The end of the beginning | 17 January 2019

One masterpiece, one dud, and one interesting rediscovery. That’s Pinter Five. Victoria Station is a hilarious sketch which might have been turned into TV gold by the Pythons or the Two Ronnies. A radio controller needs a cabbie to collect a fare from Victoria Station, but the only driver available is a charming lunatic whose car is idling near a ‘dark park’. The cabbie already has a passenger on board, who may be a murder victim, and although he claims not to know Victoria Station he insists that he’s the best man for the job. This dotty piece of verbal slapstick feels a bit dated because cab firms no longer rely on radios. Yet the controller’s frustrations will strike a chord with anyone who has had to speak long-distance to an incompetent chatterbox who wants to help but has the IQ of a tree stump.

Family Voices is a radio play from 1981 about a mother trying to reconnect with her grown-up child.