Ian Holm photo Ivan Kyncl

First performed at the Almeida Theatre, London 7 September 1993 and transferred to the Comedy Theatre November 1993

Andy - Ian Holm
Bel - Anna Massey
Jake - Dougals Hodge
Fred - Michael Sheen
Maria - Jill Johnson
Ralph - Edward de Souza
Bridget - Claire Skinner

Directed by David Leveaux

Designed by Bob Crowley

Review by Michael Billington
On a second viewing Harold Pinter's Moonlight with has made the now familiar journey from the Almeida to the Comedy, seems richer than ever. It is dominated still by the fear of dying and of estrangement from one's kin.
But more than before, it seems to be about the mutual hunger for contact between those separated either by the grave or by the unhealed wounds of family life.

Ian Holm and Anna Massey photo Ivan Kyncl

Ian Holm's magnificent, bedridden Andy still occuppies centre stage with his estranged sons to his right and his dead daughter Bridget occupying the space above. But it strikes me now that the two boys yearn for their father almost as much as he for them. Ian Holm's magnificent, bedridden Andy still occuppies centre stage with his estranged sons to his right and his dead daughter Bridget occupying the space above. But it strikes me now that the two boys yearn for their father almost as much as he for them.

They parody his Establishment world, talk incessantly of fathers and in the heartaching moment when their mother finally rings them, seem to long to break through the silence. And in a significant departure form the original script the ghostly Bridget (Claire Skinner) now ventures sadly int her father's sick room while he stumbes around in the upper storey looking for a drink.
It thus becomes an even more moving play about the desperate hunger for commmunication between the members of a divided family and between the living and the dead.
David Leveaux's production has lost nothing by the transfer.
And the acting is uniformly excellent; not just Ian Holm's apprehensive terror but Anna Massey's flickering comapssion for the loud-mouthed partner, Douglas Hodge adn Michael Sheen's buried hurt as the games-playing sons and Edward de Souza's four-square hilarity as the amateur soccer referee whose impotent whistle was sidely ignored. A marvellous evening marred only by the many mid-stalls cougher who could probably be heard within a two-mile radius.

The Guardian 23 November 1993