HAROLD PINTER   ...   a statement from Gene

I would like it to be known forthwith that, contrary to anything I might have said in the past, I have nothing but disdain for the writings of Harold Pinter.

Back in the Seventies Harold Pinter was lionized by the literati at Oxford University. I guess I felt peer pressure to claim I admired his work.

I now say his work is absolute and total bollocks - all of it. 

Back in 1978 the great Bernard Levin described his play Betrayal as 'unendurable'. I say Hear! Hear! And this applies to all his plays.

GENE

PS

Bernard Levin’s review of the 1977 revival of The Caretaker: 

The truth remains that Mr Pinter has nothing whatever to say, and that a drum makes a noise when you hit it because it is empty … [From The Caretaker] nothing emerges. There is no sense of a view, however oblique, of these characters, no disclosure of a general truth based on particular conclusions, no comment, wise or otherwise, on anything. We come out exactly the same people as we were when we entered; we have been entertained, we have admired the author’s ability, we have not been bored. But we have advanced our understanding and our humanity not a whit, and every experience we have had has been of an entirely superficial nature. 

‘The Hollow Art of Harold Pinter’, The Sunday Times, 30 October 1977