How Pinter in Chichester is "a game of chess" on stage
Adam Gillen takes to the stage in a Pinter for the first time – with The Caretaker in Chichester’s Minerva Theatre, directed by CFT artistic director Justin Audibert, running from June 8-July 13.
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00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Now one
00:05 of the most exciting productions at Johto's Festival Theatre this summer has got to be
00:09 the revival of The Caretaker in the Minerva, directed by the Festival Theatre's Artistic
00:15 Director Justin Oudibaer. And playing Aston is Adam Gillen. Now we're saying that you
00:21 don't see Pinter that often. Why do you think this is relevant and right to do now? Why
00:26 is it going to strike a chord with people, do you think?
00:29 I think now more than ever we find people in society feeling isolated and struggling
00:39 financially, struggling to connect with people. Since, you know, through recent events we've
00:49 all been sort of put into our little boxes. Some people work from home and don't end up
00:54 meeting anybody for days, sometimes weeks. We're all familiar with loneliness and isolation
01:01 and that's explored in depth in this play.
01:04 Is there a kind of post-pandemic context to this then that's more relevant after the pandemic,
01:09 do you think?
01:10 So post-pandemic, yeah, absolutely. We're living quite, well, if you don't live in a
01:18 family unit or you don't have a partner or, you know, you're living a life of solo sort
01:27 of ventures and it's quite hard. You can feel isolated and lonely quite easily, I think.
01:35 And that's what this play is about, isolated characters who are trying with varying degrees
01:40 of success to make some kind of connection.
01:42 Yeah, I think that's what it's about. I think it's about the human being's innate desire
01:49 to reach out and touch someone and to try and see the good in somebody else, whether
01:56 it's there or not.
01:57 And do you think Pinter thinks we're terribly good at doing that?
02:01 No, I think he thinks we're terrible at that. I think the thing he highlights is the effort
02:12 and the desire.
02:13 All right, so at least they try then, if nothing else.
02:19 Yeah, they try. But it does feel very current. All his work always feels immediate and his
02:30 patterns of speech are really interesting. I love speaking the dialogue because you do
02:36 feel like you're in that world immediately.
02:39 Fantastic. We're really looking forward to seeing it and lovely to speak to you, Aitem.
02:44 Thank you very much for your time.
02:45 Pleasure's all.
02:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]