When director Ellen Phelips (right) read No Man’s Land it made her laugh out loud — that’s why she’s putting it on at the Wallingford Corn Exchange next week. The Harold Pinter classic, from Sinodun Players, is a four-hander which tackles serious themes but always with comical insight. Ellen says: “Why did I do it? Because it’s funny, simple as that!”
No Man’s Land is typical Pinter — ambiguous, funny and with characters which have a life beyond his own vision of them. The heart of the play is the relationship between a drink-loving, successful but fading writer and another scribe who never quite made it.
“All human life is there in its triumphs and frailties,” says Sinodun’s leading Pinter fan, Chris Harris.
Pinter himself was keen enough on the play to ask for a passage to be read at his funeral by actor Michael Gambon. And the playwright’s love of cricket is reflected if not in the text then in the naming of the characters — Foster, Hurst, Spooner and Briggs — all big names from a century ago.
No Man’s Land features Joel Webster, John Jones, Chris Bertrand and Nick Gale. It runs from next Wednesday to next Saturday (March 21-24). Tickets from the Corn Exchange box office — 01491 825000, or online at www.cornexchange.org.uk
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