Stumped (On Demand)

Starring Stephen Tompkinson as Samuel Beckett and Andrew Lancel as Harold Pinter

Two great playwrights. One great game.

Available to watch on-demand from Tuesday 27 September - 27 September 2023.

Join us at the home of cricket for a darkly comic new play that celebrates two great men of theatre and their love of cricket. Follow by a post-show discussion with renowned theatre critic Michael Billington and cricket legend Mike Brearley.

A game of cricket
Two of the greatest playwrights
And maybe even time for some tea.

‘’...let’s sit upon the green and tell sad stories of the fall of batsmen…’’

Before Samuel Beckett was a writer, penning some of the most celebrated plays including his seminal work Waiting for Godot, he was a cricketer. He is still the only Nobel prize winner to feature in the pages of Wisden as a first-class cricket player. His good friend and fellow Nobel prize-winning author, Harold Pinter whose best know works include The Birthday Party and The Homecoming, described cricket as ‘the greatest thing that God created on earth’.

‘‘You’re a far better player—a better man—than I’ll ever be.’’

This brilliantly witty new play starring Stephen Tompkinson as Samual Beckett (Brassed Off, Drop the Dead Donkey, DCI Banks, Wild at Heart) and Andrew Lancel (The Bill, Coronation Street) as Harold Pinter, gives a wonderful insight into what the friendship between these two great men may have looked like. As well as being a beautiful tribute to their writing, the theatre of the absurd, and of course their love for the game of cricket.

‘‘They must remain, forever trapped... leg before wicket... in no man’s land’’