Pinter Plays: Old Times / No Man's Land / Betrayal / Monologue / Family Voices

by Harold Pinter

This revised third volume of Harold Pinter's work includes The Homecoming, Old Times, No Man's Land, four shorter plays, six revue sketches and a short story. It also contains the speech given by Pinter in 1970 on being awarded the German Shakespeare Prize.





The Homecoming


'Of all Harold Pinter's major plays, The Homecoming has the most powerful narrative line... You are fascinated, lured on, sucked into the vortex.' Sunday Telegraph





'The most intense expression of compressed violence to be found anywhere in Pinter's plays.' The Times





Old Times


'A rare quality of high tension is evident, revealing in Old Times a beautifully controlled and expressive formality that has seldom been achieved since the plays of Racine.' Financial Times





'Harold Pinter's poetic, Proustian Old Times has the inscrutability of a mysterious picture, and the tension of a good thriller.' Independent





No Man's Land


'The work of our best living playwright in its command of the language and its power to erect a coherent structure in a twilight zone of confusion and dismay.' The Times

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Drama

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Harold Pinter was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works.

Reviews

[Harry McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read all of these out of order (because I was seeing some of them and wanted to see them first) but holy crap, no one told me Pinter was this great. I think some of these plays - particularly One For the Road, Ashes to Ashes and Mountain Language - might be some of my favourite plays. There's that trademark economy of language that I so admire and a deep-set sense of terror. Pinter's career seems to have built towards his 'best' stuff, even if his more famous stuff was written earlier and made a bigger impact.

[Santi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Might not be the most well-known plays by Pinter, but they are all of them devastating, many overtly political and horrifying; Pinteresque at his best.

With this. I have now read all Pinter that there is and ever will be. 'Apart from that' is a very fitting closing for him and his oeuvre.
https://youtu.be/C1nRPWWe8QA?si=Wm_Bv...

[Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

His plays are brimming with life and crisis
I respect that

[j_ay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Betrayal ****o
Monologue ***oo
Family Voices ***oo
A Kind of Alaska ***oo
Victoria Station ****o
Precisely ***oo
One for the Road ***oo
Mountain Language ***oo
The New World Order ***oo
Party Time ***oo
Moonlight ***oo
Ashes to Ashes ***oo
Celebration ****o

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favs are Betrayal and Mountain Language, the latter of which is particularly haunting. Pinter can mimic the cruelness of politico- and ideological speak perfectly, and the result of seriously haunting.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

one from a long time ago. I love his short sinister plays and was sorry to hear of his recent death.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first real exposure to Pinter. Loved Betrayal, less enthusiastic about No Man's Land.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

i read "precisely" and "ashes to ashes" for lessons. really brilliant, want to read more by him

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of plays, some particularly dark - there is nothing really like Pinter's dialogues - Must get some more of these collections!! - 9/10.