James Walton

How on earth did Harold Pinter and Danny Dyer become such good friends?

Plus: comedy, piercing sadness and thoughtful reflection in BBC1’s adaptation of David Nicholls's Us

Danny Dyer at Harold Pinter's grave. Image: Andrew Muggleton / © BBC Studios Productions Limited 
issue 26 September 2020

Collectors of TV titles that sound as if they were thought of by Alan Partridge will presumably have spotted Danny Dyer on Harold Pinter. As Dyer himself understatedly put it: ‘This might seem an unlikely pairing: the likely lad and the Nobel Prize winner.’ Yet, what made the programme such an intriguing if undeniably peculiar watch is that the pairing in question wasn’t dreamed up by a desperate (or drunk) commissioning editor.

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