Editing Harold Pinter (section)

==Career==
{{Further|Works of Harold Pinter|Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work}}
===As actor===
Pinter's acting career spanned over 50 years and, although he often played [[villain]]s, included a wide range of roles on stage and in radio, film, and television.<ref name=BattyAct/><ref name=BFIFilmTVCredits>{{cite web |url=http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/453152/credits.html |title=Pinter, Harold (1930–2008) Credits |work=BFI Screenonline |year=2011 |publisher=[[British Film Institute]] |access-date=3 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040705202826/http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/453152/credits.html |archive-date=5 July 2004 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  In addition to roles in radio and television adaptations of his own plays and dramatic sketches, early in his screenwriting career he made several cameo appearances in films based on his own screenplays; for example, as a society man in ''[[The Servant (1963 film)|The Servant]]'' (1963) and as Mr. Bell in ''[[Accident (1967 film)|Accident]]'' (1967), both directed by [[Joseph Losey]]; and as a bookshop customer in his later film ''[[Turtle Diary]]'' (1985), starring [[Michael Gambon]], [[Glenda Jackson]], and [[Ben Kingsley]].<ref name=BattyAct/>

Pinter's notable film and television roles included the lawyer Saul Abrahams opposite [[Peter O'Toole]] in ''[[Rogue Male (1976 film)|Rogue Male]]'', [[BBC Television|BBC TV]]'s 1976 adaptation of [[Geoffrey Household]]'s 1939 novel, and a drunk Irish journalist in ''[[Langrishe, Go Down (film)|Langrishe, Go Down]]'' (starring [[Judi Dench]] and [[Jeremy Irons]]) distributed on [[BBC Two]] in 1978<ref name=BFIFilmTVCredits/> and released in movie theatres in 2002.<ref name=HPFLC>{{cite web |url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/home/lincolnfestival.shtml |title=The Lincoln Center Festival |editor=Batty, Mark |work=haroldpinter.org |year=2001 |access-date=3 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613213945/http://www.haroldpinter.org/home/lincolnfestival.shtml |archive-date=13 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  Pinter's later film roles included the criminal Sam Ross in ''Mojo'' (1997), written and directed by [[Jez Butterworth]], based on Butterworth's [[Mojo (play)|play of the same name]]; Sir Thomas Bertram (his most substantial feature-film role) in ''[[Mansfield Park (1999 film)|Mansfield Park]]'' (1998), a character that Pinter described as "a very civilised man&nbsp;... a man of great sensibility but in fact, he's upholding and sustaining a totally brutal system [the slave trade] from which he derives his money"; and Uncle Benny, opposite [[Pierce Brosnan]] and [[Geoffrey Rush]], in ''[[The Tailor of Panama (film)|The Tailor of Panama]]'' (2001).<ref name=BattyAct/>  In [[Television movie|television films]], he played Mr. Bearing, the father of [[ovarian cancer]] patient Vivian Bearing, played by [[Emma Thompson]] in [[Mike Nichols]]'s [[HBO]] film of the [[Pulitzer Prize]]-winning play ''[[Wit (film)|Wit]]'' (2001); and the Director opposite [[John Gielgud]] (Gielgud's last role) and [[Rebecca Pidgeon]] in ''[[Catastrophe (play)|Catastrophe]]'', by [[Samuel Beckett]], directed by [[David Mamet]] as part of ''Beckett on Film'' (2001).<ref name=BattyAct/><ref name=BFIFilmTVCredits/>

===As director===
Pinter began to direct more frequently during the 1970s, becoming an associate director of the [[Royal National Theatre|National Theatre]] (NT) in 1973.<ref name=HPNT>{{cite web |url=http://nationaltheatre.org.uk/download.php?id=4019 |title=Harold Pinter, Director and Playwright at the National Theatre |format=MSWord |publisher=[[Royal National Theatre]] |access-date=27 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110529045912/http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/download.php?id=4019 |archive-date=29 May 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  He directed almost 50 productions of his own and others' plays for stage, film, and television, including 10 productions of works by [[Simon Gray]]: the stage and/or film premières of ''[[Butley (film)|Butley]]'' (stage, 1971; film, 1974), ''[[Otherwise Engaged]]'' (1975), ''The Rear Column'' (stage, 1978; TV, 1980), ''Close of Play'' (NT, 1979), ''[[Quartermaine's Terms]]'' (1981), ''Life Support'' (1997), ''The Late Middle Classes'' (1999), and ''The Old Masters'' (2004).<ref name=Telegraphobit/>  Several of those productions starred [[Alan Bates]] (1934–2003), who originated the stage and screen roles of not only Butley but also Mick in Pinter's first major commercial success, ''[[The Caretaker (play)|The Caretaker]]'' (stage, 1960; film, 1964); and in Pinter's double-bill produced at the [[Lyric Hammersmith]] in 1984, he played Nicolas in ''[[One for the Road (Harold Pinter play)|One for the Road]]'' and the cab driver in ''[[Victoria Station (play)|Victoria Station]]''.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/277/49/155675618w16/purl=rc1_TTDA_0_CS269061759&dyn=3!xrn_21_0_CS269061759&hst_1?sw_aep=uwesteng |title=Critics' Choice |last=Staff |journal=[[The Times]] |publisher=Times Digital Archive |date=31 March 1984 |page=16 |issue=61794 |url-access=subscription |access-date=27 June 2011}}</ref>  Among over 35 plays that Pinter directed were ''Next of Kin'' (1974), by [[John Hopkins (screenwriter)|John Hopkins]]; ''[[Blithe Spirit (play)|Blithe Spirit]]'' (1976),  by [[Noël Coward]]; ''[[The Innocents (play)|The Innocents]]'' (1976), by [[William Archibald (playwright)|William Archibald]]; ''Circe and Bravo'' (1986), by [[Donald Freed]]; ''[[Taking Sides (play)|Taking Sides]]'' (1995), by [[Ronald Harwood]]; and ''[[Twelve Angry Men (play)|Twelve Angry Men]]'' (1996), by [[Reginald Rose]].<ref name=HPNT/><ref name=BattyDir>{{cite web |url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/directing/index.shtml |title=Stage, film and TV productions directed by Harold Pinter |editor=Batty, Mark |work=haroldpinter.org |year=2011 |access-date=27 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613201759/http://www.haroldpinter.org/directing/index.shtml |archive-date=13 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

