The Dumb Waiter

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Play closed 24 March 2007

Trafalgar Studios 1 Whitehall, London

Revival of Harold Pinter's play The Dumb Waiter in London starring Lee Evans and Jason Isaacs and directed by Harry Burton.

"As fine a production of Pinter's knuckle crunching tense drama as you're ever likely to see" The Daily Mail

In an airless basement room, two killers await confirmation of the identity of their next 'hit'. They're a team from way back. One is strong and silent, the other a talkative chatterer. They're they Laurel and Hardy of hitmen with silencers, and the tension mounts as the comedy unfolds.

"A superbly orchestrated revival - this is the real McCoy" The Guardian

But, today something has disturbed Gus and Ben's normally efficient routine. They wait for their handler to get in touch with their orders, but the chatterer can't erase the memory of their last job and the silent one is definitely on edge. Unseen forces bear down on Gus and Ben in their precarious and darkly funny world. Meanwhile, increasingly bizarre orders keep arriving via a serving hatch...

"A mesmerising, definitive performance by Lee Evans in which comedy and pathos are entwined" The London Evening Standard

Harold Pinter wrote The Dumb Waiter in 1957, although it was not staged in London until 1960 when it opened at the Hampstead Theatre in January of that year, before transferring to The Royal Court Theatre three months later. Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter is one his earliest works, written around the same time as The Birthday Party. Harold Pinter's numerous plays include The Caretaker, The Homecoming, Old Times, Betrayal and Moonlight. Pinter was awarded with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005. This production of Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter in London is being staged to mark the play's 50th anniversary year.

"It's Tarantino meets Tony Hancock in a comedy of menace played for truth" The Times

From 30 January to 23 February 2007 at London Haymarket Theatre, Bill Bailey is appearing in Pinter's People, a collection of the playwright's sketches, monologues and two-handers written between 1958 and 2002.

"Jeremy Isaacs is a marvellously strong and sombre presence" The Financial Times

Although Lee Evans started out as a 'physical' stand up comedian, he has over the last few years carved out a career in acting - both on films such as Mousehunt and Funny Bones aswell as on stage in Samuel Beckett's Endgame opposite Michael Gambon and, most recently, in the musical The Producers opposite Nathan Lane. Jason Isaacs' credits include the role of 'Lucius Malfoy' in the Harry Potter film series and on television in The West Wing, Brotherhood and, most recently, The State Within. Director Harry Burton has performed in many Pinter productions. For the Royal Court Theatre's recent 50th anniversary season he directed readings of Harold Pinter's The Room and The Dumb Waiter to great acclaim.

"A wonderfully lean, darkly comic and suspenseful script and cracking performances" The Daily Telegraph

The Dumb Waiter, written by Harold Pinter in 1957, actually had its World Premiere production in Germany at Frankfurt's Kleines Haus on 28 February 1959 under the title Der Stumme Diener in a production adapted by Willy H Thiem and directed by Anton Krilla. Following the 1960 London production of The Dumb Waiter the play has been presented a number of times on television including a 1961 production made by Granada Television starring Kenneth Warren and Roddy McMillan and a 1985 BBC production starring Colin Blakely and Kenneth Cranham. An American television version was shown on ABC in 1987 starring John Travolta and Tom Conti in a production directed by Robert Altman. In addition The Dumb Waiter has been presented around the world including as Kokkenelevatoren (Denmark), Ruokahissi (Finland), Samoobsluga (Poland) and O Monta-Cargas (Portugal).

Lee Evans - "brilliantly effective" The Times

"The popular draw of Harry Burton's production lies in the casting of Jason Isaacs (of Harry Potter and much besides) and stand-up Lee Evans as the two hitmen summoned to a toilet-like dive to carry out an unknown job... The staging is spot-on, with grubbiness seeping from every crevice... Matt McKenzie has created a terrific soundscape, with an unpredictable lavatory cistern growling away at one side of the stage and the dumb waiter of the title slamming down into the centre of the action, bearing its banal commands for sago and scampi. It's a perfect example of how being in period doesn't mean being dated." The Observer

"The Dumb Waiter may be short, but there is no mistaking its status as a groundbreaking modern classic" The Daily Telegraph

"This is an intriguing weird and certainly comical work but the room service routine is overextended and, whilst Harry Burton's staging looks claustrophobically bleak, Jeremy Isaacs needs more weighty menace. Lee Evans, as always, is irresistibly funny as a splay-footed dimwit, but he was more brilliant and tightly directed in Beckett's Endgame." The Independent on Sunday

"A beautifully nuanced production" The London Evening Standard

"This is a welcome revival of the Pinter classic on its 50th anniversary, with Jason Isaacs as Ben and Lee Evans as Gus: two nervy hit men in a claustral basement, awaiting their orders... Jeremy Isaacs, as the senior operative, Ben, with his neat little beard and steel glasses, looks like a particularly spruce and sadistic English teacher... Lee Evans is an excellent, shambolic, dim-witted Gus, his body language as funny as ever, standing gormlessly with his feet splayed at 90 degrees, struggling to understand... This is generally a deft and convincing production, alarmingly funny." The Sunday Times