Naismith, Bill. Harold Pinter. Faber Critical Guides. London: Faber and Faber, 2000. ISBN 0-571-19781-7. Print. Although Stanley, just before the lights go out during the birthday party, begins to strangle Meg (78), she has no memory of that the next morning, quite possibly because she had drunk too much (71–74); oblivious to the fact that Goldberg and McCann have removed Stanley from the house – Petey keeps that information from her when she inquires, "Is he still in bed?" by answering "Yes, he's...still asleep"––she ends the play focusing on herself and romanticising her role in the party, "I was the belle of the ball...I know I was” (102). For some, Petey’s final reply only makes dramatic sense if the framework of the whole play is in Meg’s mind, that her invention of Stan was necessary in an empty marriage, and what the audience has seen was a tragic possibility - no doubt to be followed by another narrative when her Stan arrives. [ citation needed] Meg and Petey Boles [ edit ] While on tour with L. du Garde's A Horse! A Horse!, Pinter found himself in Eastbourne without a place to stay. He met a stranger in a pub who said "I can take you to some digs but I wouldn't recommend them exactly," and then led Pinter to the house where he stayed. Pinter told his official biographer Michael Billington, Brian Richardson, Performance review of The Caretaker, Studio Theatre (Washington D.C.), 12 September 1993, The Pinter Review: Annual Essays 1994, ed. Francis Gillen and Steven H. Gale (Tampa: U of Tampa P, 1994) 109-10: "Here, real objects and stylized representations alternate and the three vertical structures [of the set] though not symmetrical, balance each other in a rough though pleasing harmony." The Handmaid's Tale" (1987) — unpublished credited screenplay commissioned for the 1990 film The Handmaid's Tale

Galens, David M., ed. (2000). "Overview: The Caretaker." in Drama for Students, Vol. 7 . Detroit: Gale. Literature Resource Center . Retrieved 4 September 2012. Poems by 100 Poets: An Anthology Selected by Harold Pinter, Anthony Astbury, & Geoffrey Godbert (1987; rpt. 1992) Why did he send us matches if he knew there was no gas?… Why did he do that?… Who sends us those matches?… Who is it upstairs?… Who is it, though?… I ask you a question… I ask you before. Who moved in? I asked you. You said the people who had it before moved out. Well, who moved in?… Well, what’s he playing all these games for? That’s what I want to know. What’s he doing for?” (The Dumb Waiter, Pinter)Timothy West lends authority as the well-to-do Harry who understands and accepts his partner's foibles completely if grudgingly, describing him in rather unflattering terms as a 'slum slug' with a 'slum mind'. Even so, he's not prepared to accept the appearance of a potential rival and there's a humorous scene when a simmering West screws up the newspaper in a display of petulant irritation.

It's also worth considering how Lucy Kirkwood's east London identity is evident in her playwriting and also how her familiarity and skill with the sketch informs her work. Even without the rep system that was Pinter's inheritance, some fine actor-playwrights have been produced for the first time over the past year. Alexi Kaye Campbell's The Pride at the Royal Court had an intimate understanding of the kind of writing that makes actors fly. Anthony Weigh's play 2,000 Feet Away, which I directed at the Bush last year, concerned the forced eviction of child sex offenders and had the boldness to eschew a conventional "dramatic" trajectory and present, instead, eight scenes examining the impact of the law on a small community. Esslin, Martin. The Peopled Wound: The Work of Harold Pinter. London: Methuen, 1970. ISBN 0-416-10910-1 (10). ISBN 978-0-416-10910-8 (13). [Periodically revised, expanded, and updated editions published as Pinter the Playwright.] As quoted by Arnold P. Hinchliffe, Polish critic Grzegorz Sinko points out that in The Birthday Party "we see the destruction of the victim from the victim's own point of view:

Harold Pinter was one of the most influential, provocative and poetic dramatists of his generation, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005. Over the course of a 50 year career, his prolific prose spanned stage and screen, and spawned the adjective ‘Pinteresque’, suggesting a cryptically mysterious style imbued with hidden menace. The Culture Trip looks back at some of Pinter’s greatest plays.

Pinter, Harold. The Birthday Party. 15–102 in The Essential Pinter. New York: Grove P, 2006. ISBN 0-8021-4269-9 (10). ISBN 978-0-8021-4269-6 (13). Longman, Will (9 January 2018). "Why Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party was cancelled after eight performances, but went on to become a classic". London Theatre Guide . Retrieved 28 May 2019. The Birthday Party. 50th anniversary revival at the Lyric Hammersmith, London, 8–24 May 2008. (Menu linking to related events; some links updated subsequently.) The two plays on offer here - 'The Lover' and 'The Collection' - were both written in the early 1960s and first produced as a double bill in 1973. Though they're not as well-known as the likes of ' The Birthday Party' or 'The Caretaker', they'll undoubtedly be appreciated by Pinter fans as well as those wanting to dip a little deeper into the writer's work. A further plus is that they're being presented at the Comedy Theatre which Pinter has been associated with for the past 50 years or so.