Harold Pinter at ITV

 

Stanley Meadows, Harold Pinter and Arthur Lowe in ‘Armchair Theatre: A Night Out’ (ABC 1960)

 This article was first published on the (now defunct) 'Harold Pinter: Histories & Legacies' blog on 20 March 2019:

 Although primarily remembered as a theatrical writer, Harold Pinter’s early dramas reached a greater audience through Britain’s recently launched commercial television network, ITV. Between 1960 and 1966, ITV viewers enjoyed eight plays by Pinter, all broadcast in evening prime time, a full-length production of The Birthday Party (1960) followed by versions of The Dumb Waiter, The Room (both 1961) and The Caretaker (1966).

 In addition, ITV premiered four original Pinter plays for television. The 1960 Armchair Theatre version of A Night Out was the most watched programme of its week, broadcast live to an audience of 6,386,000 households (equivalent to 14 million individual viewers). As Pinter famously calculated, a play in a West End Theatre would have to run for a lifetime to get the same audience as watched for the one evening on television.

 Three further television plays were made by London’s Associated-Rediffusion company, produced and directed by Joan Kemp-Welch. Night School (1960), revolving around the possession of a room and misleading information, starred Irish actor Milo O’Shea (praised by Pinter as “a brilliant comedian”) as Walter. The Collection (1961) represented something of a development for Pinter, set in a more luxurious London setting than previous plays and featuring a (discretely-drawn) gay couple. The play is based around a tantalising mystery – the viewer never knows what occurred in the Leeds hotel room – it’s power enhanced by the television camera’s magnification and concentration. The actor who played Harry, Griffith Jones, described the play’s cumulative effect: “One becomes aware of the subtleties and implications only gradually. Each line and gesture adds something to the characters.” The Lover (1963) performed by Alan Badel and (Pinter’s wife) Vivien Merchant, placed marital sexual teasing and the possibility of infidelity in a suburban domestic setting, to claustrophobic effect.

 All three productions made effective use of the particular conditions of television drama of the 1960s; performed in the TV studio, recorded ‘as live’ onto videotape. This meant that performances on the studio floor were taped live through multiple cameras, with mixing between shots occurring, in a gallery in a separate part of the studio, at the moment of performance, rather than cut together in post-production, as in film.

 Two particular strengths of this form made it particularly well suited for Pinter’s writing. Studio drama was an interior form in which the room is paramount – as an environment that shapes and defines understanding of events that occur within it – while multi-camera direction relied upon finding a particular rhythm, which could relay long stretches of dialogue and interaction into sequences of different shots of various lengths, distances and groupings. This was especially fruitful for productions of Pinter’s plays, where rooms can have territorial importance as spaces of both sanctuary and violation and which famously developed a new syntax for dialogue, both demotic and elliptical, and dependent on withheld information. In turn, the rooms of Pinter’s drama were reflected back by television into the viewers’ own living rooms, creating a particularly close, intimate and sometimes uncomfortable experience. In the words of Pinter’s friend Ian Smith:

 Pinter is a dramatist who might have been invented for television. No screen, however small, could be more claustrophobic than the world of his characters. (…) Swift and economical as television demands, [his TV plays] taking stock types and scenarios, tweaking them enough to be fascinating. And they’re set in Pinter’s signature domain, the domestic interior (…) reflecting and refracting the very space where people watched them. (Archive on Four, BBC Radio 4, 31 January 2009)

 The mixed reaction to The Lover recorded in the letters page of the TV Times demonstrates this effect upon ITV viewers. Most correspondents, fearful of Pinter’s reputation for obscurity and symbolism, were pleased to have found the play easy to understand: “I must admit to having been somewhat great bewildered by previous Harold Pinter plays; modern, swift, moving, enthralling and no violence or kitchen sink stuff.” Mrs Barker of Derbyshire, however, envied those viewers who could not follow the play: “I did understand it and was appalled and repelled… I can only hope that the majority of viewers were not perceptive enough to understand what they were witnessing.” Another correspondent objected to having the salacious play broadcast into their domestic living space: “I am well aware that the language is in everyday use, but just as every home must have a rubbish bin, it is not necessary for it to be kept in the living room.”

 Although Pinter’s dialogue remains unaltered from on television, all three plays were slightly revised for subsequent stage productions. The Collection had two additional characters in its TV version, a boutique assistant and a garrulous taxi driver (“I like olives”) who takes James to Harry and Bill’s flat. As well as requiring an additional actor, this scene (a cutaway in a taxi cab interior that acts as a bridge between two longer scenes) is a type of drama that works better on the small screen, and would seem rather exposed on a large theatrical stage. In the television version of The Lover the dramatic arrival of Max at the door was immediately followed by a commercial break. The IBA set down a peculiar ruling that scenes in dramas that followed commercial breaks had to be set at least five minutes later than the point where the drama was left, so onscreen some interaction left to the viewer’s imagination has occurred between Sarah and Max before the tapping of the drum.

