Sonia Friedman Productions will present a new production of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party at the Harold Pinter Theatre, 60 years since the play’s debut.

Directed by Ian Rickson, performances will begin January 9, 2018, prior to an official opening January 18. The limited engagement will continue through April 14.

The cast will feature Olivier Award winners Toby Jones (The Girl, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Infamous), Stephen Mangan (The Norman Conquests, Jeeves and Wooster, Episodes), and Zoë Wanamaker CBE (Electra, Passion Play, My Family).

The Pinter play concerns Stanley Webber (Jones), who is the only lodger at Meg (Wanamaker) and Petey Boles’ seaside boarding house. “The unsettling arrival of enigmatic strangers Goldberg (Mangan) and McCann disrupts the humdrum lives of the inhabitants and their friend Lulu, and mundanity soon becomes menace when a seemingly innocent birthday party turns into a disturbing nightmare,” according to press notes.

This will be the seventh Pinter play that Friedman has produced, three of which have been directed by Rickson, who also directed Pinter in his last performance as an actor in Krapp’s Last Tape.

In a statement, Rickson said, “I knew Harold from when I ran the Royal Court and he was a great mentor to me. Doing The Birthday Party is particularly thrilling because as with the best first major plays - like first albums, and first novels - it has the intense DNA of the writer’s inner life; their yearnings, their obsessions, their longings. There’s something about The Birthday Party in particular that’s so raw and committed - it has this kind of anarchic, punk spirit and I’m just so excited about directing it.”

The production will be designed by the Quay Brothers, with lighting by Hugh Vanstone, sound design by Simon Baker, music by Stephen Warbeck, and casting by Amy Ball.

For ticket information, visit TheBirthdayParty.London.

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