===As playwright===
Pinter was the author of 29 plays and 15 dramatic sketches and the co-author of two works for stage and radio.<ref name=Plays>{{cite web |editor1=Evans, Daisy |editor2=Herdman, Katie |editor3=Lankester, Laura |url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/index.shtml |title=Plays |work=haroldpinter.org |access-date=9 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613203248/http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/index.shtml |archive-date=13 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  He was considered to have been one of the most influential modern British dramatists,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/3949591/Harold-Pinter-one-of-the-most-influential-British-playwrights-of-modern-times.html |title=Harold Pinter: one of the most influential British playwrights of modern times |last=Staff |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |date=25 December 2008 |location=London |issn=0307-1235 |oclc=49632006 |access-date=27 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110518121424/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/3949591/Harold-Pinter-one-of-the-most-influential-British-playwrights-of-modern-times.html |archive-date=18 May 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=NYTobit>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/theater/26pinter.html |title=Harold Pinter, Playwright of the Anxious Pause, Dies at 78 |first1=Mel |last1=Gussow |first2=Ben |last2=Brantley |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=25 December 2008 |location=New York City |issn=0362-4331 |access-date=27 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121103184959/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/theater/26pinter.html |archive-date=3 November 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Along with the 1967 [[Tony Award for Best Play]] for ''The Homecoming'' and several other American awards and award nominations, he and his plays received many awards in the UK and elsewhere throughout the world.<ref>Gordon, "Chronology", ''Pinter at 70'' xliii–lxv; Batty, "Chronology", ''About Pinter'' xiii–xvi.</ref>  His style has entered the English language as an adjective, "[[Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work#Pinteresque|Pinteresque]]", although Pinter himself disliked the term and found it meaningless.<ref name=Wark>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_4780000/newsid_4785400 |title=Harold Pinter on Newsnight Review with Kirsty Wark |work=[[Newsnight Review]] |publisher=BBC |access-date=26 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121112034520/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/5110060.stm |archive-date=12 November 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

===="Comedies of menace" (1957–1968)====

Pinter's first play, ''[[The Room (play)|The Room]]'', written and first performed in 1957, was a student production at the [[University of Bristol]], directed by his good friend, actor [[Henry Woolf]], who also originated the role of Mr. Kidd (which he reprised in 2001 and 2007).<ref name=Plays/>  After Woolf mentioned that he had an idea for a play, he asked Pinter to write it so that he could direct it to fulfill a requirement for his postgraduate work.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bowker |first1=Gordon |title=Glimpses of a Biographer's Diaries 1961 – 2000 |date=2025 |publisher=Ramdei Bowker |location=London |isbn=978-1-0684423-9-1  |pages=471 |edition=Kindle |url=https://amzn.eu/d/5ZNvFdY |access-date=22 March 2025}}</ref> Pinter wrote it in three days.<ref name=MerrittWoolf>Merritt, "Talking about Pinter" 147.</ref> The production was described by Billington as "a staggeringly confident debut which attracted the attention of a young producer, [[Michael Codron]], who decided to present Pinter's next play, ''[[The Birthday Party (play)|The Birthday Party]]'', at the [[Lyric Hammersmith]], in 1958."<ref name=Billobit>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2008/dec/25/pinter-theatre |title=The most provocative, poetic and influential playwright of his generation |first=Michael |last=Billington |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=25 December 2008 |publisher=[[Guardian Media Group|GMG]] |location=London |issn=0261-3077 |oclc=60623878 |access-date=27 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110227094739/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/dec/25/pinter-theatre |archive-date=27 February 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Written in 1957 and produced in 1958, Pinter's second play, ''The Birthday Party'', one of his best-known works, was initially both a commercial and critical disaster, despite an enthusiastic review in ''[[The Sunday Times]]'' by its influential drama critic [[Harold Hobson]],<ref>{{cite news |last=Hobson |first=Harold |title=The Screw Turns Again |newspaper=The Sunday Times |date=25 May 1958 |location=London}}</ref> which appeared only after the production had closed and could not be reprieved.<ref name=Billobit/><ref>Hobson, "The Screw Turns Again"; cited by Merritt in "Sir Harold Hobson: The Promptings of Personal Experience", ''Pinter in Play'' 221–25; rpt. in {{cite web |url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_bdayparty.shtml |title=The Birthday Party – Premiere |first=Harold |last=Hobson |work=haroldpinter.org |year=2011 |access-date=27 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709085019/http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_bdayparty.shtml |archive-date=9 July 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  Critical accounts often quote Hobson:

{{blockquote|I am well aware that Mr Pinter[']s play received extremely bad notices last Tuesday morning. At the moment I write these [words] it is uncertain even whether the play will still be in the bill by the time they appear, though it is probable it will soon be seen elsewhere. Deliberately, I am willing to risk whatever reputation I have as a judge of plays by saying that ''The Birthday Party'' is not a Fourth, not even a Second, but a First [as in Class Honours]; and that Pinter, on the evidence of his work, possesses the most original, disturbing and arresting talent in theatrical London&nbsp;... Mr Pinter and ''The Birthday Party'', despite their experiences last week, will be heard of again. Make a note of their names.}}

Pinter himself and later critics generally credited Hobson as bolstering him and perhaps even rescuing his career.<ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 85; Gussow, ''Conversations with Pinter'' 141.</ref>

In a review published in 1958, borrowing from the subtitle of ''The Lunatic View: A Comedy of Menace'', a play by [[David Campton]], critic [[Irving Wardle]] called Pinter's early plays "[[comedy of menace]]"—a label that people have applied repeatedly to his work.<ref name=Merritt3>Merritt, ''Pinter in Play'' 5, 9, 225–26, and 310.</ref> Such plays begin with an apparently innocent situation that becomes both threatening and "[[Absurdism|absurd]]" as Pinter's characters behave in ways often perceived as inexplicable by his audiences and one another. Pinter acknowledges the influence of [[Samuel Beckett]], particularly on his early work; they became friends, sending each other drafts of their works in progress for comments.<ref name = Wark /><ref name=BillingtonWark>See Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 64, 65, 84, 197, 251 and 354</ref>

