The History of Production of the Works of Harold Pinter
No Man's Land (1974)
Harold Pinter
Play script
English
One summer's evening, two ageing writers, Hirst and Spooner, meet in a Hampstead pub and continue their drinking into the night at Hirst's stately house nearby. As the pair become increasingly inebriated, and their stories increasingly unbelievable, the lively conversation soon turns into a revealing power game, further complicated by the return home of two sinister younger men.
Browse productions of No Man's Land in the database
Date of Composition: 11 September 1974 Confidence Level
Linked Works
No Linked works have been added to this work record yet.
Linked Places
Jack Straw's Castle (Type of place: Location (within the fiction))
Jack Straw's Castle, Hampstead
A pub by Hampstead Heath, no longer extant. Hirst meets Spooner here before the opening scene in No Man's Land (1975). The pub is mentioned by name in the play. Hirst's house is therefore given as being situated in North West London.
Chalk Farm (Type of place: Location (within the fiction))
The character of Spooner hosts poetry readings in a pub in Chalk Farm in No Man's Land, a less well-to-do part of London than Hampstead, where we might assume the play takes place.
Bolsover Street (Type of place: Location (within the fiction))
Briggs in No Man's Land gives a speech about the difficulties of the one-way system in this part of London. Briggs's directions to Balsover Street bore, and bear, no resemblance to the actual street layout, though there is a Mews or two, a square (Fitzroy), a crescent, and the Post Office Tower in the vicinity.
The Post Office Tower (Type of place: Location (within the fiction))
Used as a landmark by Briggs in his story about the one-way system around Balsover Street, in No Man's Land. Known today at the BT Tower.
Publishers
Eyre Methuen on (3 April 1975)
Characters
Hirst (Age: sixties, Male)
Spooner (Age: sixties, Male)
Foster (Age: thirties, Male)
Briggs (Age: thirties, Male)
Resources
Full text on Drama Online (URL)
Type: Script
External Link: https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/plays/no-mans-land-iid-129849
Subscription required
Sources
NT: Live, National Theatre Website
http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/synopsis/ntlout19-no-man-s-land
URL
The summary of the play provided above appears on the theatre's webpage dedicated to promoting the filmed version of the production [accessed 10 November 2017].
William Baker and John C. Ross's biographical history of Harold Pinter's work
William Baker and John C. Ross, Harold Pinter: A Bibliographical History (London: British Library; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2005)
Academic book
Baker and Ross report that Pinter telephoned Peter Hall to inform him he had completed the play (p. 72). Note: this account differs from Antonia Fraser's, which in her memoir on Pinter, Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2010), puts the date of completion at 01/09.