![](https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Andrew-Lancel-as-Harold-Pinter-and-Stephen-Tompkinson-as-Samuel-Beckett-in-Stumped_Pamela-Raith-Photography_7-jpg.webp)
Show: Stumped
Society: ORIGINAL THEATRE COMPANY, THE (professional)
Venue: Theatre Royal Bath , Cambridge Arts Theatre and Hampstead Theatre (flag in map is for final leg - Hampstead Theatre)
Credits: By Shomit Dutta. Directed by Guy Unsworth, with set and costume design by David Woodhead
Type: Sardines
Author: Alexander Wood
Performance Date: 26/06/2023
Stumped
Alexander Wood | 28 Jun 2023 01:38am
Andrew Lancel as Harold Pinter and Stephen Tompkinson as Samuel Beckett in Stumped. Photo: Pamela Raith Photography
A Fine Delivery With A Strong Appeal
When I first read about this play I found it hard to get my head around its dual subject of cricket and the playwrights Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. I’m no fan of cricket and know little about it. I’m interested in theatre and realise that Pinter and Beckett are two great modern playwrights and have seen some of their plays but I’m hardly an expert. It seems the enduring appeal of both of them is that they both need a bit of ‘working out’. Of Beckett’s seminal work which breaks away from the conventional plot format presenting us with a situation without a conclusion, Waiting for Godot it was famously said ‘Nothing happens…twice’. An actor I knew, playing Petey in The Birthday Party at one of England’s top theatres said ”When you’ve worked out what it means will you tell me?’
A less-known fact about Beckett and Pinter is that – along with a few other very famous playwrights – they both loved cricket, as spectators and players. Maybe not surprising as it’s a game of plot and counter-plot. And waiting is important. But I was astonished to find that Beckett had played for Dublin University Cricket Club against my local side, Northamptonshire not just once but twice making him probably the only professional playwright to play first-class cricket. And Pinter seems to have been crazy about cricket, playing it for much of his life (his experience with the scratch team Gaities, based around people from the world of theatre, clearly suggesting the background to Stumped)Â and possessing a full set of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, the cricketer’s bible. He once said ‘…cricket is the greatest thing that God created on earth…certainly greater than sex…’.
Essentially, the play uses the occasion of a cricket match on an English village green where we find the two writers. They are on the same side but they have an edgy relationship from the beginning to the end of the play. But at the same time theirs is a friendship which underlies all this.
We first meet Beckett keeping the scorebook – precise and anxious to get it right. Concerned that Pinter won’t be ready to bat (no pads but he’s got his box in). Pinter bothered about his duff ankle and seemingly not as worried as Beckett about how they’ll get a lift back to London, which a shadowy friend of the captain has promised. It’s all a bit tricky and uncertain, without an obvious answer.
The next act is after the match, with the surprisingly competitive Beckett (the effect of playing at a higher level than Pinter?) recounting the various disasters in Pinter’s innings, making his team mate cringe with embarrassment, especially when he reminds him about the injury to his (Beckett now with a blood-stained bandage) head. And still no certainty about their transport home as night more than draws in. A very funny scene.
The conclusion finds the writers on Adlestrop railway station at 5am of the next day. Possible solutions to their dilemma are considered and rejected, trains come and go, horse transport is offered. At one point the desperate Beckett, answering a phone call from the local manager who is looking for the (absent) stationmaster, says that he is the Queen’s surgeon and he has to be in London for an operation that afternoon. Asked for his name, the panicking Beckett turns to Pinter, ‘What’s my name?’. Theatre of the absurd indeed.
Stephen Tompkinson (Beckett) and Andrew Lancel (Pinter) are excellent as their respective characters. Tomlinson bears a wonderful resemblance to the erudite Classics man Beckett (all the funnier when he stoops to the prosaic – such as during his ‘business’ over the inadequate cup of tea Pinter offers him). And Lancel, as a difficult-to-read Pinter character with beautiful comic timing. Epic performances.
I don’t know enough about cricket or the two writers to get all the nuances of the play (and there are many) but even without that I think Stumped is a very good comic piece. That said, I think someone who enjoys the theatre but without that sort of knowledge might find it less satisfying.
Finally, the set, surrounded by a large frame is excellent. The theme of each act is represented in a small frame at the back of the stage – a cricket pavilion, a tree and a railway platform at Adlestrop.
- : admin
- : 26/06/2023