24 December 2013
A comic misunderstanding on Broadway. Some New York punters watching Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart in the revival of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land have queried why the 1975 play has been updated to chime with the times. The misunderstanding revolves around the writer Spooner (McKellen) asking fellow poet Hirst (Stewart) about his wife in cricketing terms, specifically, “In other words, did she google?”
“People have been demanding to know why the play has been updated to incorporate the ubiquitous search engine, only to be told Pinter meant google in an entirely different context,” I’m told. “Relief all round ensues when theatregoers discover no technological liberties have been taken with the text.”
