H&H Series Thursday, January 25, 2018 29 ETCETERA REVIEW: The Birthday Party, Harold Pinter Theatre ★★★★✩ combination of demanding infant, wild eccentric and Harold Pinter’s notorious hollowed-out victim. When early flop baffled critics and he bangs a toy drum, he audiences alike. Now, we lapses into a manic glee that expect his subversion of the hints at brutality, but his mystery thriller that, as a bullish defence gradually jobbing actor, Pinter was crumbles. playing in rep. But Ian Tom Vaughan-Lawlor Rickson’s starry provides a furiously 60th-anniversary revival paranoid McCann, and proves the play still has the superbly handles the rat-a- power to unsettle. tat interrogation with Stephen Mangan. The latter In a rundown seaside convincingly laces boarding house, Stanley is Goldberg’s garrulous the sole guest of Petey and geniality with menace – Meg – until two sinister even his height becomes a men, Goldberg and McCann, weapon – but loses the come to claim him. Rickson’s intensity, and thus the detailed, naturalistic danger, towards the end. production is supported by Pearl Mackie enlivens the the Quay Brothers’ spot-on thinly written Lulu (purely Fifties design: lace curtains present as a sexual victim), and wallpaper puckering bringing a chipper charisma with damp. and then convincing sense There’s similar care with of trauma. characterisation. Zoë It’s astonishing how Wanamaker and Peter Wight defined Pinter’s voice is so make the marriage feel early on: the musicality of lived-in, Wanamaker hinting place names, muddling of that Meg’s distraction might memory, the absurdities, signal dementia, the latter contradictions and creeping touchingly patient with her dread beneath the mundane. circular questions. It’s clear Now, it strikes a national their lodger has become a mood of uncertainty and surrogate son – although plans built on a past that there’s also off-kilter might never have existed. flirtation between Meg and But it’s also terrifically Stanley. entertaining and oddly Toby Jones is the standout moving theatre. Toby Jones as Stanley in The Birthday Party Picture: JOHAN PERSSON as Stanley, an arresting Marianka Swain ‘Pop-up play’ exposes flaws in social care for the vulnerable elderly A play about the difficulties of and the play is about how difficult of life palliative care. coping with illness and dementia it is to access the right treatments “Sadly with no public funding in old age is performed at across different health services or pub to subsidise the venue, the Hampstead’s Marie Curie who don’t speak to each other, and New End wasn’t viable,” he says. Hospice. to find care homes who will take a “After it closed I found a niche couple.” writing about health and medical Fighting For Life is the true story Having negotiated a fractured issues,” of former Lancaster bomber pilot health and social care system to Daniels himself takes part in James Findlay who married his get their parents the help they the script reading at Marie Curie WAAF sweetheart Joan and had needed to stay together until the tonight (Thursday) for four children. But when Joan end, the Findlay’s children wrote hospice users and medical developed dementia, James a report, which Daniels based his professionals. became her carer, despite play on. It is followed by a Q&A with developing a debilitating illness. “I wanted to draw a picture of medical experts and the Findlay’s Playright Brian Daniels, who what it’s like for older vulnerable daughter Helen. ran Hampstead’s New End people and the frustrations of Daniels will then take the Theatre for 14 years says: their families finding them educational play to different “James and Joan were married appropriate care at home,” adds hospices to show to care-givers for 62 years and as you find in Daniels. working with older vulnerable James and Joan Findlay at their 60th Wedding Anniversary long term relationships when one Since closing the fringe theatre people. gets ill the other covers so as not in 2011, he has penned 11 plays “It’s had a great response. At And the man who spent years take these script-in-hand readings to worry the children. including Don’t Leave Me Now, Marie Curie we are using finding finance to stage plays anywhere. They don’t need a set “James was eventually which explores early onset professional actors but in other starring the likes of Steven or costumes, it’s like pop-up diagnosed with Motor Neurone dementia, and Homeward Bound performances we will use people Berkoff, Kate O’Mara and Jerry theatre.” Disease, his decline was rapid, based on the importance of end who work in the hospices.” Hall, adds: “The beauty is you can Bridget Galton .