1959 seems, to the younger generation, to be almost a time before history began. Back before the internet, past the Thatcher years, before England's World Cup triumph, even before The Beatles had made a name for themselves, it certainly sounds a long time ago. But it was in 1959 that The Caretaker was written, bringing success and fame to its writer, Harold Pinter, now known as one of the country's foremost writers and directors. The play that (to an extent) made him, though, has not been forgotten, and sees its latest production here, as the Bristol Old Vic opens its doors to a new season after the summer shutdown - which may also be one of my last Bristol reviews for a while, since I move to Manchester for university next week.

The Caretaker is based loosely on the lives of the inhabitants of a flat that Pinter once lived in with his first wife (in fact, says the programme, the origins of this play caused some unrest between the couple) - a builder, who owned the house, his brother, who did some decorating work and lived in one of the rooms, and a homeless old man whom the brother brought back to the flat one night, who stayed a few weeks. The decorating brother has been in a mental institution in earlier life, and is something of an introvert, whilst the builder himself never stands still and seems to show ocassional signs of paranoia. The tramp, Davies, finds himself caught between the two, and what has started out agreeably enough soon loses its shine...

If one were to describe the set, "lavish" would be almost exactly the correct word to use. It's not full of rich and colourful drapes and sumptuousness, but it certainly IS full of things - Aston, the decorator, keeps all his junk in his bedroom, and this is where the piece is played out. We have a spare bed hidden under a wooden ladder and sheets, pots of paint scattered around the foot of Aston's own bed, an old gramophone hidden behind piles of other stuff, a bucket bizzarely suspended from the ceiling to catch the drips from the holey roof, and, in pride of place centre stage, a colourful, fat, laughing Buddha statuette sitting atop a birdcage on top of an old gas oven (which is definitely not connected). Despite being so full up of things, there's more than enough room for the people to fit in as well, and with the lighting as superbly executed as ever in the Theatre Royal, they're given the perfect stage to play upon.

Which is just as well because it's quite an all-star cast we have here - of the three men, no fewer than two (Simon Kunz and Terence Rigby) boast a James Bond film on their CVs, whilst Paul Ritter as Mick the builder is no stranger to TV and film himself. Vitally, however, all three have great experience of theatrical stages as well, all of which leaves the audience with a bit of a spectacle - names we've heard of, faces we recognise, AND good actors. In the talk of the three men we see comedy, tragedy, and everything in between neatly encapsulated. There is the sense that perhaps none of them are quite all there, but the irony is that the one who seems most sane is Davies, who has to rely on one or both of the other two at some point if he is to keep the roof over his head. The various emotional swings and roundabouts are dealt with and conveyed admirably by the three of them, and the moments of comedy or farce are likewise not nicely contained.
Rigby as Davies the tramp (and nominally the caretaker of the title) is, for me, the one who shines brightest, but the other two aren't far behind and at places overtake him - Kunz in particular at the end of the second act (there being two intervals here) with his monologue on his past in the hospital, which seems to have nothing whatever to do with anything in the play, but explains a fair bit of what's to come in the final section.

The finale itself is a little confusing, until we go back to Pinter's comments in the programme (taken from Michael Billington's 1996 biography of the man) - the final image of Aston looking out the window, motionless, ignoring Davies' talking, which Pinter calls "A moment frozen in time that left a very strong impression" - precisely what it is on the stage. This is the point really of not just this but of so much of Pinter's work (indeed, of theatre itself) - you've almost got to sit back, let it all wash over you, enjoy the evening's entertainment, and go away with those moments, visual and otherwise, frozen in your head to remember the piece by. It may take a second read of the programme on returning home to get your head round the whole of it, but the end product of those moments Pinter witnessed through his neighbour's bedroom door, the product of the inspiration this gave him, and of director Lindsay Posner's interpretation of his script, is something quite sublime, that is absolutely not to be missed. As I go off to Manchester, I wish the Old Vic every success between now and whenever my next visit may be, and I implore to you the reader - go and see this play. Five out of five is a rating only to be reserved for something truly exceptional in both script and production, and in this instance, I have no hesitation in awarding it.

Script - 5
Set & Lighting - 5
Costume - 4
Cast - 5
Overall - 5

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