Two of Harold Pinter’s most sensual plays reveal how easily desire both transforms and
corrupts us, through the poetics of everyday speech.
The Lover conveys the nature of male obsession, the breadth of female empowerment and
the issue of shared identity. A broken couple blur the lines between fidelity and fantasy,
begging the question: can two people alone sustain a marriage?
In A Slight Ache the couple, now older, move from resentment to reformation as they
confront the alluring and repellent nature of the unknown.
Set two decades apart, this double bill demonstrates how Pinter remains theatre’s most
accomplished and influential practitioner.
