Men behaving badly | 3 December 2015

Jamie Lloyd’s production of Pinter’s The Homecoming is a pile of terrific and silly ideas. Mostly terrific. The action takes place on a raised, thrusting stage surrounded by a steel canopy of scarlet rods like a boxing-ring. Ideal for a play about damaged men competing for a female trophy. Soutra Gilmour’s design is a model of sparse elegance. Centre stage, a worn green armchair like a waning tyrant’s throne. Stage right, a veneered sideboard that signals mass-produced chic. We’re in the 1960s so these pieces are from the previous decade. Well spotted, Ms Gilmour. Each scene is punctuated by racy music and strobe-y lights to remind us that this is a heightened, paranormal world. A perfect approach. If you run the play straight, as a seedy bit of Cockney soap, the non-sequiturs become too conspicuous. These are: Teddy and Ruth. What’s their motivation? Teddy has no reason to leave his three sons in America and bring his weird wife home to a family of insane misfits.