Agatha Christie's novel is dramatized in the magnificent setting of a 1920s Edwardian Baroque council chamber with exciting director Lucy Bailey in charge. . . . "I am constantly surprised…
The Dumb Waiter is a quintessential early Pinter play from 1960, one that feels almost Beckettian if not absurdist. It is set in a room, a situation with bags of sinister mystery with just two players. I always think of what the French writer Jean Anouilh said about Waiting for Godot on seeing Beckett's play for the first time in Paris in 1953. "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful."
We soon meet Buttons (Rufus Hound) in sparkling, improvising, stand up form who has us all laughing with brilliant and original innuendo and improvisation. So charming is Rufus Hound that he has schooled the whole audience to shout "Fuck the Tories!" on his every entrance.