Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party is very, very funny, but it’s also totally doolally. The play had its London premiere at the Lyric Opera House (now the Lyric Hammersmith) in 1958. It was shut down after eight performances, thanks to a raft of disastrous reviews. It’s now considered a classic and has re-opened at the

Wednesday evening was one of firsts for me: I heard an audience groan when the interval lights came on instead of scurrying to the bar or loo; I sat through a circus without a clown in sight (thank you); and I went to the Peacock Theatre in Holborn, baby sister to Sadler’s Wells to see