Old Times

AuthorHarold Pinter

Harold Pinter is perhaps the best known English playwright since the second world war; his plays are known around the world, and in 2005 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.

He was a child when war broke out and it made a strong and lasting impact on him; he found seperation from his parents difficult when he was evacuated from London to Cornwall, and as a young man he was fined received a substantial amount for refusing to do his national service.

At school he had read widely - both literature and poetry and particularly the works of Kafta and Hemingway - and acted in productions. He spent two years studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, but he never settled there and did not complete his course. He earned his living as an actor for some years before starting to write plays himself. His first play to be commercially sucessful was 'The Caretaker' in 1960 which, although critical reaction was mixed; Pinter's style was already distinctive, and not always popular with the critics.

His plays often feature a sense of impending danger with the characters frequently under threat from people or forces they (and the audience) cannot understand or control. This menace and implied violence is more paletable to audiences because it is interleaved with often-unexpected humour. Although many of his plays are set in a single room or space, they often contain strong visual imagery.

After becoming established as a writer, he went on to direct widely, serving under Peter Hall as associate director of the National Theatre. As well as the stage, Pinter has written extensively for British television and radio, and as a screenwriter of feature-films, and he has also directed for all of these media.

His 1965 play 'The Homecoming' won a Tony Award, the Whitbread Anglo-American Theater Award, and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. These were followed by many others across all areas of his work, including the Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, BAFTA awards in 1965 and in 1971, the Hamburg Shakespeare Prize, the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or in 1971, and the Commonwealth Award in 1981. He was awarded a CBE in 1966, but later turned down a knighthood. In 1996 he was given the Laurence Olivier Award for a lifetime's achievement in the theatre. In 2002 he was made a Companion of Honour for services to literature.

Although he no longer writes or directs, he has become increasingly active as a campaigner on Human Rights issues, an area in which he has been as outspoken and controvertial as his writing.

A Very Selected Bibliography

• The Room
• The Dumb Waiter
• The Birthday Party
• The Caretaker
• The Lover
• The Homecoming
• Old Times
• The French Lieutenant's Woman (screenplay)
• The Handmaid's Tale (screenplay)
• The Dwarfs (autobiographical novel)
• Ashes to Ashes

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