In the spirit of Pinter’s Betrayal, i’m going to write this rather rambling review in reverse chronological order, with my (potentially spoilery) personal observations of the actual play under the cut at the end. If you don’t want any of it spoiling, please don’t read past that point! Here goes.
Wednesday 13th March 2019
So a rather funny thing happened to me the day AFTER watching the play, as I was making my way back to the hotel ready to leave for my train. I’d been to the cinema (Captain Marvel for the second time if you’re at all interested - just as fun. I want a Flerken. I shall call her Goose. I shall kiss her, and love her, and squeeze her, and get her to eat people who piss me off - Hi Tumblr Support!)
Anyway, there I am, minding my own business, trundling along on my short, little legs towards the tube station, when THE human giraffe himself, the man mountain, the 6ft 2 adonis that is the one and only Mr Thomas William Hiddleston strides past me (presumably making his way to work).
I kid you not. What are the odds?
Out of all of the tube stations in London, their multiple entrances, and of any of the possible times of the day, he glided past me as graceful as a gazelle giraffe. Clad in the ubiquitous uniform, pea coat and Airpods, glorious curls only slightly dampened by the drizzle. I guess I could possibly have called out to him of course, and who knows? He might actually have heard me over whatever he was listening to, but I was also acutely aware that this was a man literally just going about his day to day business, on his way to work. I certainly didn’t want to alert anyone else to his presence or make him feel uncomfortable. To be fair, I also have a track record of spluttering nonsensical nonsense (trust me, it’s a thing) in front of this man, but that’s a whole other story.
So I basically just had a little moment where I grinned to myself at my unexpected - but lovely - little farewell surprise, and carried on with my own business. It’s only as I write this that I now realise it happened on the 13th (which just so happens to be my lucky number!) Anyhoo…
Earlier that same day I’d had a mooch around Leake Street Arches, which was really close to our hotel and where the Betrayal Teaser clip was filmed. If you get the chance, I recommend paying a visit. You could spend hours looking at all of the bold and brilliant graffiti. It’s also lit up in the evenings.
So, firstly. I want to give a HUGE shout out to the front of house staff and security at The Pinter Theatre. They were some of the friendliest i’ve ever encountered, clearly VERY busy but calm and collected. The merchandise was also very well priced (unlike some theatres). Programmes are £5 each, A3 posters are £3.
I did find the stalls seating quite cramped, but that’s not unusual, particularly in older London theatres. And the stage is HIGH, so second row might not be the best option if you’re short like me and want to see the bottom half of legs further back on the stage. But it’s a lovely theatre. And there are some distinct highlights of being so close to the stage which i’ll get into later… ;)
On leaving the theatre, myself and my lovely companion @filthyquill decided to attempt Stage Door. We had low expectations (especially given that we were seated in the stalls). We’d heard that Charlie and Zawe had stopped doing stage door a few nights earlier so weren’t really expecting much, to be honest.
As it turned out, we queued for maybe 5-10 minutes (it was bloody freezing so if you’re going over the next few days wrap up warm!) and then first Charlie, and then Zawe appeared and were escorted along the line taking selfies and signing autographs. They were both lovely, though Charlie understandably appeared to be more at ease with the crowds (he’s an absolute sweetheart with the loveliest smile and seemed genuinely humbled when we told him how much we’d enjoyed his performance). We were given the option of a selfie or an autograph. We queued for around another ten minutes, and were then told that Tom had now finished signing (we didn’t get close enough to see him, there were maybe 20-30 people ahead of us).
But honestly? We left that queue still on an absolute high. Here’s why…
(production spoilers below the cut)
