Greenwich Theatre production The Dumb Waiter reviewed by James Haddrell

Within recent years at Greenwich Theatre we have revived the theatre’s reputation for producing work in-house, staging a string of plays by some of the most significant British playwrights of the past century.

Having tackled work both on stage and online by Michael Frayn, Steven Berkoff, Caryl Churchill and Mike Bartlett, I am now halfway through rehearsals for a pair of short plays by Harold Pinter.

I have been waiting for a long time for the right moment to stage The Dumb Waiter – one of Pinter’s most iconic plays – but last year when I read A Slight Ache, another of his short one-act plays, I knew they would make the perfect double-bill.

People will know The Dumb Waiter, unfolding in real time in a run-down basement where a pair of hitmen are waiting for their next assignment.

Over the course of an hour we get a glimpse of the duo’s partnership, their previous exploits and the shady organisation that they are somehow a part of. The play is the perfect bridge between a host of different influences – part Samuel Beckett, part Franz Kafka, part 1950s sitcom and part film noir, the play is by turns comic and sinister.

I’ve seen the play several times before and any production can only ever be as good as the actors playing the two roles.

The search for the right double-act took a long time, but we have found the perfect pairing in Tony Mooney and Jude Akuwudike.

Audiences will recognise Tony from the BAFTA-winning Clocking Off, Scott and Bailey and Last Tango in Halifax, while Jude’s credits include Netflix mega-hit The Crown, SKY’s Fortitude and performances for the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

A Slight Ache is a far lesser known play – a rarely staged piece about the gradual destruction of a marriage.

The play was originally written for Radio, but I am thrilled to be presenting the piece live on stage here in Greenwich.

With Tony and Jude joined by Kerrie Taylor (Where The Heart Is, The Bay), returning to Greenwich after appearing in Caryl Churchill’s Bad Nights & Odd Days, the play sees an apparently settled couple visited by the silent, enigmatic match-seller.

The presence of the unspeaking figure is enough to gradually reveal the couple’s insecurities, talking themselves in and out of a host of one-sided aborted conversations before a show-stopping twist that I’m convinced will leave audiences reeling.

Having managed our way through the pandemic and brought Greenwich Theatre’s producing history back to life, I can’t wait to see what audiences make of the latest in our series of home-grown productions, and hearing their theories on who or what the match-seller really is.

The Pinter double-bill plays at Greenwich Theatre from May 12 to June 3.

For tickets, call 020 8858 7755 or go to www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk

 

 

Cast, from left, Kerrie Taylor, Jude Akuwudike and Tony Mooney. Picture: Greenwich Theatre