Hilarious, puzzling, boring

No Man’s Land isn’t quite as great as its classic status suggests. At first sight the script is a bit of a head-scrambler because Pinter’s characters are obscure to the point of incoherence. A demented alcoholic, Hirst, is cared for in his Hampstead mansion by two mysterious thugs, or servants, who may be emeritus rent boys and who are, or perhaps were, romantically linked to one another. Into this mysterious triptych comes Spooner, a simple and fascinating creation, a washed-up Oxford poet of high intelligence and low achievement who lives by cadging favours from kindly Hampstead folk. He wheedles his way into Hirst’s affections in the hope of gaining employment as a secretary, companion, literary consultant, cleaner, house-pianist, or anything. Hirst’s cocky employees try to bully him off the premises and Hirst’s amnesia makes his bid for recruitment an impossibility.

After the interval, Hirst is reborn as a new character. Suddenly, he’s a charming and gallant millionaire brimful of stories and reminiscences who instantly recognises Spooner as an old varsity rival and engages him in a battle of competitive anecdotage about their romantic conquests, often achieved at each other’s expense. These passages of offbeat swordplay are a treat to witness. But whenever the rent boys pipe up the dramatic tension is lost and the audience fidgets. And the shape-shifting dialogue is interspersed with crass soliloquys about ‘no-man’s-land’ being a place of coldness, silence, emptiness, and so on, which (let’s be honest, Lady Antonia) belong in Poetry Corner.

The show needs two world-class actors of equal potency and it’s a genuine thrill to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen taking each other on at full force. Hirst, afflicted with dementia, sits ramrod straight in his armchair, whisky in hand, saying barely a word but exuding an unfathomable menace.