click image to play. 1.07 minutes

Harold Pinter hates mobile phones. And he has expressed his discontent in the short play performed in the clip above, from yesterday’s Newsnight Review on BBC2.

It says a lot to me that he doesn’t hold a phone while speaking his lines. And even in many other ways clips like these seem to be the perfect introduction to his work.

The lines are so simple.

And, of course, they’re not about what’s being said.

More on Pinter on this weblog.