No Man's Land is a work by Harold Pinter, first performed in 1975. We saw it last night, not up close and personal as it were but a live relay from a London theatre to screens all over. We went to the theatre at Tonbridge School, a wonderful and rather plush theatre, the province of the school drama department. Tonbridge is a high ranking public school and serves the needs of the wealthy, keeping their offspring in an opulence that state school students cannot even imagine. I am sure that they have huge expectations of the students, after all they pay enough for the privilege.
Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan were superb in this rather strange play; a mix of comedy, mystery and tragedy. There were moments of hilarity and also sadness, and the hole production was wonderful. They of course received a standing ovation, though not in our theatre, and although forty years old, the play seemed timeless.
No man's land would seem to be a zone, somewhere between life and death. Maybe it is a metaphor for retirement in a way, or perhaps he intended a more spiritual element to it. There seemed echoes of the Caretaker and similarities to Beckett's Waiting For Godot. I don't claim to have fully understood any of Pinter's plays and this was no exception. Maybe that is a good thing, after all we cannot hope to understand everything.
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