Pinter wrote ''[[The Hothouse]]'' in 1958, which he shelved for over 20 years (See "Overtly political plays and sketches" below).  Next he wrote ''[[The Dumb Waiter]]'' (1959), which premièred in Germany and was then produced in a [[double bill]] with ''The Room'' at the [[Hampstead Theatre|Hampstead Theatre Club]], in London, in 1960.<ref name="Plays"/>  It was then not produced often until the 1980s, and it has been revived more frequently since 2000, including the [[West End theatre|West End]] [[Trafalgar Studios]] production in 2007.  The first production of ''[[The Caretaker (play)|The Caretaker]]'', at the [[Arts Theatre|Arts Theatre Club]], in London, in 1960, established Pinter's theatrical reputation.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://roundabouttheatre.org/fc/fall03/jones.htm |title=Roundabout Theatre Company – |first=David |last=Jones |work=Front & Center Online |publisher=Roundabout Theatre Company |date=Fall 2003 |access-date=27 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727223238/http://roundabouttheatre.org/fc/fall03/jones.htm |archive-date=27 July 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  The play transferred to the [[Duchess Theatre]] in May 1960 and ran for 444 performances,<ref name=sheffcare>{{cite web |title=Background to The Caretaker |url=http://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/creativedevelopmentprogramme/productions/thecaretaker/background.shtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090514101843/http://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/creativedevelopmentprogramme/productions/thecaretaker/background.shtml |archive-date=14 May 2009 |work=Sheffield Theatres education resource |publisher=Sheffield Theatres |access-date=11 July 2011}}</ref> receiving an [[Evening Standard Award]] for best play of 1960.<ref>{{cite web |last=Shama |first=Sunita |title=Pinter awards saved for the nation |url=http://www.mla.gov.uk/news_and_views/press_releases/2010/Pinter_awards |work=British Library Press Release |publisher=Museums Arts and Libraries |access-date=11 July 2011 |date=20 October 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727121002/http://www.mla.gov.uk/news_and_views/press_releases/2010/Pinter_awards |archive-date=27 July 2011}}</ref>  Large radio and television audiences for his one-act play ''[[A Night Out (play)|A Night Out]]'', along with the popularity of his revue sketches, propelled him to further critical attention.<ref>Merritt, ''Pinter in Play'' 18.</ref>  In 1964, ''The Birthday Party'' was revived both on television (with Pinter himself in the role of Goldberg) and on stage (directed by Pinter at the [[Aldwych Theatre]]) and was well received.<ref>Merritt, ''Pinter in Play'' 18, 219–20.</ref>

By the time Peter Hall's London production of ''The Homecoming'' (1964) reached [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] in 1967, Pinter had become a celebrity playwright, and the play garnered four [[Tony Award]]s, among other awards.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tonyawards.com/p/tonys_search?start=0&year=&award=&lname=&fname=&show=%3Ci%3EThe+Homecoming%3C%2Fi%3E |title=The Homecoming – 1967 |work=tonyawards.com |publisher=Tony Award Productions |year=2011 |access-date=3 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181201140353/https://www.tonyawards.com/p/tonys_search?start=0&year=&award=&lname=&fname=&show=%3Ci%3EThe+Homecoming%3C%2Fi%3E |archive-date=1 December 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref> During this period, Pinter also wrote the radio play ''[[A Slight Ache]]'', first broadcast on the [[BBC Third Programme]] in 1959 and then adapted to the stage and performed at the [[Arts Theatre|Arts Theatre Club]] in 1961.  ''A Night Out'' (1960) was broadcast to a large audience on [[ABC Weekend TV]]'s television show ''[[Armchair Theatre]]'', after being transmitted on BBC Radio 3, also in 1960.  His play ''[[Night School (play)|Night School]]'' was first televised in 1960 on [[Associated Rediffusion]].  ''[[The Collection (play)|The Collection]]'' premièred at the [[Aldwych Theatre]] in 1962, and ''The Dwarfs'', adapted from Pinter's then unpublished novel of the same title, was first broadcast on radio in 1960, then adapted for the stage (also at the Arts Theatre Club) in a double bill with ''[[The Lover (play)|The Lover]]'', which had previously been televised by Associated Rediffusion in 1963; and ''[[Tea Party (play)|Tea Party]]'', a play that Pinter developed from his 1963 short story, first broadcast on [[BBC TV]] in 1965.<ref name=Plays/>

Working as both a screenwriter and as a playwright, Pinter composed a script called ''[[The Basement (play)#Origin: "The Compartment"|The Compartment]]'' (1966), for a trilogy of films to be contributed by [[Samuel Beckett]], [[Eugène Ionesco]], and Pinter, of which only Beckett's film, titled ''[[Film (film)|Film]]'', was actually produced.  Then Pinter turned his unfilmed script into a television play, which was produced as ''[[The Basement (play)|The Basement]]'', both on [[BBC 2]] and also on stage in 1968.<ref name=BRChronology>Baker and Ross, "Chronology" xxiii–xl.</ref>

===="Memory plays" (1968–1982)====

From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, Pinter wrote a series of plays and sketches that explore complex ambiguities, elegiac mysteries, comic vagaries, and other "quicksand-like" characteristics of [[memory]] and which critics sometimes classify as Pinter's "[[memory play]]s".<ref name=BillingtonETP>Billington, Introduction, "Pinter: Passion, Poetry, Politics", ''Europe Theatre Prize–X Edition'', [[Turin]], 10–12 March 2006. Retrieved 29 January 2011.  [[Cf.]] Billington, chap. 29: "Memory Man" and "Afterword: Let's Keep Fighting", ''Harold Pinter'' 388–430.</ref> These include ''[[Landscape (play)|Landscape]]'' (1968), ''[[Silence (1969 play)|Silence]]'' (1969), ''[[Night (sketch)|Night]]'' (1969), ''[[Old Times]]'' (1971), ''[[No Man's Land (play)|No Man's Land]]'' (1975), ''The Proust Screenplay'' (1977), ''[[Betrayal (play)|Betrayal]]'' (1978), ''[[Family Voices]]'' (1981), ''[[Victoria Station (play)|Victoria Station]]'' (1982), and ''[[A Kind of Alaska]]'' (1982).  Some of Pinter's later plays, including ''Party Time'' (1991), ''[[Moonlight (play)|Moonlight]]'' (1993), ''[[Ashes to Ashes (play)|Ashes to Ashes]]'' (1996), and ''[[Celebration (play)|Celebration]]'' (2000), draw upon some features of his "memory" [[dramaturgy]] in their focus on the past in the present, but they have personal and political resonances and other tonal differences from these earlier memory plays.<ref name=BillingtonETP/><ref name=MemoryPlays>See Batty, ''About Pinter''; Grimes; and Baker (all ''passim'').</ref>

