I worked for the NT/Old Vic at the time. Was invited to the dress rehearsal, where I sat in the front row. If I tell any more, I'll give it away. Suffice it to say, it was the greatest moment of live theatre I've ever seen.

I’d love to see that! I love John Gielgud.

You lucky soul. I struggle nowadays to find anything worth seeing in theatreland. We have lost the ability to produce fine actors with clear diction and nuance that says a thousand words even with a gesture or glance. Britain has thrown it all away and the new lot try to emulate badly under the guise of a new way. Truth is they could never achieve this performance. Such a crashing shame. Mediocrity reigns.

Ian McKellen made a truly masterful go at it!

I saw McKellen in the role at the Sheffield Crucible, but Gielgud's performance is still definitive.

I notice more Ralph Richardson, who acts without any effort.

Even at his age? Surely a requisite for the part.

@@jasoncollins1702 You are absolutely right!

I mean to say, he had not lost any of his facility. That is to say, he had not slipped into fragility as he grew older as happens to some with less hearty constitutions. Rather, he was still so physically strong and fearless. My goodness that fall and crawl! And, he was clearly, kindness itself!

I completely agree. Gielgud seemed to get the lion's share of praise for this, whereas in their other "double act" from this period -- David Storey's 'Home', also on KZfaq -- it was the other way round, with Richardson receiving more of the accolades. But in truth, they were both equally fine in both plays and their acting together was like fine music.

@@pauldayclemens7761 I couldn't agree with you more, Paul!

I remember kitchen in TTSS series what a great cast that was as well.

Search YT for ‘Caught on a Train’ with Kitchen and Peggy Ashcroft. Remarkable.

That's definitely a new one for me,,, calling someone ( a weekend wanker ) that 1 I most definitely will not forget....................... That three word phrase could have many definitions.........

I agree 👍🏻

" Secret " !?!? It was common knowledge. !!

Agree. Pinter's like a grown-up angry young man, quintessentially English and understated. The cast completes it, all four with just enough restraint. Later productions never captured the same level of frustration and contempt.

I love that! So true!

"Brilliant Ghosts" would have been a solid title, ha,

It's something common under alcoolism...

Yes. See also performance by Patrick Magee in Pinter's "The Birthday Party", reminiscing while sodden with drink. Utterly riveting.

i dont think thats the case drink has shrouded ralph's grief and john is unplucking spots of truth from him in his alcholic haze of loathing and bitterness

Best avoid the McKellan / Stewart pantomime version then.? Cringeworthy. !

Yes, and the ‘servant’ wasn’t introduced as ‘Benson’ earlier but as ‘Briggs’.

Well, “…. Not him, not Briggs … he’s no-one’s f***ing friend.”

The gem I’m still hunting is the radio play version of The Homecoming in which Pinter himself played Max.

@ The very best with that

I saw Pinter himself in his play 'Old Times' co-starring Liv Ullman. Superb.

I don’t know about realest, but you should check out his, performance in Providence, by Alain Resnais. Only he could have done what he did.

This is the greatness of Gielgud here: He gets to send himself up better than anyone else could. He has the dingy, baggy suit and sandals, but that mellifluous voice, over the top... It is perfectly brilliant!

I'm a huge admirer of all three, and all are different and uniquely talented. Gielgud was magnificent in the film 'Providence' with Dirk Bogarde, Ellen Burstyn, David Warner and Elaine Stritch. Brilliant.

@@pauldayclemens7761 Also (on radio) in Alan Bennett’s Forty Years On, available here. He’s wonderful as the headmaster. “Once we resort to the lavatory for our humour, the writing is on the wall!”

Hmm......try watching Olivier in " Kartoum ". ? Vintage ham . Should have been sponsored by the City of Parma !

Sir John Gielgud. Surely you jest with your question.

Thanks for that Nick

I too saw it then and there, visiting London as a young American student. This production literally gobsmacked me! I had never seen anything so compelling and well executed. Bravo!

Good analysis Trev. I should add that Pinter, when asked about the meaning of his plays would invariably reply "they mean whatever you want them to mean". I have always found this one particularly strange and hard to understand, though I still very much appreciate it. Very relevant comments in your insight. Thanks.

Sweet Jesus, Daddy & the Spook, what has academia wrought in Trev Moffat's mind that he should so adore the taste of his own piss? His lecture-hall (and rather pat, at that) summary in the comments section very nearly ruined this play for me. He is clearly the worst thing to happen to Western theater since Goebels declared Fiddler On The Roof entertaining, but a little too yiddische for his taste. Please Lord, smite he down; smite he down to Chinatown, and let me enjoy this weird, motionless drama. Amen. And Amen. And Amen.

