An array of useless old objects - what altogether appears to be rubble - is strewn across the stage: a bedroom, apparently indicative of someone at least absurd, if not insane. Soutra Gilmour's excellent design thus hints at what is to come. The sound of water dripping in the background, and crashing thunder, provide a sense of menace, and compound the eeriness of this desolate attic room.
      It is in the material chaos of old newspapers, a disused hob, a lawnmower and other clutter, that director Jamie Lloyd brings to life the turmoil of the human mind, and how it is expressed in the relationships between three lonely, confused, competitive men.
      In this telling production of Pinter's classic Lloyd has created a masterful dynamic between the characters, each in his own way a pariah - the tramp Davies, mentally disturbed Aston, and his younger brother Mick, the joker and the bully.
      David Bradley has moved seamlessly from his performance as the hateful janitor at Harry Potter's Hogwarts School to create with wonderful strength the depraved yet fastidious, angry but grovelling Davies - the ultimate outcast, kindly taken in and given a bed by Aston, himself not a man of much status. While Davies is asked by both brothers to become the caretaker of a rather unworldly place, it is Aston who actually ‘takes care' of things. He reveals a gentle and generous nature towards this shabby stranger; and in the course of events we see that there is in fact a certain order in the chaos of his living arrangements, for he meticulously takes care of where things are and where things go.
      Lloyd keeps the audience entranced between the comedy and the tragic reality of hope, despair and perseverance in following unrealisable ambition. And indeed what is crucial in most Pinter plays, the power struggles between his protagonists, is given full effect in this production. The scene in which Aston is trying to return Davies' bag to him, but is prevented from doing so by Mick, who drags them all into a game of will and strength, makes explicit the play's pervasive undertone of rivalry. In the end, though, it is Davies' attempt at playing the two brothers off against one another that brings about his own demise.
       Harman and O'Neill work effectively together to convey the complexity of the brothers' relationship. As Aston, Con O'Neill gives a sustained portrayal of someone who, in spite of his reticence and his tendency to speak in monologues and non-sequiturs, nevertheless knows his own mind; makes decisions and executes them. O'Neill - even in the most acute of silences - gives Aston a physical presence that well expresses his strength of character. But although Aston is revealed to be kind, patient, finicky and at times obsessive, the extent of his mental fragility is left ambiguous: perhaps he is not so fragile after all. In the end the decisiveness and clarity of mind he finally demonstrates comes as no surprise to the audience. The overall effect created by O'Neill is a clever one - of a man let down by his mother in particular and society in general, but, unlike his counterpart Davies, with the intelligence to overcome his resentment. The persona of Aston is cleverly juxtaposed to Nigel Harman's Mick, whose worst and slightly less worse characteristics are given full range in a performance of wit, passionate irony, and skill.
      Lloyd and his cast together draw one into a surreal place that uncannily reflects reality in some of its most tragic, comic, harsh yet honest forms.
Florence Mackenzie