====Overtly political plays and sketches (1980–2000)====
Following a three-year period of creative drought in the early 1980s after his marriage to Antonia Fraser and the death of Vivien Merchant,<ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 258.</ref> Pinter's plays tended to become shorter and more overtly political, serving as critiques of [[oppression]], [[torture]], and other abuses of human rights,<ref name=MerrittPIPGrimes>Merritt, ''Pinter in Play'' xi–xv and 170–209; Grimes 19.</ref> linked by the apparent "invulnerability of power."<ref>Grimes 119.</ref>  Just before this hiatus, in 1979, Pinter re-discovered his manuscript of ''[[The Hothouse]]'', which he had written in 1958 but had set aside; he revised it and then directed its first production himself at [[Hampstead Theatre]] in London, in 1980.<ref name=HHNote>{{cite web |url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_hothouse.shtml |title=The Hothouse – Premiere |first=Benedict |last=Nightingale |work=Originally published in the [[New Statesman]], archived at haroldpinter.org |year=2001 |access-date=27 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613220750/http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_hothouse.shtml |archive-date=13 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Like his plays of the 1980s, ''The Hothouse'' concerns authoritarianism and the abuses of power politics, but it is also a comedy, like his earlier [[Comedy of menace|comedies of menace]].  Pinter played the major role of Roote in a 1995 revival at the [[Minerva Theatre, Chichester]].<ref name=MerrittGrimesHH>Merritt, "Pinter Playing Pinter" (''passim''); and Grimes 16, 36–38, 61–71.</ref>

Pinter's brief dramatic sketch ''Precisely'' (1983) is a duologue between two bureaucrats exploring the absurd power politics of mutual nuclear annihilation and [[Deterrence theory|deterrence]].  His first overtly political one-act play is ''[[One for the Road (Harold Pinter play)|One for the Road]]'' (1984).  In 1985 Pinter stated that whereas his earlier plays presented metaphors for power and powerlessness, the later ones present literal realities of power and its abuse.<ref>Hern 8–9, 16–17, and 21.</ref> Pinter's "political theatre dramatizes the interplay and conflict of the opposing poles of involvement and disengagement."<ref>Hern 19.</ref>  ''[[Mountain Language]]'' (1988) is about the Turkish suppression of the [[Kurdish language]].<ref name=BillingtonGussow/>  The dramatic sketch ''The New World Order'' (1991) provides what Robert Cushman, writing in ''[[The Independent]]'' described as "10 nerve-wracking minutes" of two men threatening to torture a third man who is blindfolded, gagged and bound in a chair; Pinter directed the British première at the [[Royal Court Theatre|Royal Court Theatre Upstairs]], where it opened on 9 July 1991, and the production then transferred to Washington, D.C., where it was revived in 1994.<ref name=NWO>{{cite web |url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_newworldorder.shtml |title=Ten Nerve Racking Minutes of Pinter |first=Robert |last=Cushman |work=[[Independent on Sunday]], archived at haroldpinter.org |date=21 July 1991 |access-date=27 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110614003407/http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_newworldorder.shtml |archive-date=14 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  Pinter's longer [[political satire]] ''Party Time'' (1991) premièred at the [[Almeida Theatre]] in London, in a double-bill with ''Mountain Language''.  Pinter adapted it as a screenplay for television in 1992, directing that production, first broadcast in the UK on [[Channel 4]] on 17 November 1992.<ref name=PT>Grimes 101–28 and 139–43; {{cite web |url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_partytime.shtml |title=Plays |editor=Batty, Mark |work=haroldpinter.org |year=2011 |access-date=3 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110614004649/http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_partytime.shtml |archive-date=14 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Intertwining political and personal concerns, his next full-length plays, ''[[Moonlight (play)|Moonlight]]'' (1993) and ''[[Ashes to Ashes (play)|Ashes to Ashes]]'' (1996) are set in domestic households and focus on dying and death; in their personal conversations in ''Ashes to Ashes'', Devlin and Rebecca allude to unspecified atrocities relating to the [[The Holocaust|Holocaust]].<ref name=MerrittGrimesATA>Merritt, "Harold Pinter's ''Ashes to Ashes'': Political/Personal Echoes of the Holocaust" (''passim''); Grimes 195–220.</ref> After experiencing the deaths of first his mother (1992) and then his father (1997), again merging the personal and the political, Pinter wrote the poems "Death" (1997) and "The Disappeared" (1998).

Pinter's last stage play, ''[[Celebration (play)|Celebration]]'' (2000), is a social satire set in an opulent restaurant, which lampoons [[The Ivy (United Kingdom)|The Ivy]], a fashionable venue in London's West End theatre district, and its patrons who "have just come from performances of either the ballet or the opera. Not that they can remember a darn thing about what they saw, including the titles.  [These] gilded, foul-mouthed souls are just as myopic when it comes to their own table mates (and for that matter, their food), with conversations that usually connect only on the surface, if there."<ref name=BrantleyLC>{{cite web |url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/home/lincolnfestival.shtml |title=Pinter's Silences, Richly Eloquent |last=Brantley |first=Ben |author-link=Ben Brantley |work=[[The New York Times]] archived at haroldpinter.org |date=27 July 2001 |access-date=9 May 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613213945/http://www.haroldpinter.org/home/lincolnfestival.shtml |archive-date=13 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  On its surface the play may appear to have fewer overtly political resonances than some of the plays from the 1980s and 1990s; but its central male characters, brothers named Lambert and Matt, are members of the elite (like the men in charge in ''Party Time''), who describe themselves as "peaceful strategy consultants [because] we don't carry guns."<ref>Pinter, ''Celebration'' 60.</ref>  At the next table, Russell, a banker, describes himself as a "totally disordered personality&nbsp;... a psychopath",<ref>Pinter, ''Celebration'' 39.</ref> while Lambert "vows to be reincarnated as '[a] more civilised, [a] gentler person, [a] nicer person'."<ref>Pinter, ''Celebration'' 56.</ref><ref>Grimes 129.</ref>  These characters' deceptively smooth exteriors mask their extreme viciousness.  ''Celebration'' evokes familiar [[Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work#Pinteresque|Pinteresque]] political contexts: "The ritzy loudmouths in 'Celebration'&nbsp;... and the quieter working-class mumblers of 'The Room'&nbsp;... have everything in common beneath the surface".<ref name=BrantleyLC/> "Money remains in the service of entrenched power, and the brothers in the play are 'strategy consultants' whose jobs involve force and violence&nbsp;... It is tempting but inaccurate to equate the comic power inversions of the social behaviour in ''Celebration'' with lasting change in larger political structures", according to Grimes, for whom the play indicates Pinter's pessimism about the possibility of changing the status quo.<ref>Grimes 130.</ref>  Yet, as the Waiter's often comically unbelievable reminiscences about his grandfather demonstrate in ''Celebration'', Pinter's final stage plays also extend some [[expressionism|expressionistic]] aspects of his earlier "memory plays", while harking back to his "comedies of menace", as illustrated in the characters and in the Waiter's final speech:
{{blockquote|My grandfather introduced me to the mystery of life and I'm still in the middle of it.  I can't find the door to get out.  My grandfather got out of it.  He got right out of it.  He left it behind him and he didn't look back.  He got that absolutely right.  And I'd like to make one further interjection.<br /> ''He stands still.  Slow fade''.<ref>Pinter, ''Celebration'' 72.</ref>}}

