THE LOVER and THE DUMB WAITER

By Diana Simmonds

May 17 2025

THE LOVER and THE DUMB WAITER, Ensemble Theatre, 7 May - 7 June 2025. Photography by Prudence Upton

England’s late 1950s were drab. Post WW2, food was still rationed: the poor subsisted on bread, jam, margarine, a bit of bacon and pots of tea, while the rich struggled along on champagne, meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, butter, and cheese. Meanwhile, the Cold War chilled any “we won” optimism, and London society oscillated wildly between the Kray Twins’ murderous East End gangsterism and the repulsive wealth of Lady Docker and her silver-plated Daimler.

On the West End, The Mousetrap was the latest Agatha Christie, and the “well-made play” was the thing. Then, reaching adulthood in those years, two playwrights were bursting for change. John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1956) and The Entertainer (1957), and Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party (1957) changed British theatre forever.

Pinter was extraordinarily prolific – close to a play a year into the 1990s and 25 screenplays – and among 30+ theatre works are these one-act plays: The Dumb Waiter (1957) and The Lover (1962). Director Mark Kilmurry opens a vivacious and thoughtful evening with the latter. A soundtrack by Daryl Wallis sets the tone, time and place as wittily as Simone Romaniuk’s exceptional set, where the wallpaper and furnishings are the perfect complement to blandly groovy maestros sounding like Billy Vaughn, James Last or Bert Kaempfert (latterday Andre Rieu sans mullet).

The Lover opens with Richard (Gareth Davies) politely asking wife Sarah (Nicole da Silva), whether she’ll be seeing her lover that afternoon. She says she will and wonders what time Richard will be home for dinner. This exchange is what might be expected of two acquaintances discussing the likelihood of rain and whether to carry an umbrella, only not quite as emotionally charged. It’s excruciatingly, hilariously, middle-class England. And when first witnessed by that very same audience, it would have rattled a few stiff upper lips.

What happens for the rest of the hour’s running time is by turns playful, seedy, menacing and wickedly funny as husband and wife swap roles and partners. At the time, the scandal of “the Profumo Affair” was soon to break over London society and the Tory government. Did the socially sought-after playwright know what went on at Lord Astor’s mansion, Cliveden? That defence minister John Profumo cavorted with “call girl” Christine Keeler in its swimming pool? That the respectable class was anything but? Quite likely. In their mock suburban gentility, the restrained menace and niceness emanating from both Davies and da Silva are breathtaking.

The set change during the interval is a tribute to Simone Romaniuk, lighting designer Matt Cox, and stage management team Lauren Tulloh and Yasmin Breeze. In place of a trendy 60s home is a mouldy basement. Once a restaurant kitchen, now the hideaway of gang hitmen Gus (Anthony Taufa – also, fleetingly, the milkman in The Lover) and Ben (a very different, very creepy Gareth Davies). They’re waiting for their next job, and in an age before smartphones and online games, Gus is bored, and Ben is deep in his newspaper.

Their only comfort is a pair of rudimentary, grey-blanketed beds and a kettle. They argue about the right way to describe boiling it until the gas goes off, and that’s that. The gadget of the title begins rumbling up and down between the basement and the floor above, delivering a series of food orders. Gus is unnerved, Ben is annoyed at him, but neither acknowledges their unlikely situation, which is oddly consoling. If you’re going to be involved with the Krays – or their ilk – it might as well be surreal.

Kilmurry’s three actors are at ease and splendid in their different roles. It’s a joy to see Anthony Taufa in a seriously serious role into which he’s sunk his teeth with conviction. Gareth Davies is the still, dark centre of a storm that swirls but never breaks, and Nicole da Silva is a dangerous combination of velvet and steel and sex. It’s a terrific production and an eye-opening night.