one4review | On 09, Aug 2014

I’m not quite sure what to say about this show. It was either a masterpiece of theatre or really fairly average, though I was left bemused and unmoved. That is not to say the writing was not good (it’s a Pinter one, he’s supposed to be good, no?) or that the acting was lacking (on the contrary, I found them accomplished, certainly enough for the job at hand). I just wasn’t sure about the story, and this production didn’t give any hints on interpretation either.

A married couple’s life is disrupted by the presence of a match-seller in the lane at the end of their garden. He’s invited into the house, and what was a merely odd relationship between two slightly odd people becomes intangibly weird.

The story flirts with being surreal but never commits to it; rather it dances on the line, making it fuzzy so you don’t know which bits should be taken seriously, and which have slid into surreality. That is, until the end, when it does come down on a side – and an unexpected one as far as I was concerned.

Perhaps those with more knowledge and experience of theatre would do better with this show. I’m still deciding.

Reviewed by Laura

Pleasance Courtyard, 12:45