Pinter's Celebration & One for the road

Pump House Theatre Co.

Celebration Critics seldom credit Pinter with any sense of comedy, and as if to disprove that misapprehension Celebration is certainly his funniest and accessible script in many years. It is set in an amazingly familiar West End restaurant; at two separate tables sit a cross-section of recognisable Pinter types. At the smaller table are a couple taunting each other with past and present infidelities; at the larger, two Mafioso thugs and their blowsy, aging trophy-wives are celebrating a wedding anniversary.' But, as usual with Pinter, there is a good deal going on just under the tablecloths; neither group is really in any mood for celebration, and as the wine loosens their tongues some extremely unpleasant truths start to crawl out from the past.

One For The Road Harold Pinter wrote One for the Road after meeting two "extremely attractive and intelligent young Turkish women" at a party, who seemed casually indifferent to the use of torture in their country. "Instead of strangling them, I came back immediately, sat down and, it's true, out of rage started to write One for the Road". One for the Road, strikes me as a mesmerising, terrifying, brilliantly controlled piece, which distils the rage that inspired it into a flawless, richly resonant miniature masterpiece.

Tuesday 27 May to Saturday 31 May 2008 Price: Ł7 & Ł9 (Check Box Office for details)''

BOX OFFICE: 07786 844541