During 2000–2001, there were also simultaneous productions of ''[[Remembrance of Things Past (play)|Remembrance of Things Past]]'', Pinter's stage adaptation of his unpublished ''Proust Screenplay'', written in collaboration with and directed by [[Di Trevis]], at the [[Royal National Theatre]], and a revival of ''[[The Caretaker (play)|The Caretaker]]'' directed by [[Patrick Marber]] and starring [[Michael Gambon]], [[Rupert Graves]], and [[Douglas Hodge]], at the [[Comedy Theatre]].<ref name=Plays/>

Like ''Celebration'', Pinter's penultimate sketch, ''Press Conference'' (2002), "invokes both torture and the fragile, circumscribed existence of dissent".<ref>Grimes 135.</ref>  In its première in the [[Royal National Theatre|National Theatre]]'s two-part production of ''Sketches'', despite undergoing chemotherapy at the time, Pinter played the ruthless Minister willing to murder little children for the benefit of "The State".<ref name=Sketches>{{cite web |url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_sketches.shtml |first=Alastair |last=Macaulay |title=The Playwright's Triple Risk |work=[[The Financial Times]] archived at haroldpinter.org |access-date=9 May 2009 |date=13 February 2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613214229/http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_sketches.shtml |archive-date=13 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

===As screenwriter===
Pinter composed 27 screenplays and film scripts for cinema and television, many of which were filmed, or adapted as stage plays.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/harold-pinter-true-star-of-the-screen-1212438.html |title=Harold Pinter: True star of the screen |first=Geoffrey |last=MacNab |work=[[The Independent]] |date=27 December 2008 |publisher=[[Independent News & Media|INM]] |location=London |issn=0951-9467 |oclc=185201487 |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110624013629/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/harold-pinter-true-star-of-the-screen-1212438.html |archive-date=24 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> His fame as a screenwriter began with his three screenplays written for films directed by [[Joseph Losey]], leading to their close friendship: ''[[The Servant (1963 film)|The Servant]]'' (1963), based on the novel by [[Robin Maugham]]; ''[[Accident (1967 film)|Accident]]'' (1967), adapted from the novel by [[Nicholas Mosley]]; and ''[[The Go-Between (1971 film)|The Go-Between]]'' (1971), based on the novel by [[L. P. Hartley]].<ref>{{cite news |first=Jeff |last=Dawson |url=http://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/nexis/results/listview/listview.do?risb=21_T12277901740&startDocNo=1&sort=null&format=GNBEXLIST&dateSelector=All&segSpecifyDate=Date&day1=&month1=&year1=&day2=&month2=&year2=&numericUnit=1&calendarUnit=days&BCT=G1 |title=Open Your Eyes to These Cult Classics |work=[[The Sunday Times]] archived at LexisNexis |date=21 June 2009 |page=10 |publisher=[[News International]] |location=London |url-access=subscription}}</ref> Films based on Pinter's adaptations of his own stage plays are: ''[[The Caretaker (play)|The Caretaker]]'' (1963), directed by [[Clive Donner]]; ''[[The Birthday Party (1968 film)|The Birthday Party]]'' (1968), directed by [[William Friedkin]]; ''[[The Homecoming (film)|The Homecoming]]'' (1973), directed by Peter Hall; and ''[[Betrayal (1983 film)|Betrayal]]'' (1983), directed by [[David Jones (director)|David Jones]].

Pinter also adapted other writers' novels to screenplays, including ''[[The Pumpkin Eater]]'' (1964), based on the novel by [[Penelope Mortimer]], directed by [[Jack Clayton]]; ''[[The Quiller Memorandum]]'' (1966), from the 1965 spy novel ''The Berlin Memorandum'', by [[Elleston Trevor]], directed by [[Michael Anderson (director)|Michael Anderson]]; ''[[The Last Tycoon (1976 film)|The Last Tycoon]]'' (1976), from the unfinished novel by [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]], directed by [[Elia Kazan]]; ''[[The French Lieutenant's Woman (film)|The French Lieutenant's Woman]]'' (1981), from the novel by [[John Fowles]], directed by [[Karel Reisz]]; ''[[Turtle Diary]]'' (1985), based on the novel by [[Russell Hoban]]; ''The Heat of the Day'' (1988), a television film, from the 1949 novel by [[Elizabeth Bowen]]; ''[[The Comfort of Strangers (film)|The Comfort of Strangers]]'' (1990), from the novel by [[Ian McEwan]], directed by [[Paul Schrader]]; and ''[[The Trial (1993 film)|The Trial]]'' (1993), from the novel by [[Franz Kafka]], directed by David Jones.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE1DA1638F937A15752C1A965958260 |title=Kafka's Sinister World by Way of Pinter |first=Janet |last=Maslin |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=24 November 1993 |location=New York City |issn=0362-4331 |access-date=3 July 2011}}</ref>