I suspect I might have been amongst the particularly repellant herd of lickspittling literati through which the path was negotiated, as pint in hand, Gielgud sallied forth to his table at Jack Straw's Castle. It wasn't long after this that I started scrolling through the comments and realised I am much more at home at Four Finger Discount or Eight Out Of Ten Cats Does Countdown and realising the sheer brilliance of Sean Lock's Nazi Island. Still, I was not leaving here without an explanation. Perhaps some kind soul could briefly summarise. And then... pay dirt! Aha... It's a Pinter play "OF COURSE!!!" Slaps head, the plot suddenly begins to unravel at this revelation. Then, your summary, your comments, right here. Yep, think I'll leave this video and this comments section right here, right now. After I've left this comment. This needs a level of brain cells that I last had around mmmm 1986. For all I know you may well indeed enjoy the taste of your own piss my good man, but anyone who reads the comments before watching surely has their head screwed on wrong. You get the plot ruined going about it that way. Pinter is for a clearer headed day, an unmuddled mind, nothing else to tax the grey matter because every synapse is going to go into overdrive as the performance meanders its complex web. My brain can't handle that today, I'll come back another time. Still, it'll be better than Star Wars, those battle scenes make no sense to me, and you still have to be told who won. At least at the end of this you will know much of what you were asking yourself at the start of the play: Who are you people and what tangled webs have you weaved with your lives to get to this point? That is all I have for you today, and of course, and as always, if you feel the need, by all means roast me!

No but there is a reliable private seller on the web. I got one.

You've obviously never heard of the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. He did nothing before the two jewish gentlemen copied the absurdist nothing that characterised his many excellent works.

Wasted my best years there...

Me too … hellhole, and I dented my Alfa Romeo. 🙀

I don't sadly but I'll keep my eyes peeled for it.

@@johnnycassettes1228 Thanks anyway!

​@@milnky it's on YT now. Channel called executive decision.

I found it last year but thank you for the info.@@manfromnocky

A cricketing term … adding to the other innuendos.

"A prick in the hands of Pinter..."

Revolutionary Thatcher?! What a joke.

there is a hungarian expression : HAKNI ( a less then mediocre performance of an artist with delusions of grandeur ' ...a 'jazz pianist' playing in weddings on weekends) ....how bizarre: i check out two random videos of Pinter , and there you are hacking with your Pinter-Thatcher affair , post modernist style ...being a troll in a comment section. A steady and flawless performance.

Are you talking about the Pinter as Hearst and Paul Eddington as Spooner Production at The Almeida? Douglas Hodge was brilliant in the Kitchen role ....

I carry a water pistol. 😤

As a twenty something I saw, Richardson on stage opposite Celia Johnson (I struggle to remember her last name after Betty Marsden's Round the Horne character Dame Celia Molestrangler) in William Douglas Home's The Kingfisher. I can assure you Richardson's voice was as clear as a bell, and I was up in the Gods.

I need to watch more of Richardson, but here he is acting like a sleepy alcoholic who mumbles...

@@Gwailo54 Ralphie, for all his virtues, was no Binkie Huckabuck!

@@douglasmilton2805Binkie Huckaback was Trevor Howard, who was a totally different actor. Sadly Howard's virtues were eclipsed as he aged.

I agree it is a shame that the BBC don't produce plays for TV anymore, though I don't understand your comment that the BBC would be reluctant to commission a piece based on the ethnicity of the writer or characters. BBC dramas over the last few years, from Peaky Blinders to The Bodyguard and Killing Eve are almost exclusively white from the writers to the characters.

@@deanspeedwell4748 Thank you so much for your reply.

@@deanspeedwell4748 Not my experience of recent BBC dramas.

OMFG. "The people who live in Bolsover street, their faces are [portrait of Dorian] Gray . . ."

@@mrminer071166 "their faces are GREY", not Gray.

Bald.

That’s how I like it, given that I am a cold, insular bastard (allegedly).

No way. They acted in false and superficial mode, while the text is much more convincing and spontaneous with Richardson and Gielgud.

On second thought you may be right

Yes . And their Waiting For Godot was cringeworthy. ! Presumably the Director was so in awe of these acting " Titans " that he didn't dare tell them to get a f*****g grip .!!

Stick to Bobby Davro, then?

@@LANCSKID stay in Blackpool dumas, you'll catch Bobby davro, nowt wrong wi bobby

Thank you John Osborne.

Yes...but none of the pseudo intellectuals on here dare to admit it .!! See : Hans Anderson ; The Emperor's New Clothes. ! It explains everything..!