Betrayal

Harold Pinter’s 1978 account of a faded adulterous affair, told more or less backwards, is both touching and intimate in Ian Rickson’s sensitive production.

At its heart is Kristin Scott Thomas, growing younger gracefully as Emma, gallery-running wife of publisher Robert (Ben Miles, conveying the pent-up potential for violence beneath a cultured exterior) and, for seven years, mistress of literary agent Jerry, her husband’s oldest – and married – friend.

Douglas Henshall’s Jerry struggles to convey the subtleties of his character, but this detracts only marginally from an emotionally acute 90 minutes (based on Pinter’s own adulterous liaison) which  travels back through layers of deception – from stilted small talk to the first portentous kiss nine years earlier. Louise kingsley

Comedy, Panton Street, SW1Y 4DN
0844 871 7622
Tube: Piccadilly Circus
betrayaltheplay.com
Until August 20
£20 – £49.50