CityLife

The Caretaker

The Caretaker
Oldham Coliseum
November 2, 2010

Since Pinter’s death two years ago, there have been several in-tribute productions of his most acclaimed plays, but they’ve virtually all been darn sarf because oop north Pinter – Stoppard is another – has never been big box office.

Two years on, as distance begins to be put between the man and his plays, can we say yet whether works proclaimed some of the greatest of the 20th century will actually become classics that will be regularly revived years hence?

The Caretaker is central to Pinter’s output. First seen in 1960, it is Pinter-esque in the extreme, in that there’s little plot and nothing much really happens.

A man, Aston, brings a much older man, Davies, back to a room owned by Aston’s brother, Mick. Davies, who seems to be homeless, is allowed to stay in the room and become the caretaker.

With their various, pathetically limited, aspirations, the three bumble through the days, while we know none of them will achieve their aims and they’ll be lucky to scrape through the lives they have.

London Classic Theatre’s tour is a revival of their production from 2004, though just two of the original cast, Nicholas Gasson and Richard Stemp, return – as Davies and Aston, with John Dorney now as Mick.

They are an excellent trio, with Gasson as the cunning leech very effectively latching onto the weaknesses of the pathetically brain-damaged Aston and the superficially quite plausible Mick.

There’s a highly atmospheric cluttered set of piled-up boxes and junk soaring upwards into an attic, by Geraldine Bunzl. Michael Cabot’s direction is precise,
but it’s also effectively unobtrusive.

It’s been analysed and dissected ad infinitum. There’s a very unsettling air of menace underlying everything and a black streak of humour, but basically you’re best advised to make of it what you will.

Pinter said: “It’s about two brothers and a caretaker,” and it is.

Whether this is enough to keep audiences coming back for more, on into the future, is another matter. On the evidence to date north of Watford, it’d seem doubtful.

Until November 6, 2010.

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