Harold Pinter: Histories and Legacies

13/11/2021

Mark has written a thread to commemorate the life of the last of the Hackney gang to leave us. Henry Woolf, who died yesterday:

“We are sorry to learn of the death of Henry Woolf. His life would need to be made up had it not truly happened in and through him. A thread in honour of the last of the Hackney gang to leave us. 🧵”

13/11/2021

We have written a thread to commemorate the life of the last of the Hackney gang to leave us; Henry Woolf, who died yesterday-

“We are sorry to learn of the death of Henry Woolf. His life would need to be made up had it not truly happened in and through him. A thread in honour of the last of the Hackney gang to leave us. 🧵”

09/07/2021

Today, our Pinter Legacies interview is with Gawn Grainger (), in conversation with Alexander Lass () last November.

Grainger has had a significant career on the stage across six decades. We believe he is the only actor to have done all the following: a.) acted alongside Pinter in a Pinter play b.) been directed by Pinter in a Pinter play (including a premiere) and c.) been directed by Pinter in a play by another author (twice) .

You can check out the details, and read his thoughts on all that experience, including on what Pinter was like as a director, in the interview linked to from his profile page in our database. He is the 1554th person in our database out of 5005: http://pinterlegacies.uk/person/1554

08/07/2021

Today's Pinter Legacies interview is with director David Leveaux (), in conversation with Harry Burton ().

“Today's Pinter Legacies interview is with director David Leveaux (), in conversation with Harry Burton ().”

07/07/2021

Today in 'official database launch' week, we offer this new interview with Edward Fox, conducted by the inimitable earlier this year.

Edward Fox worked with Pinter on three occasions: In the film of his screenplay for The Go-Between (Joseph Losey, 1971) , and twice in Simon Gray plays that Pinter directed: Quartermaine's Terms (1981) and The Old Masters (2004) .

The interview gives some insights into Pinter's working relationships with Losey and Gray, and offers some valuable reflections on Pinter as a director. You can read the interview from Fox's profile in our databse: http://pinterlegacies.uk/person/2373

06/07/2021

Today we promote this week's launch of the Pinter legacies database with another interview, of Ian Rickson by Harry Burton (https://pinterlegacies.uk/person/2063). Harry is a renown expert on Pinter’s life and career, who was directed by Pinter and has acted in and directed a number of his works. Rickson (https://pinterlegacies.uk/person/750) has signed a number of significant productions of Pinter’s work, including The Birthday Party in 2018 (https://pinterlegacies.uk/production/627). He directed Pinter in a production of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape in 2006 at the Royal Court Theatre (https://pinterlegacies.uk/production/209). This is a compelling interview where the two men talk over Pinter’s importance and impact. Enjoy: https://youtu.be/tvZfU_9lTwI

Ian Rickson, theatre director, talks to Harry Burton about directing Pinter's OLD TIMES, BETRAYAL, THE BIRTHDAY PARTY & THE HOTHOUSE. Filmed in November 2020...

05/07/2021

We are utterly delighted to announce the formal public launch of the Harold Pinter: Histories and Legacies database today. To mark the event we are releasing a fabuous new interview with actor and director Samuel West: https://wp.me/p8Rg7U-da

18/06/2020

(2020). Introduction: Harold Pinter’s Transmedial Histories. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. Ahead of Print.

09/06/2020

We are delighted to announce the ‘soft’ launch of the Harold Pinter Histories and Legacies database. The result, so far, of over two years’ work by some incredible scholars working on the AHRC-funded project, based in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures at the University of Leeds, and working with colleagues at the Universities of Birmingham and Reading.

Here it is: http://harold-pinter.ns-client.xyz

The launch is ’soft’ as the database needs to be re-located to a different server once something like normal life has resumed, we hope later this year. Anyway, so what is in this database?

The database contains the details of 473 stage productions of works of Harold Pinter, or plays that he directed or acted in. So far, 326 of these are visible for you to look through.

In addition to these, there are 28 films, 54 television broadcasts and 84 radio broadcasts contained in the database, nearly all of them visible.

All of these production, film, radio and TV entries are linked, among other things, to database entries for 4287 people: actors, directors, designers, producers, agents, editors, choreographers, sound technicians and so on.

Each person entry links to all the Pinter productions that person has been connected to.

The database contains 226 venues, of which 179 are visible to browse. Each venue entry links to all the Pinter productions that has taken place at that venue.

The entries that are not yet visible will be made so in the coming weeks - it’s slow work. In some cases the information in an entry will be minimal: many person entries understandably are limited to just their names. The more someone has been involved in Pinter's works, the more information will be attached to their entry.

But in some cases we might not yet have the information we’re looking for to populate the entries. Can you help? Have you got any old programmes of Pinter plays you went to see - can you send us a photo? Were you involved in a professional Pinter production in any way? Drop us a line.

Welcome to the database of the Pinter Histories and Legacies project. The ambition of this database has been to capture every instance of a professional production of a work by Harold Pinter in the UK since 1957 alongside a comprehensive catalogue of all broadcasts of his work for radio and telev...