u003ci\u003eIndependent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNo Man's Land\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The work of our best living playwright in its command of the language and its power to erect a coherent structure in a twilight zone of confusion and dismay.' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56292374708597,"sku":"9780571193837","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571193837_3ebdcd19-bf7f-47b6-8de4-42adbba6458e.jpg?v=1786013456"},{"product_id":"9780571203192","title":"Collected Screenplays 1","description":"\u003cp\u003eThere is no writer who excels at the art of adaptation for the screen so much as Harold Pinter. His consummate skill and unerring ear for dialogue, coupled with his sensitivity and understanding of the work of other authors, make the three volumes of his screenplays (of which this is the first) a collective masterclass in screenwriting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIncluded in this collection are the screenplays for \u003cb\u003eThe Servant\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eThe Pumpkin Eater\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eThe Quiller Memorandum\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eAccident\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003eThe Last Tycoon\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eLangrishe, Go Down\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56292431266165,"sku":"9780571203192","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571203192_57c42841-efec-4d86-b05e-6b03cefeaea9.jpg?v=1786013501"},{"product_id":"9780571288403","title":"Harold Pinter: Plays 4","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis revised third volume of Harold Pinter's work includes \u003ci\u003eThe Homecoming\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eOld Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNo Man's Land\u003c\/i\u003e, four shorter plays, six revue sketches and a short story. It also contains the speech given by Pinter in 1970 on being awarded the German Shakespeare Prize.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003ci\u003eThe Homecoming\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  'Of all Harold Pinter's major plays, \u003ci\u003eThe Homecoming\u003c\/i\u003e has the most powerful narrative line... You are fascinated, lured on, sucked into the vortex.' \u003ci\u003eSunday Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  'The most intense expression of compressed violence to be found anywhere in Pinter's plays.' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003ci\u003eOld Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  'A rare quality of high tension is evident, revealing in \u003ci\u003eOld Times\u003c\/i\u003e a beautifully controlled and expressive formality that has seldom been achieved since the plays of Racine.' \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  'Harold Pinter's poetic, Proustian \u003ci\u003eOld Times\u003c\/i\u003e has the inscrutability of a mysterious picture, and the tension of a good thriller.' \u003ci\u003eIndependent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003ci\u003eNo Man's Land\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  'The work of our best living playwright in its command of the language and its power to erect a coherent structure in a twilight zone of confusion and dismay.' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56292618305909,"sku":"9780571288403","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571288403_ed22da0b-dcec-4b70-b8e2-bb376c1fbd4f.jpg?v=1786014535"},{"product_id":"9780571225637","title":"Old Times","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOld Times\u003c\/b\u003e was first presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre, London, on 1 June 1971. It was revived at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in July 2004.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'\u003cb\u003eOld Times\u003c\/b\u003e is a joyous, wonderful play that people will talk about as long as we have a theatre.' \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'What am I writing about? Not the weasel under the cocktail cabinet . . . I can sum up none of my plays. I can describe none of them, except to say: that is what happened. This is what they said. That is what they did.' Harold Pinter\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311803183477,"sku":"9780571225637","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571225637_379c3939-c2cd-4116-96a0-5ca0a48ee079.jpg?v=1786013688"},{"product_id":"9780571349913","title":"The Short Plays of Harold Pinter","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Room, The Dumb Waiter, A Slight Ache, A Night Out, Night School, The Collection, The Dwarfs, The Lover, Tea Party, The Basement, Landscape, Silence, Monologue, Family Voices, A Kind of Alaska, Victoria Station, One for the Road, Mountain Language, The New World Order, Party Time, Moonlight, Ashes to Ashes, Celebration\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis volume contains the complete short plays of Harold Pinter from \u003ci\u003eThe Room\u003c\/i\u003e, first performed in 1960, to \u003ci\u003eCelebration\u003c\/i\u003e, which premiered in 2000. The book commemorates the tenth anniversary of the playwright’s death and coincides with Pinter at the Pinter, a celebratory season staging twenty of his one-act plays at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London, 2018.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith a foreword by Antonia Fraser. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘The foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the twentieth century.’ \u003cbr\u003eSwedish Academy citation on awarding Harold Pinter the Nobel Prize in Literature, 2005.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311809311093,"sku":"9780571349913","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571349913_05172fe2-e8bc-418e-a62f-295eee0efd47.jpg?v=1786014535"},{"product_id":"the-hothouse","title":"The Hothouse","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Hothouse\u003c\/i\u003e was first produced in 1980, though Harold Pinter wrote the play in 1958 just before commencing work on \u003ci\u003eThe Caretaker\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'\u003ci\u003eThe Hothouse\u003c\/i\u003e is one of Pinter's best plays: one that deals with the worm-eaten corruption of bureaucracy, the secrecy of government and the disjunction between language and experience.'\u003cbr\u003eMichael Billington.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'\u003ci\u003eThe Hothouse\u003c\/i\u003e is at once sinister and hilarious, suggesting an unholy alliance between Kafka and Fedyeau.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe National Theatre presented a major revival of \u003ci\u003eThe Hothouse\u003c\/i\u003e in July 2007. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the twentieth century.'\u003cbr\u003eSwedish Academy citation on awarding Harold Pinter the Nobel Prize for Literature, 2005\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57520086516085,"sku":"9780571238484","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780571238484.jpg?v=1787581577"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-harold-pinter.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}