A Slight Ache

A well-at-heel, middle class couple sit in their garden. It’s the height of summer, and life doesn’t get more pleasant than this. Edward, nursing a satisfied paunch, ruminates on the mysteries of his fauna; Flora fauns over her confused husband and all is well. But this picture of English idyll is disturbed by a mysterious match-seller, whose presence begins to invade Edward’s thoughts and, later, his very home.

Unfortunately, A Slight Ache is among Harold Pinter’s lesser-known works for a reason. The truth is, on stage, it simply doesn’t work. Originally written for radio, the mystery surrounding the enigmatic interloper simply dissipates as he stands, in the flesh, in front of one’s very eyes. As Alfred Hitchcock masterfully understood, often the greater horror is to be found in the audience’s imagination. When that threat sits in full view, it becomes rather banal. Through no fault of the silent Simon Munnery, the Matchseller is rather unremarkable; far from the creeping, unknown evil of the page or the airwaves.

Consequently, the play becomes less a fraught pyscho-drama and more a bizarre psychotherapy session. The match-seller becomes a conduit for the couple’s petty fears and dark secrets, a passive listener as opposed to hellish antagonist. And in this context, the tragicomic denouement makes little or no sense: Edward collapses, inexplicably (we see the match-seller does nothing); Flora is seduced, inexplicably (we see the match-seller does nothing). Confusion reigns.

Which is a shame, as the early back-and-forth between Thom Tuck and Catriona Knox is really quite enjoyable. But the structural flaw that has blighted previous stage adaptations of this work remains here.