Introduction

Project Timeline

Techniques and Styles in The Caretaker

Who is the Caretaker?

To find out more about how the creative team approached The Caretaker click on the links below:

"The Caretaker is a masterpiece, is a modern masterpiece, you have to trust that it’s all in the text.  My approach is always to pull apart the text in quite a major way.  I’ll take myself on a journey through the text, reading it from the point of view of one character at a time..."
Jamie Lloyd - Director

"I love the play... I tend to work on new writing as that is where my main interest is; but you cannot think about new writing without thinking about all that Pinter has done for that.  Even though The Caretaker is nearly 50 years old, it still has the power to challenge audiences..."
Alexander Ferris - Assistant Director

"My personal process starts with reading the play.  Having read the play, I like a period of absorption, where I’m not necessarily running around collecting research or having these great ideas, I’m just meditating on the play, letting it settle in my mind..."
Soutra Gilmour  - Designer

"Everybody who works in the industry knows about the 2 most famous sound effects in the theatre – the twang in the Cherry Orchard and the drip in The Caretaker..."
Chris Shutt - Sound Designer

"I start by reading the play, then by having meetings with the director and the designer. The set has normally been designed at this stage or certainly their early ideas for the production have been arrived at. So we continue to talk about how we want the show to look and what the play means to us. I will then come up with a lighting design for the show..."
Oliver Fenwick - Lighting Designer

"There are around twenty different types of light being used for the production. Most of the lights can be broken down into two categories, wash and spot. The wash lights are used to fill the stage with general soft edge light and help colour the set..."
Head of Lighting Sheffield Theatres

"A Sound Designer will be employed for their technical skills.  The Sound Designer will also create the sound effects and advise on how best to present the composers music..."
Nick Greenhill - Head of Sound

"In terms of preparation: when I first read the play it was really to start to re-connect with it, I got up to speed with the play, got used to the language.  Researched a little bit about 1959 and that kind of style..."
Nigel Harman - Mick

"I think when you are playing someone like this Aston, you have to really connect with the material, and I connected as soon as I read it.  However through the rehearsal process it has emerged, that Aston is much more complex than I thought..."
Con O'Neill - Aston

"I was still working in a factory as an apprentice engineer, and the theatre was my evening fun.  I was just doing it for a laugh and enjoying it, but not even thinking about it as a profession and nobody ever suggested it.  Until I joined this one group, where there was this bloke who said he was going to take me in hand, and get me into RADA.  I didn’t even know what RADA was! " 
David Bradley - Davies

"Thinking about the time period in relation to the show is a rule for when you are Stage Managing any play that is set in a specific period.  The Stage Management team, literally overnight, have to become curators of 1961 artefacts, nick naks and electrical equipment..."
Stage Management Team