His commissioned screenplays of others' works for the films ''[[The Handmaid's Tale (film)|The Handmaid's Tale]]'' (1990), ''[[The Remains of the Day (film)|The Remains of the Day]]'' (1990), and ''[[Lolita (1997 film)|Lolita]]'' (1997), remain unpublished and in the case of the latter two films, uncredited, though several scenes from or aspects of his scripts were used in these finished films.<ref>Hudgins 132–39.</ref> His screenplays ''[[Remembrance of Things Past (play)|The Proust Screenplay]]'' (1972), ''Victory'' (1982), and ''[[The Dreaming Child (screenplay by Harold Pinter)|The Dreaming Child]]'' (1997) and his unpublished screenplay ''[[The Tragedy of King Lear (screenplay by Harold Pinter)|The Tragedy of King Lear]]'' (2000) have not been filmed.<ref>Gale, "Appendix A: Quick Reference", ''Sharp Cut'' 416–17.</ref> A section of Pinter's ''Proust Screenplay'' was, however, released as the 1984 film ''[[In Search of Lost Time#Adaptations|Swann in Love]]'' (''Un amour de Swann''), directed by [[Volker Schlöndorff]], and it was also adapted by [[Michael Bakewell]] as a two-hour radio drama broadcast on [[BBC Radio 3]] in 1995,<ref>Baker and Ross xxxiii.</ref> before Pinter and director Di Trevis collaborated to adapt it for the 2000 National Theatre production.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_remembrance.shtml |title=Remembrance of Things Past, Cottesloe Theatre, London, November 2000 |work=haroldpinter.org |access-date=1 July 2009 |editor=Batty, Mark |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613214134/http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/plays_remembrance.shtml |archive-date=13 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Pinter's last filmed screenplay was an adaptation of the 1970 [[Tony Award]]-winning play ''[[Sleuth (play)|Sleuth]]'', by [[Anthony Shaffer (writer)|Anthony Shaffer]], which was commissioned by [[Jude Law]], one of the film's producers.<ref name=Lyall/> It is the basis for the 2007 film ''[[Sleuth (2007 film)|Sleuth]]'', directed by [[Kenneth Branagh]].<ref name=Lyall/><ref name=Levy1>{{cite web |first=Emanuel |last=Levey |author-link=Emanuel Levy |url=http://www.emanuellevy.com/interview/sleuth-with-pinter-branagh-law-and-caine-3/ |title=Interviews: Sleuth with Pinter, Branagh, Law and Caine |work=emanuellevy.com |date=29 August 2007 |access-date=31 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110515140851/http://www.emanuellevy.com/interview/sleuth-with-pinter-branagh-law-and-caine-3/ |archive-date=15 May 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=Levy2>{{cite web |first=Emanuel |last=Levey |author-link=Emanuel Levy |url=http://www.emanuellevy.com/article.php?articleID=6636 |title=Sleuth 2007: Remake or Revamping of Old Play |work=emanuellevy.com |date=29 August 2007 |access-date=31 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071009180537/http://www.emanuellevy.com/article.php?articleID=6636 |archive-date=9 October 2007}}</ref> Pinter's screenplays for ''[[The French Lieutenant's Woman (film)|The French Lieutenant's Woman]]'' and ''Betrayal'' were nominated for [[Academy Award]]s in 1981 and 1983, respectively.<ref>Gale, "Appendix B: Honors and Awards for Screenwriting", ''Sharp Cut'' (n. pag.) [418].</ref>

===2001–2008===
From 16 to 31 July 2001, a Harold Pinter Festival celebrating his work, curated by [[Michael Colgan (theatre director)|Michael Colgan]], artistic director of the [[Gate Theatre]], Dublin, was held as part of the annual Lincoln Center Festival at [[Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts|Lincoln Center]] in New York City.  Pinter participated both as an actor, as Nicolas in ''One for the Road'', and as a director of a double bill pairing his last play, ''Celebration'', with his first play, ''The Room''.<ref name=reports>Merritt, "Talking about Pinter" (''passim'').</ref>  As part of a two-week "Harold Pinter Homage" at the World Leaders Festival of Creative Genius, held from 24 September to 30 October 2001, at the Harbourfront Centre, in Toronto, Canada, Pinter presented a dramatic reading of ''Celebration'' (2000) and also participated in a public interview as part of the [[Culture in Toronto#Literature|International Festival of Authors]].<ref name=IFOA>{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020225161916/http://www.readings.org/news/011001pinter.html |archive-date=25 February 2002 |title=Harold Pinter Added to IFOA Lineup |url=http://www.readings.org/news/011001pinter.html |work=Harbourfront Reading Series |publisher=Harbourfront Centre |location=Toronto |access-date=27 June 2011}}</ref><ref name=IFOA2>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/09/travel/travel-advisory-toronto-festival-honors-14-leaders-in-the-arts.html |title=Travel Advisory; Toronto Festival Honors 14 Leaders in the Arts – New York Times |last=Staff |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=9 September 2001 |location=New York City |issn=0362-4331 |access-date=28 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110703234324/http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/09/travel/travel-advisory-toronto-festival-honors-14-leaders-in-the-arts.html |archive-date=3 July 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>Merritt, "Staging Pinter: From Pregnant Pauses to Political Causes" 123–43.</ref>

In December 2001, Pinter was diagnosed with [[oesophageal cancer]], for which, in 2002, he underwent an operation and [[chemotherapy]].<ref name=BillingtonKoval>{{cite web |url=http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/bwriting/stories/s671912.htm |title=Books and Writing – 15/9/2002: Harold Pinter |first=Ramona |last=Koval |work=[[Radio National|ABC Radio National]] |publisher=[[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]] |date=15 September 2009 |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110316201156/http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/bwriting/stories/s671912.htm |archive-date=16 March 2011 |url-status=dead}}; Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 413–16.</ref>  During the course of his treatment, he directed a production of his play ''No Man's Land'', and wrote and performed in a new sketch, "Press Conference", for a production of his dramatic sketches at the National Theatre, and from 2002 on he was increasingly active in political causes, writing and presenting politically charged poetry, essays, speeches, as well as involved in developing his final two screenplay adaptations, ''The Tragedy of King Lear'' and ''Sleuth'', whose drafts are in the British Library's [[Harold Pinter Archive]] (Add MS 88880/2).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/manuscripts/HITS0001.ASP?VPath=arevhtml/78575.htm&Search=%27Harold+Pinter%27&Highlight=T |title=Pinter Archive |last=Staff |work=Manuscripts catalogue |publisher=British Library |year=2011 |quote=MS 88880/2 |access-date=4 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111124185019/http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/manuscripts/HITS0001.ASP?VPath=arevhtml%2F78575.htm&Search=%27Harold+Pinter%27&Highlight=T |archive-date=24 November 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

