The Birthday Party

Summary: BBC production of The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter, with the playwright in the role of Goldberg.
Theatre play: The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter [more information]
Play synopsis: This play concerns ‘Stanley Webber, an erstwhile piano player in his 30s, who lives in a rundown boarding house, run by Meg and Petey Boles, in an English seaside town [...]. Two sinister strangers, Goldberg and McCann, who arrive supposedly on his birthday and who appear to have come looking for him, turn Stanley’s apparently innocuous birthday party organized by Meg into a nightmare’ (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birthday_Party_%28play%29).
Production history: The play had its world première at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge on 28 April 1958; a provincial tour was followed by some ‘catastrophic’ reviews on its transfer to the Lyric, Hammersmith, making it ‘one of the most famous flops in theatrical history’ (Michael Billington, The Life and Work of Harold Pinter, pp. 84 and 74).
Date of transmission: Sunday 21 June 1987
Time: 9.20-11.10pm
Series: Theatre Night
Channel: BBC2
Production company: BBC

Director

Kenneth Ives

Producer

Lighting

Playwright

Designer

Costumes

Cast

Title: The Birthday Party (BBC, 1987)
Archive: BBC Information and Archives [more information]
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Website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/informationandarchives/
Access
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Title: Radio Times, 18 June 1987 (Magazine)
Linking notes: illustrated article, p. 16; listing with colour photograph, p. 31

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