Last Thursday European Arts Company presented a Harold Pinter double bill at the Marine Theatre.   The audience was privileged to be presented with ‘A Slight Ache’ and ‘The Lover’, two short plays which are rarely performed.   Despite their brevity, they contain classic Pinter themes; both are about marriages and the intrusion of an outsider.   In ‘A Slight Ache’, Flora and Edward become paranoid about a matchseller who stands outside their house.  They invite him in and try to question him, but he responds to nothing.   What does he represent that unsettles them so much?

In ‘The Lover’, Sarah and Richard accept each other’s infidelity, until one day when other emotions rise to the surface.   But maybe things are not as they appear anyway?

John O’Connor played the matchseller in ‘A Slight Ache’ – a silent, but nevertheless demanding role requiring subtle movements of eyes and body, and Richard in ‘The Lover’.   Richard Latham was Edward in the first play and the milkman in the second.   Miriam Cooper, returning to Lyme Regis after playing Mary Anning last year, played the wives – Flora in ‘A Slight Ache’ and Sarah in ‘The Lover’.    All three actors gave very accomplished performances, and it was a treat to experience Harold Pinter’s work in this special year of his 75th Birthday – remembering also that last year he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.   

The much acclaimed Hull Truck Theatre return to the Marine Theatre on April 11th with ‘I Want That Hair’ – a new play written by Jane Thornton.   Don’t miss it!

Monika Henshaw