Harold Pinter Can Be Fun(ny): The Lover/The Collection @ Theatre Royal Bath

Terrrific pairing of Harold Pinter plays with an equally terrific cast — David Morrissey, Matthew Horne, Claudie Blakley and Elliot Barnes-Worrell. And it was funny!

In a box-like mirrored set, we encounter Claudie Blakley and David Morrissey as a couple playing at being other people and giving a whole new meaning to tea-time. It felt like a Noel Coward comedy of manners gone completely left-field. Pinter’s gift is for ordinary polite mundane conversations and introducing sexual attraction and jealousy, seething tension and things going wrong. His strong enduring women are also the stars.

Here the husband and wife casually discuss her lover and his afternoon visits to their home as her husband departs for work. Later her husband discusses his affair too and gets annoyed at the out of place blinds. After a while we meet the lover — who is not who we expect. This particular visit goes wrong and then the hurt wife has to deal with chatting polite nothings with her husband the next day. It’s very much about identity and who we are in relationships. Blakley and Morrissey’s characters definitely take spicing up a relationship to a completely different level and the outcome is unexpected. Plus bongos!

The actors had a ball here, finding the humour — but also the seriousness, tension and unpleasant fallout, before reconciliation. How they brought all the nuances in was a tour-de-force.

The Collection was about a lover — but whether a wife had — or had not — been unfaithful on an overnight work trip stay. Elliot Barnes-Worrell was wonderful here in dramatically polite pourings of tea and stylised readings of newspapers.

We encounter Morrissey in a smoking jacket and Barnes-Worrell in a fashionably tasteful flat together. The phone rings — it’s a wrong number. Then a man comes looking for Barnes-Worrall’s Bill. The room is cleverly divided by furnishings and use of lighting to create two homes — one with Blakley and Horne as husband and wife, one with Morrissey and Barnes-Worrall.

Horne goes to confront Barnes-Worrall about his one night stand with his wife. Only he finds Barnes-Worrall a reasonable chap — and they have cheese and wine evenings, and even a friendship. Though Horne’s character can’t help comparing and suppressing jealousy- unleashed when he suddenly takes possession of the cheese knife. He challenges Barnes-Worrall to a duel, and unleashes all the small knives at him, cutting his hand.

There’s an incredibly uncomfortable moment when Horne traps Barnes-Worrall in a sprawl on the ground and demands to know what exactly happened. Meanwhile Morrissey has been to visit Blakley and the live on-stage kitten! and found out that nothing happened. He intervenes and tries to calm everyone down, almost making Horne and Barnes-Worrall make up and be friends. Barnes-Worrall seethes with hidden horror and resentment as this scenario unfolds — powerfully remaining silent and still asked to shake Horne’s hand. There’s also a moment where Morrissey’s character berates Barnes-Worrall’s Bill in a horrible outpouring of classist rage and insult. The tension in the room mounts, culminating in Bill’s big reveal of what actually happened.

There are some lovely moments where Blakley has a live kitten on stage with her! Barnes-Worrall and Horne also have a splendid moment where they sit in winged armchairs in silence, looking up, looking down — and in the intimate theatre venue, eyeballing the audience. Morrissey also gets to make a phone call from behind the mirrored walls — and be oppressed by the ringing of church bells! It’s like Noel Coward goes wrong…as people profess good manners and polite behaviours, whilst plotting murderous rampage and festering with angry thoughts.

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