Pinter's bleakly comic insight into nasty people

If you thought life on EastEnders was tough, take a look at The Homecoming – Harold Pinter's darkly comic play which makes the residents of Albert Square look like the Waltons.

Here's a London family so poisoned with infighting and jealousy that every conversation is an excuse for a confrontation.

While it's shot through with a pitch-black humour, it makes for an uphill struggle for any actor to find any sort of redeeming feature in their roles. Something which Sam Hazeldine, as Lenny, a small-time pimp, has failed to do so far in rehearsals for a new production of the Homecoming, at York Theatre Royal.

"You are supposed to find some redeeming feature in a character to make sense of them," said Sam. "But Lenny has no redeeming features at all – it makes it fun for me because I am playing someone who is my complete opposite.

"As an actor, you realise human beings are like graphic equalisers in terms of how life has affected them and when it comes to playing a particular person, you simply turn that equaliser up or down to where they are."

The equaliser will have been turned almost to zero with Lenny, who is one of a deeply dysfunctional family.

First performed during the mid-60s, the play is set in a dingy north London house, where an unhappy reunion is about to take place. It follows Max, an aging and aggressive father, his sons Lenny and Joey – who dreams of success as a boxer – and Max's younger brother, Sam. They are awaiting the visit of Max's eldest son, Teddy who, having spent the past six years teaching in the US, is now bringing his wife, Ruth, home to visit the family she has never met.

The visit ignites the tensions between the family, who resent the fact Teddy has made something of his life.

Acclaimed on Broadway, the play was said be the favourite of Pinter – a London-born playwright who was famed for the use of pauses in his work. Known as the "Pinter Pause" it was used to hint at things unspoken, and, along with a pitch-black humour, was a key fact of his work.

Sam said: "At first when I read it, the play seemed very funny, but as I came to understand it more, there were less and less redeeming features about the characters – they are nasty people and they never really had a chance with the family they grew up in.

"I thought it was a comedy, now I would say it is a study of the morally bankrupt – but it is a very interesting observation of what can become of people."

*The Homecoming starts this Saturday, May 30, and runs until Saturday, June 20, 7.30pm at York Theatre Royal, St. Leonard's Place, York. Tickets are £5- £19, call (01904) 623568