 The original television productions of Night School and The Collection no longer exist. Unusually, all three plays were revived for television in the 1970s, meaning that versions of the plays survive in the archives. A starry 1976 Granada production of The Collection featured Laurence Olivier, Alan Bates and Helen Mirren, while Yorkshire Television made new versions of The Lover (with Vivien Merchant) in 1977 and The Collection (with Ian Holm) in 1978. Although Night School is rarely produced onstage, The Collection and The Lover have occasionally been revived since the 1960s, often in a double bill, with Pinter himself playing Harry in The Collection at the Donmar Warehouse in 1998.

 

Pinter at the BBC: What the Censor Sees.

“Two men intimidate another, breaking his glasses and verbally mocking him.” (‘Theatre Night: The Birthday Party’ BBC, 1987)

 This article was first published on the (now defunct) 'Harold Pinter: Histories & Legacies' blog on 28 January 2019:

 The long-awaited BFI DVD collection, Pinter at the BBC, is released today. Over five discs, the anthology includes 10 versions of Pinter plays made by the BBC between 1965-88. As all ten are new to any home video format, the release increases the amount of Pinter UK television material publicly available by 500%. In addition to the plays, the collection also includes a wealth of supplementary material – four of the animated sketches made by Potterton Productions (Pinter People 1969) and documentaries and interviews from both the BBC and BFI archives. Full details for the set are as follows:

 “Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it, but the search for it is compulsive”
Harold Pinter on receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005

Harold Pinter (1930-2008) was one of the most important and influential British playwrights of the last century. While best known for his work for the stage, this collection celebrates Pinter’s significant contribution to television. His work for the screen shares many of the qualities of that for the stage, from a fascination with the private roots of power and an abiding preoccupation with memory, to a belief in the agency of women. Featuring 10 previously unavailable plays made for the BBC between 1965 and 1988, and a dazzling array of British acting talent including Michael Gambon, Julie Walters, Leo McKern, Vivien Merchant, John Le Mesurier and Miranda Richardson.

The Plays:

• Tea Party (Charles Jarrott, 1965)
• A Slight Ache (Christopher Morahan, 1967)
• A Night Out (Christopher Morahan, 1967)
• The Basement (Charles Jarrott, 1967)
• Monologue (Christopher Morahan, 1972)
• Old Times (Christopher Morahan, 1975)
• The Hothouse (Harold Pinter, 1982)
• Landscape (Kenneth Ives, 1983)
• The Birthday Party (Kenneth Ives, 1987)
• Mountain Language (Harold Pinter, 1988)

Extras:

• Writers in Conversation: Harold Pinter (1984, 47 mins): an ICA interview with Harold Pinter by Benedict Nightingale;
• Pinter People (1969, 16 mins): a series of four animated films written by Harold Pinter;
• Face to Face: Harold Pinter (1997, 39 mins): Sir Jeremy Isaacs interviews Harold Pinter, who discusses the images and events which have inspired some of his most powerful dramas;
• Harold Pinter Guardian Interview (1996, 73 mins, audio only): an extensive interview recorded at the National Film Theatre;
• Illustrated booklet with new writing by Michael Billington, John Wyver, Billy Smart, Amanda Wrigley, David Rolinson and Lez Cooke, and full credits.

UK | 1965-1988 | black and white, and colour | 628 mins | English language with optional hard-of-hearing subtitles
original aspect ratio 1.33:1 | 5 x DVD9 | PAL | Dolby Digital 2.0 mono audio (192kbps)

© BBC 1965-1988. Distributed under licence from the British Broadcasting Corporation.

 Alongside of the incisive reviews of the set that are starting to appear online is one detailed critique that is likely to remain obscure. The British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) are obliged to publish Insight reports into every film that is commercially released, detailing the reasoning behind each certification decision that they make, and demonstrating that they have considered the potential effect of contentious material in every film. Nine of the ten films have been awarded 12 certificates, with the bloody Mountain Language (Certificate 15) being the exception. As the DVD release is the first time that the productions have ever come under the watch of an official censor, these verdicts are worth circulating further:

TEA PARTY is a drama in which a millionaire experiences health and psychological issues after marrying for the second time.

Sex

There are moderate sex references.

There is also mild bad language (‘bloody’, ‘hell’), dated racial terms (‘negros’), and scenes in which adults smoke cigarettes.

A NIGHT OUT is a British drama, from 1960 [sic], in which a young man’s mild temperament is pushed to breaking point by the people around him.

Language

A woman describes a man as ‘retarded’, although discriminatory language is not condoned. There is also use of mild bad language (‘bloody’).

Sex

It is implied a woman is a prostitute, and she begins to undress in front of a man although no strong nudity is seen. She also complains that other women are “loose”.

