HAROLD PINTER: HISTORIES AND LEGACIES
The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council has just awarded funds for a million-pound research project on the work of Harold Pinter. The project will identify and assess every professional production in the UK of Pinter’s plays between 1957 and 2017, as well as his output on television, radio and film.
Led by Dr Mark Taylor-Batty (Workshop Theatre, University of Leeds), with co-investigators Professor Jonathan Bignell (University of Reading) and Professor Graham Saunders (University of Birmingham), and a team of full-time researchers and technical experts, the project will create a public database drawing on the Pinter archive at the British Library and other sources such as the BBC Written Archives and theatre and personal archives. The research will facilitate the construction of new appreciations of how Pinter’s work across media forms his distinctive voice, and the impact that his output has had.
Knowledge and information will be shared via website, blog, conference and published work, and also innovative formats of eBook, iBook and proposals for an interactive app concept. In 2018, the tenth anniversary of Pinter’s death, the British Film Institute (BFI) will present a curated season of screenings at BFI Southbank, in collaboration with the project team, to mark Pinter’s contribution to British screen culture. New investigations into his long-standing creative relationships with directors and performers will offer important insight into his impact upon contemporary practice on stage and screen.
