Pinter and Beckett at the Crease

“Do you subscribe to nominative determinism? “

Pinter

Andrew Lancel as Harold Pinter and Stephen Tomlinson as Samuel Beckett (Photo: Pamela Raith)

Stumped is the perfect material for Shomit Dutta who in the early 2000s was playing cricket for Harold Pinter’s team the Gaieties Cricket Club and studying for a D.Phil at Oxford on the plays of Aristophanes.  So for a fusion of two passions, cricket and playwriting.  

The repartee between the two dramatists, Pinter (Andrew Lancel) known for his sarcastic and vitriolic wit and Beckett (Stephen Tompkinson) for his absurdist plays, is singular and compulsive viewing.  We sense in the opening scene they don’t like each other very much but the next twenty four hours will give them a bond.  After all, Pinter was fed up being called the poor man’s Samuel Beckett or the English Samuel Beckett but he did say that Beckett was, “the greatest writer of our time.”  The two men had met in Paris in the 1950s.  

Dutta’s two man play starts at a cricket match in the mid 1960s, in the rural Cotswolds where Beckett is padded up waiting to bat and Pinter is complaining about a swollen ankle and very slow in putting on his pads. Beckett is filling out the scorebook and taking care of the flip over score board.

Andrew Lancel as Harold Pinter and Stephen Tompknson as Samuel Beckett (Photo: Pamela Raith)

Beckett alludes to Oedipus which means swollen foot in Greek and Pinter tells us when he played Creon.  Pinter explains that his foot saved four runs and Beckett parodies, “the crack of leather on bone” from the description of the sound of cricket being “the crack of leather on willow”.

Dutta’s play is rich in cricketing metaphor with enough theatrical references to please a non-cricket playing audience but how much better is Stumped when you can appreciate both the sport and the drama. 

There is no question that we are listening to two highly intelligent and accomplished men and the playwright has captured the individual style of each. Beckett is often taciturn, he reveals a play of his is called “Play” and a film script he has been writing is called “Film”.  These answers to Pinter annoy Pinter but make us laugh.

The arrangements for getting back to London from the Cotswolds are, at best, vague.  The team skipper has been spoken to about getting a lift but they have no name of the driver and Beckett suggests calling him Doggo.  So we have a situation, “Waiting for Doggo”.  

Andrew Lancel as Harold Pinter and Stephen Tomlinson as Samuel Beckett (Photo: Pamela Raith)

I shall not reveal anymore of the plot, except to say that both men will enter the batting and after Pinter’s confusing miscall to the other Batsman, of “Yes!” followed by “No!” followed by “Wait!”  resulting in the other chap being run out, there may be repercussions.  

Both actors have captured the playwrights well, Beckett almost philosophical and an erudite classicist and Pinter overtly confident but with insecurities starting to show.  

To add to the mystery of the drama, designer David Woodhead has placed the men in front of a picture frame showing first a small cricket pavilion, then a willow tree and finally the men find themselves inside the picture frame at a railway station where the timetable has been erased and no-one has any idea which platform is which and what direction the trains might go in. The backdrop is a painted blue with impressionistic, cloud like haze.  

This is exactly the kind of play Hampstead needs – you can even walk from Lords Cricket Ground. 

 I highly recommend Shomit Dutta’s play for its comic moments, the characterisation and the approachable absurdity of the situation.  Don’t miss this catch! 

Andrew Lancel as Harold Pinter and Stephen Tomlinson as Samuel Beckett (Photo: Pamela Raith)

Production Notes

Stumped

Written by Shomit Dutta

Directed by Guy Unsworth

Cast

Starring:

Stephen Tompkinson

Andrew Lancel

Creatives

Director: Guy Unsworth

Designer: David Woodhead

Lighting Designer: Howard Hudson

Sound Designer: Dominic Bilkey

Composer:  Mark Aspinall

Information

Running Time: One hour 15 minutes without an interval

Booking to 22nd July 2023

Theatre: 

Hampstead Theatre 

Eton Avenue

Swiss Cottage

London NW3 3EU

Phone: 020 7722 9301

Website: 

www.hampsteadtheatre.com

Tube: Swiss Cottage

Reviewed 

by Lizzie Loveridge at

Hampstead Theatre 

on 26th June 2023