An extraordinary year for Harold Pinter has reached a climax with the cream of British acting talent paying tribute to him in a 75th birthday celebration in the West End.
Two months after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, leading actors including Sir Michael Gambon, Jeremy Irons, Joanna Lumley and Sinead Cusack are presenting one of his last plays, Celebration, for three nights at the Albery Theatre in St Martin's Lane.
The cast for the tribute, which had its first night last night, also includes Janie Dee, Stephen Rea, Kenneth Cranham, Charles Dance and Penelope Wilton.
It is an almost unprecedented tribute to the man who, despite being very politically controversial, remains Britain's most highly regarded playwright.
However Pinter himself is unlikely to witness the outpouring of affection and respect: he is in hospital. He was admitted this week suffering from a mouth disease that could eventually rob him of his speech.
The playwright, who has been treated for cancer in recent years, has already pulled out of a trip to Stockholm next week to receive his Nobel Prize because of his health.
His publisher, Stephen Page, will accept the award on his behalf and a lecture he was due to deliver at the Swedish Academy, a tradition for literature laureates, will be prerecorded instead.
The Albery cast, who are all Pinter veterans, were brought together by The Gate Theatre, Dublin, for a staged reading of Celebration, a comedy set in a restaurant which was first performed in 2000.
The Gate Theatre has previously presented two festivals of Pinter's work, in 1994 and 1997. It curated a third at the Lincoln Centre, New York in 2001.
