Pinter evokes his youth thanks to an insightful and innovative adaptation of his only novel

Ascending the stairs to the theatre above The White Bear pub is to leave the 21st century behind and find yourself back in the 1950s. The room cunningly stands in for a series of rooms – bedsits inhabited by twentysomething mates Len, Mark and Pete. This is pub theatre at its most atmospheric and designer Isabella Van Braeckel has run with that too. ‘Scene changes’ from one room to another elide effortlessly, thanks to evocative music from sound designer and composer Julian Starr.

The Dwarfs, Harold Pinter’s only novel, is semi-autobiographical. The characters are loosely based on his own young adulthood, when he knocked about Dalston and Hackney with his self-styled Hackney Gang. “A bunch of determined solipsists," as described by Henry Woolf, "larking about the East End, their lives central to the workings of the universe.” The late and much missed gang member was a hugely respected theatre allrounder and poet, who directed Pinter’s first play, The Room, at Bristol University. His description seems to fit the trio, too. At first.

Certainly they are solipsists, each at the centre of their own universe, and at first the overall vibe is apparently jokey, with Pinter’s signature fast and subtly rhythmic dialogue slickly exchanged between the three bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young men in their period suits. But in director Harry Burton’s nuanced production, as we get to know Len, Mark and Pete rather better, the underlying tensions between them rise to the surface, not least at the arrival of Virginia. This beautiful and feisty young woman proves to be far more than simply the subject of rivalry between Charlie MacGechan’s quietly and scarily predatory Mark and Joseph Potter’s volatile, potentially violent Pete. Cleverly written in by playwright Kerry Lee Crabbe, in this adaptation that was first seen at the Tricycle Theatre in 2002, Denise Laniyan’s Virginia is a quietly powerful young woman, deliberately holding both her ‘suitors’ at arm’s length, as she exposes their transgressive power plays for what they are.

For myself, it certainly brought on flashbacks to some of the more OTT male behaviour that I’m sorry to say was still par for the course rather later last century – and long after we could cite fallout from World War II and the Holocaust as a catalyst, like these young men.

The most intriguing and complex member of the trio is Ossian Perret's vividly sympathetic and understanding Len, who's rather more vulnerable than the other two and likely neurodivergent. He suffers from delusions – hallucinations even – that include sightings of the 'dwarfs' of the title, whom he imagines as malign controllers of his fate. As eloquently and magically described by Pinter/Crabbe, these descriptions are among the highlights of an arresting and insightful evening, perfectly suited to the intimacy of a pub theatre.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Bec Austin

The Dwarfs runs until Sunday 5 June. 7.30pm, 3pm (Thu & Sat), 4pm (Sun only). £18, £14 concs. White Bear Theatre, SE11 4DJ. whitebeartheatre.co.uk