Harold Pinter
Radio script
English
Written as a series of monologues featuring an exchange of letters between a mother and her absent son. The mother's desperate attempts to bring her son back to her from his lodgings in a sleazy London boarding house become more ill-attuned, serving only to accentuate the irreparable rift between them. It was first performed on BBC Radio 3 in 1981, shortly before receiving a Platform Performance in the NT's Lyttleton Theatre.
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Date of Composition: 1980 - 15 September 1980 Confidence Level
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In Family Voices, Pinter has the chief character begin by declaring he has got drunk in the Fishmongers Arms. There is no geographic location for this pub, which is likley to be fictional, but this example of a pub with that name sets it at a distance from London that might match the locations of the play. The name of the pub is much more likely to have been chosen by Pinter to evoke the sense of 'fishmonger' as pimp that Hamlet uses when addressing Polonius in Shakespeare's play.
In Family Voices, Voice 2 (the mother) declares that her daughter Millie comes over from Dover. This 'over' might notionally locate Voice 2 in London.
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Type: Script
External Link: https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/plays/family-voices-iid-134578/
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Harold Pinter Collection, British Library, Add MS 88880/12/13
Library archive
Finished composition date.