HAROLD PINTER is reported to have said that cricket is the greatest thing God created on earth. “Certainly greater than sex, though sex isn’t too bad either.”
In his last interview he looked forward to watching the 2009 Ashes series between England and Australia. While the quality of his sex life is not something on which I have any right to comment, I can certainly bear witness to his passion for cricket and how it once undermined his known reluctance to take part in television interviews or discussions.
In the 1960s I was a presenter of BBC2’s Late Night Line Up, an open-ended chat show at the end of the evening which was forever trying to break new ground in pursuit of stimulating conversation – as, for example, when Yehudi Menuhin discussed the meaning of music with Jimmy Savile or when Juliette Greco bewitchingly explained how existentialism accounts for how we become who we are. In a climate where all topics were possible it was hardly surprising, given that our young team of non-conformists included a few cricket fanatics like myself, that we came up with the idea of inviting some well-known lovers of the game to choose and discuss their all-time World XI.
What was even more typical of Line Up, though, was the decision to approach Harold Pinter who, although a self-confessed cricket buff, would scarcely ever, in those days, agree to be interviewed. Before we spoke to him we booked Alan Gibson, a cricket writer for the Times and a wordsmith of wide interests who could just as readily talk about poetry as sport. He would be bound to know something of Pinter’s work and that might make for ease of conversation when they met before the programme.
It was the other guest, however, whose acceptance we reckoned would guarantee the playwright’s participation. Sir Learie Constantine, later to be created Britain’s first black life peer, had been a sensational fast bowler, hard-hitting batsman and exuberant fielder for West Indies in the 1920s and 1930s. It mattered not whether Constantine had heard of Pinter. Pinter, we correctly anticipated, couldn’t wait to meet the great Trinidadian all-rounder.
Constantine and Gibson, who already knew each other, were first to arrive at BBC Television Centre. I escorted them to the green room, where they began to compare notes for team selection. The phone rang. Mr Pinter was at reception. After I had collected him and made the introductions the other two resumed their conversation, ignoring the new arrival. They were listing famous batting performances by Australians before the second World War.
“What about Stan McCabe’s 220 at Nottingham in 1938,” said Gibson, “an innings Bradman himself said he’d be proud to have played?” The disregarded Pinter cleared his throat. “Excuse me.” They looked at him.
“I believe it was 232.” Constantine frowned, then smiled. “You’re right, you know!”
In that moment the chemistry changed. If Constantine and Gibson had seen themselves as two experts who would have to indulge a dilettante, they now realised that whatever their fellow interviewee did for a living he was a man who knew his cricket.
The programme itself, even for those who didn’t know their cricket, worked well. The task of selecting a team of all-time greats was merely the excuse for an eloquent sharing of fond memories. Constantine was invited to relive his own glory days as the West Indies was beginning to emerge as a force in world cricket. He was touched when both the others, diplomatically but not unjustifiably, included him in their chosen eleven. As for Pinter’s personal contribution, it was no doubt because he knew he wouldn’t be asked questions about the meaning of his plays that the spirit of the dramatist could roam free. He talked of being taken as a schoolboy to see part of a test match at Lord’s. Australia had England in all kinds of trouble. He pictured for us a dark afternoon, with heavy clouds threatening rain, and England’s best batsmen, Len Hutton and Denis Compton, coming down the pavilion steps. Waiting for them out in the middle were the cock-a-hoop bronzed Australians.
“And these two pale Englishmen,” said Pinter, “making their way through the gloom, were our only hope.” The playwright who was so unwilling to talk about his work was conveying, in that powerfully deep voice, the very quality of menace that infuses so much of it.
Back in the green room, as the on-air bonhomie blossomed further over glasses of wine, the editor of Late Night Line Up phoned to congratulate us on the programme but also to put me on the spot. Since Pinter was in our company and clearly enjoying himself, would I ask him to come back some evening to discuss his plays? I didn’t fancy delivering this message but in due course I drew him aside and did what the boss had asked.
He smiled. “You know, Learie Constantine has just reminded me that West Indians don’t call George Headley the black Bradman. They call Bradman the white Headley! I’m having a wonderful time. Let’s just keep it that way.”