From 9 to 25 January 2003, the Manitoba Theatre Centre, in [[Manitoba]], Canada, held a nearly month-long ''PinterFest'', in which over 130 performances of twelve of Pinter's plays were performed by a dozen different theatre companies.<ref name=PinterFest>{{cite web |url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/frn_pinterfestival_ca03.shtml |title=Pinter Fest 2003 |editor=Batty, Mark |work=haroldpinter.org |year=2003 |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613220837/http://www.haroldpinter.org/plays/frn_pinterfestival_ca03.shtml |archive-date=13 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  Productions during the Festival included: ''The Hothouse'', ''Night School'', ''The Lover'', ''The Dumb Waiter'', ''The Homecoming'', ''The Birthday Party'', ''Monologue'', ''One for the Road'', ''The Caretaker'', ''Ashes to Ashes'', ''Celebration'', and ''No Man's Land''.<ref name=MerrittPinterFest>Merritt, "PinterFest", in "Forthcoming Publications, Upcoming Productions, and Other Works in Progress", "Harold Pinter Bibliography: 2000–2002" (299).</ref>

[[File:Harold-pinter-atp.jpg|thumb|Pinter in 2005]]

In 2005, Pinter stated that he had stopped writing plays and that he would be devoting his efforts more to his political activism and writing poetry: "I think I've written 29 plays. I think it's enough for me&nbsp;... My energies are going in different directions—over the last few years I've made a number of political speeches at various locations and ceremonies&nbsp;... I'm using a lot of energy more specifically about political states of affairs, which I think are very, very worrying as things stand."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4305725.stm |title=Pinter 'to give up writing plays' |first=Mark |last=Lawson |work=[[BBC News]] |date=28 February 2005 |publisher=[[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]] |location=London |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120324141852/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4305725.stm |archive-date=24 March 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=Robinson>{{cite web |url=http://news.scotsman.com/uk/Im-written-out-says-controversial.2805471.jp |title=I'm written out, says controversial Pinter |first=David |last=Robinson |work=Scotsman.com News |publisher=Johnston Press Digital Publishing |date=26 August 2006 |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629205724/http://news.scotsman.com/uk/Im-written-out-says-controversial.2805471.jp |archive-date=29 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  Some of this later poetry included "The 'Special Relationship'", "Laughter", and "The Watcher".

From 2005, Pinter experienced ill health, including a rare skin disease called [[pemphigus]]<ref name=Billingtonwritten>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2006/mar/14/theatre.stage |title='I've written 29 damn plays. Isn't that enough?' |first=Michael |last=Billington |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=14 March 2006 |publisher=[[Guardian Media Group|GMG]] |location=London |issn=0261-3077 |oclc=60623878 |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100830080949/http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2006/mar/14/theatre.stage |archive-date=30 August 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref> and "a form of [[Sepsis|septicaemia]] that afflict[ed] his feet and made it difficult for him to walk."<ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 395.</ref>  Yet, he completed his screenplay for the film of ''Sleuth'' in 2005.<ref name=Lyall/><ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 418–20.</ref><!-- See reference to Sleuth just above-->  His last dramatic work for radio, ''Voices'' (2005), a collaboration with composer [[James Clarke (composer)|James Clarke]], adapting selected works by Pinter to music, premièred on [[BBC Radio 3]] on his 75th birthday on 10 October 2005.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/voices/pip/2v1eq/ |title=BBC – Radio 3 – Voices – Harold Pinter's 75th birthday |last=Staff |work=bbc.co.uk |year=2011 |access-date=4 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120207073915/http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/voices/pip/2v1eq/ |archive-date=7 February 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  Three days later, it was announced that he had won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature.<ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 420.</ref>

In an interview with Pinter in 2006, conducted by critic Michael Billington as part of the cultural programme of the [[2006 Winter Olympics]] in [[Turin]], Italy, Pinter confirmed that he would continue to write poetry but not plays.<ref name=Billingtonwritten/>  In response, the audience shouted ''No'' in unison, urging him to keep writing.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Merritt |first=Susan Hollis |title=Europe Theatre Prize Celebration – Turin, Italy |journal=Harold Pinter Society Newsletter |date=Fall 2006 |type=Print}}</ref>  Along with the international symposium on Pinter: Passion, Poetry, Politics, curated by Billington, the 2006 [[Europe Theatre Prize]] theatrical events celebrating Pinter included new productions (in French) of ''Precisely'' (1983), ''One for the Road'' (1984), ''Mountain Language'' (1988), ''The New World Order'' (1991), ''Party Time'' (1991), and ''Press Conference'' (2002) (French versions by Jean Pavans); and ''Pinter Plays, Poetry & Prose'', an evening of dramatic readings, directed by [[Alan Stanford]], of the [[Gate Theatre]], Dublin.<ref name=ETPEvent>{{cite web |url=http://www.premio-europa.org/open_page.php?id=336 |title=Europe Theatre Prize – X Edition – spettacoli |work=premio-europa.org |year=2006 |access-date=29 June 2011 |language=it, en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727184646/http://www.premio-europa.org/open_page.php?id=336 |archive-date=27 July 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  In June 2006, the [[British Academy of Film and Television Arts]] (BAFTA) hosted a celebration of Pinter's films curated by his friend, the playwright [[David Hare (playwright)|David Hare]].  Hare introduced the selection of film clips by saying: "To jump back into the world of Pinter's movies&nbsp;... is to remind yourself of a literate mainstream cinema, focused as much as [[Ingmar Bergman|Bergman]]'s is on the human face, in which tension is maintained by a carefully crafted mix of image and dialogue."<ref name="bill429">Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 429.</ref>

After returning to London from the [[Edinburgh International Book Festival]], in September 2006, Pinter began rehearsing for his performance of the role of [[Krapp's Last Tape#Characters|Krapp]] in [[Samuel Beckett]]'s one-act [[monologue]] ''[[Krapp's Last Tape]]'', which he performed from a motorised wheelchair in a limited run the following month at the [[Royal Court Theatre]] to sold-out audiences and "ecstatic" critical reviews.<ref name=KLTrev>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2006/oct/16/theatre.beckettat100 |title=Krapp's Last Tape, Royal Court, London |first=Michael |last=Billington |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=16 October 2006 |publisher=[[Guardian Media Group|GMG]] |location=London |issn=0261-3077 |oclc=60623878 |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121113140056/http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2006/oct/16/theatre.beckettat100 |archive-date=13 November 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  The production ran for only nine performances, as part of the 50th-anniversary celebration season of the [[Royal Court Theatre]]; it sold out within minutes of the opening of the box office and tickets commanded large sums from [[ticket resale|ticket resellers]].<ref>Münder 220; cf. Fraser, ''Must You Go?'' 304 and 307.</ref>  One performance was filmed and broadcast on [[BBC Four]] on 21 June 2007, and also screened later, as part of the memorial PEN Tribute to Pinter, in New York, on 2 May 2009.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://web.gc.cuny.edu/mestc/events/s09/PEN_World_Voices.html |title=PEN World Voices Festival: Harold Pinter Memorial Celebration |work=Martin E. Segal Theatre Center |publisher=The City University of New York |year=2009 |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110614060751/http://web.gc.cuny.edu/mestc/events/s09/PEN_World_Voices.html |archive-date=14 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

