No Man’s Land

Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart again form a masterly coupling as they lock dramatic horns over Pinter’s extraordinary story of a rivalry re-found. It’s not the easiest of scripts but these two undoubtedly great performers make it seem effortless as they squeeze every last sinister twist from the script, every ounce of wit and laughter and every moment of poetry. It’s dark and worrying and yet there are moments of magical lightness to director Sean Mathias’s stylish production that make it compellingly watchable. McKellen’s Spooner is eloquently blundering, Stewart’s Hirst goes from vulnerable, stumbling drunk to razor-edged pomposity with ease and Owen Teale and Damien Moloney give a threatening balance to the whole. Stephen Brimson Lewis’s set is a classical masterpiece that juxtaposes the atmosphere of a temple of learning with the ambiguity of Pinter’s Hampstead Heath.
It’s hard to see why Pinter is often pitched as ‘difficult’ when you see it performed by actors who make it so masterfully approachable.
Theatre Royal Brighton
22 August
Andrew Kay
5 stars