HOT: The Birthday Party, Lyric Hammersmith

Harold Pinter's seminal work about the stifling of individualism was panned when it first premiered at the Lyric 50 years ago, and when I watched this I could understand why - it has quite stilted dialogue, a strange plot and was probably unlike every other play which was being presented in the 1950s. Now, it is a classic, and while it is still strange and confusing (a quick scan of wikipedia was needed) it at least engendered an interesting discussion between Sarah-Jayne and I as we tried to unravel the plot and the motivations of the characters.