In October and November 2006, [[Sheffield Theatres]] hosted [[Sheffield Theatres#Pinter: A Celebration|Pinter: A Celebration]]. It featured productions of seven of Pinter's plays: ''The Caretaker'', ''Voices'', ''No Man's Land'', ''Family Voices'', ''Tea Party'', ''The Room'', ''One for the Road'', and ''The Dumb Waiter''; and films (most his screenplays; some in which Pinter appears as an actor).<ref name=SheffieldNews>{{cite web |url=http://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.view&NewsID=222 |title=Pinter: A Celebration |work=sheffieldtheatres.co.uk |year=2011 |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716090843/http://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.view&NewsID=222 |archive-date=16 July 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

In February and March 2007, a 50th anniversary of ''The Dumb Waiter'', was produced at the [[Trafalgar Studios]].  Later in February 2007, [[John Crowley (director)|John Crowley]]'s film version of Pinter's play ''Celebration'' (2000) was shown on ''[[More4]]'' ([[Channel 4]], UK).  On 18 March 2007, [[BBC Radio 3]] broadcast a new radio production of ''The Homecoming'', directed by [[Thea Sharrock]] and produced by Martin J. Smith, with Pinter performing the role of Max (for the first time; he had previously played Lenny on stage in 1964).  A revival of ''The Hothouse'' opened at the National Theatre, in London, in July 2007, concurrently with a revival of ''Betrayal'' at the [[Donmar Warehouse]], directed by [[Roger Michell]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/mar/17/featuresreviews.guardianreview13 |title=Fathers and sons |first=Samuel |last=West |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=17 March 2007 |publisher=[[Guardian Media Group|GMG]] |location=London |issn=0261-3077 |oclc=60623878 |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100411070458/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/mar/17/featuresreviews.guardianreview13 |archive-date=11 April 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[File:No Mans Land Harold Pinter Duke of Yorks Theatre London.jpg|right|thumb|''[[No Man's Land (play)|No Man's Land]]'' revival at [[Duke of York's Theatre]], 30 December 2008]]
Revivals in 2008 included the 40th-anniversary production of the American première of ''The Homecoming'' on Broadway, directed by [[Daniel J. Sullivan]].<ref name=Upcomingevents>{{cite web |url=http://www.haroldpinter.org/calendar/index.shtml |title=Worldwide Calendar |editor=Batty, Mark |work=haroldpinter.org |year=2011 |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709085619/http://www.haroldpinter.org/calendar/index.shtml |archive-date=9 July 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  From 8 to 24 May 2008, the [[Lyric Hammersmith]] celebrated the 50th anniversary of ''The Birthday Party'' with a revival and related events, including a gala performance and reception hosted by Harold Pinter on 19 May 2008, exactly 50 years after its London première there. The final revival during Pinter's lifetime was a production of ''No Man's Land'', directed by [[Rupert Goold]], opening at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in August 2008, and then transferring to the [[Duke of York's Theatre]], London, where it played until 3 January 2009.<ref name=BWW>{{cite web |url=http://westend.broadwayworld.com/article/Photo_Flash_NO_MANS_LAND_at_the_Duke_of_York_20000101 |title=Photo Flash: No Man's Land at the Duke of York |last=Staff |work=westend.broadwayworld.com |date=10 November 2008 |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120117182820/http://westend.broadwayworld.com/article/Photo_Flash_NO_MANS_LAND_at_the_Duke_of_York_20000101 |archive-date=17 January 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  On the Monday before Christmas 2008, Pinter was admitted to [[Hammersmith Hospital]], where he died on Christmas Eve from liver cancer, aged 78.<ref name=Goodnight>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/jan/01/pinter-theatre |title=Goodnight, sweet prince: Shakespearean farewell to Pinter |first=Michael |last=Billington |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=1 January 2009 |publisher=[[Guardian Media Group|GMG]] |location=London |issn=0261-3077 |oclc=60623878 |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100326011045/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jan/01/pinter-theatre |archive-date=26 March 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

On 26 December 2008, when ''No Man's Land'' reopened at the Duke of York's, the actors paid tribute to Pinter from the stage, with Michael Gambon reading Hirst's monologue about his "photograph album" from Act Two that Pinter had asked him to read at his funeral, ending with a standing ovation from the audience, many of whom were in tears:
{{blockquote|I might even show you my photograph album.  You might even see a face in it which might remind you of your own, of what you once were.  You might see faces of others, in shadow, or cheeks of others, turning, or jaws, or backs of necks, or eyes, dark under hats, which might remind you of others, whom once you knew, whom you thought long dead, but from whom you will still receive a sidelong glance if you can face the good ghost.  Allow the love of the good ghost.  They possess all that emotion&nbsp;... trapped.  Bow to it.  It will assuredly never release them, but who knows&nbsp;... what relief&nbsp;... it may give them&nbsp;... who knows how they may quicken&nbsp;... in their chains, in their glass jars.  You think it cruel&nbsp;... to quicken them, when they are fixed, imprisoned? No&nbsp;... no.  Deeply, deeply, they wish to respond to your touch, to your look, and when you smile, their joy&nbsp;... is unbounded.  And so I say to you, tender the dead, as you would yourself be tendered, now, in what you would describe as your life.<ref name=Goodnight/><ref>Pinter, ''No Man's Land'', ''Four Plays'' 69–70.</ref><ref name=Tribute>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7800829.stm |title=West End pays tribute to Pinter |last=Staff |work=[[BBC News]] |date=27 December 2008 |publisher=[[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]] |location=London |access-date=29 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131112044005/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7800829.stm |archive-date=12 November 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref>}}