Harold Pinter
Play script
English
A thriving film-maker and his wife are visited in the country by the latter's onetime flatmate. What follows is a fierce battle for possession of the withdrawn, cryptically private visitor. The weapons used include snatches of popular song, physical intimacies and, above all, memory.
Browse productions of Old Times in the database
Date of Composition: 1971 - December 1971 Confidence Level
Old Times draws upon James Joyce's 1918 play, both in its subject matter and form.
In Old Times, Anna claims to live in a villa just outside Taormina, and Deeley claims to have been there as part of a supposed career in film.
In Old Times, Deeley tells Anna he remembers seeing her in the Wayfarers Tavern on the Brompton Road. There is no record of a real pub with that name in that vicinity.
Type: Script
External Link: https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/plays/old-times-iid-129844
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William Baker and John C. Ross, Harold Pinter: A Bibliographical History (London: British Library; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2005)
Academic book
In the Chronology entry for 1971 Baker and Ross report that Pinter was 'Writing Old Times' (p. xxxii).
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/jan/31/old-times-pinter-theatre-review
URL
The summary of the play provided appears in Michael Billington's review of Ian Rickson's 2013 production of the play at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London: Old Times - Review, Billington for The Guardian, 31/01/2013 [accessed 14 November 2017].