THERE are far from happy returns for the character of Stanley in Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party.
Living a mundane, discontented life in a grubby seaside guesthouse, events take a turn for the worse for the unemployed musician when the sinister Goldberg (Henry Goodman) and McCann (Finbar Lynch) book in.
Stanley (Paul Ritter) has one of the most joyless birthday parties imaginable thrown in his honour, with an undercurrent of menace never far from the surface.
Oblivious to this is the desperate and predatory Meg (Eileen Atkins) whose relationship with the moody Stanley goes beyond that of the normal seaside landlady-guest one. The comedy that runs freely throughout the early parts of the play gradually recedes as a much darker mood infiltrates proceedings.
Revived to mark Pinter's 75th year, The Birthday Party features good performances all round. It runs until Saturday.
Review by PETER McMILLAN
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