Celebration

A banker and his wife (Colin Firth and Janie Dee) talk about his past, where secretaries have twisted him around their little fingers, according to him. "You don't know what these girls are like," he tells her. "Oh, I do," she counters. "I've been behind a few filing cabinets in my time. Men simply couldn't keep their hands off me. Their demands were outrageous."

At the other table, two foul-mouthed, oafish brothers and their wives, who are sisters, are celebrating a wedding anniversary. The brothers say they are "strategy consultants. It means we don't carry guns." But Lambert (Michael Gambon) is anything but peaceful and his language is crude and aggressive. His wife Julie (Penelope Wilton) is not impressed with the food. "It's the most expensive fucking restaurant in town and she's not impressed," roars Gambon.

The staff's interjections break up the verbal torment that the diners are subjecting each other to, and the waiter makes hilarious, outlandish claims about his grandfather while the maitresse d'hotel (Sophie Okonedo) tells the diners pointedly that "We get people from all walks of life in here," before comparing food to sex, to the brothers' astonishment and delight. "You don't have to speak English to enjoy sex," she says. "I've known one or two Belgian people who love sex, and they don't speak a word of English."

The restaurant manager (James Fox) describes how a country pub he used to with his father inspired him to provide free gherkins for all his diners.

The play ends with the waiter talking about his grandfather again. This time it seems to be a real childhood memory and the lines are full of pathos, but now he addresses an empty restaurant as all the diners have left...

Feature for More4 by Simon Smythe

'Celebration' is followed by Working with Pinter at 9:45pm, Mon 26 Feb, Sat 3 March 2007.

Read Pinter's Nobel Prize acceptance speech