Stumped by Shomit Dutta (1989, Classics), is due to perform as a short tour before opening at the Hampstead Theatre on 16 June.

The play explores the friendship between Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter against a backdrop of cricket – “A game of cricket. Two of the greatest playwrights. And maybe even time for some tea… Before Samuel Beckett became the playwright universally known for Waiting for Godot, he was a cricketer. He is still the only Nobel prize-winner to feature in the pages of Wisden as a first-class player. His friend and fellow Nobel prize-winner, Harold Pinter, whose best known works include The Birthday Party and Betrayal,described cricket as ‘the greatest thing that God created on earth’.”

In both the tour – Theatre Royal Bath (23-27 May) and the Cambridge Arts Theatre (5-10 June) – and the full run at the Hampstead, Stephen Tompkinson and Andrew Lancel play Beckett and Pinter respectively. Guy Unsworth, whose credits include The System and Being Mr Wickham, and was also Associate Director on Much Ado About Nothing and Love’s Labour’s Lost (RSC and West End); Spamalot (West End & UK Tour), directs.

There will also a separate Irish production at Bewley’s Cafe Theatre, Dublin, with Barry McGovern and Michael Ford as Beckett and Pinter, from 24 July to 19 August.

Shomit Dutta is a writer, translator and teacher of Latin and Greek who also reviews books on cricket and the classics. He has been a member of Harold Pinter’s cricket team Gaieties CC for over twenty years and was captain during Pinter’s final years.

Published: 24 April 2023

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