A man is accused of inappropriately touching a woman at a party, although no detail is seen. There is infrequent very mild violence as men push and shove in an argument, and as a man’s temper flares he threatens to hit a woman with a clock.

 

A SLIGHT ACHE is a drama in which a couple reluctantly invite an elderly match seller into their home.

Violence

A woman recalls being raped by a poacher. She does not go into explicit detail about the event but describes it as ‘a desperate struggle’. There are no visual references to the rape.

There is mild bad language (‘bloody’, ‘slut’).

 

THE BASEMENT is a British drama, from 1967, in which two friends compete over ownership of a small flat and the love of a younger woman.

Sex

A man watches a woman undress, although no strong nudity is seen on screen. In other scenes men and women are seen kissing and running their hands over each other with implied nudity, but there is no clear sexual activity.

There is brief mild violence, in which two men face off with broken bottles, and a man throws a marble at the head of another man.

 

MONOLOGUE is a 1973 British drama featuring a performance of a Harold Pinter monologue.

Discrimination

A man refers to a black woman using outdated and racist terminology including ‘black as the ace of spades’.

There is mild bad language (‘pissed off’, ‘bloody’, ‘crap’) in addition to infrequent mild sex references.

 

OLD TIMES is a dramatisation of a Harold Pinter play in which the conversations and reminiscences between three friends challenge their understanding of the origin and depth of their relationships.

Sex

Moderate sex references include repeated references to a man looking up a woman’s skirt and a woman stroking her breasts while making sensual noises.

Language

There is moderate bad language (‘bitch’).

 

THE HOTHOUSE is a dramatisation of a Harold Pinter play in which corruption and bureaucratic ineptitude cloud an investigation into murder and sexual assault at a secretive government sanatorium.

Violence

Moderate violence includes a man repeatedly punching another man in the abdomen, as well as references to people being stabbed and others being hanged and strangled during a massacre.

Threat

Moderate threat includes three men pulling bladed weapons on one another and a man clutching his head in pain when a powerful sound is played to him through headphones.

Language

There is moderate bad language (‘bitch’, ‘nigger’).

Sex

Moderate sex references include a man referring to “Men dipping their wicks” and cautioning subordinates to “Never ride barebacked”.

 

LANDSCAPE is a 1983 drama based on the Harold Pinter play.

Language

There is strong language (‘f**k’) as well as uses of ‘shit’, ‘piss’, ‘bloody’, ‘arse’, ‘bullshit’ and ‘bugger’.

Sex

There are moderate sex references when a man speaks about ‘having’ and ‘banging’ his wife.

 

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY is a British drama, from 1987, in which two sinister men arrive at a boarding house looking for a former musician.

Sex

A woman refers to a man using her. In another scene a man is seen trying to put his hand up a woman’s skirt.

Threat

Two men intimidate another, breaking his glasses and verbally mocking him. He is later seen struggling to speak and appears to be paralysed. A man is also caught lying on top of a clothed, semi-conscious woman, implying he may be trying to assault her.

Language is mild (‘bloody’, ‘shite’, ‘bastards’).

 

MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE is a television version of a short play by Harold Pinter, set in an unnamed totalitarian state, in which a mother and a wife make a visit to their respective son and husband who are in prison for dissent.

Language

There is strong language (‘f**k’), as well as milder bad language including uses of ‘bloody’, ‘shit’, ‘arse’ and ‘Jesus Christ’.

There are moments of moderate threat, as well as moderate injury on the hand of a woman who has been bitten by a dog and on the face of a prisoner who has been beaten by a guard, although both incidents occur offscreen. There are also moderate sex references.

 It is entertaining to speculate if it was the same viewer who watched all ten plays. If so, the quality of their description of each play fluctuates a bit. The reading of Disson’s “health and psychological issues” in Tea Party is as comically baffled as the description of Old Times is – for a one line précis – admirably acute.

 It is curiously instructive to read what is technically disturbing about the plays, and to then contrast that with what one personally finds unsettling about them. The distinction between threat and violence is pertinent to Pinter’s work, in which there is much of the one and relatively little of the other. When watching the stage it is generally the prospect of violence that unsettles rather than the actual enactment of violence (which often – for me, anyway – provokes distracting thoughts of ‘how are they doing that without actually hurting each other?). The BBFC monitors are especially primed to look out for violence that could be emulated at home, hence the concern about open blades, broken bottles and men throwing marbles at each other’s heads. Similarly, Pinter’s treatment of sex is largely technically unproblematic, as “no detail/ strong nudity is seen”.

 While it seems highly unlikely that anyone would chose to entertain a primary school age child by encouraging them to watch Pinter at the BBC, the possibility of the effect of watching it upon a minor automatically has to be considered in order to justify the awarding of a certificate, and all of these ten plays are adjudged to include language, actions or inferences that are actively unsuitable for minors.