Our Pinter on Screen season at The Chiswick Cinema concluded on Sunday September 15th 2024, with The French Lieutenant’s Woman, the sixth of our monthly season of films written by Harold Pinter, who wrote The Caretaker while living in Chiswick. It was curated by Pinter’s biographer, Michael Billington, who also lives in Chiswick. Before the screening, Michael interviewed Jeremy Irons, who co-starred in it with Meryl Streep (photo above by Roger Green). See The Chiswick Calendar report. The previous Sunday he had interviewed Rupert Everett about The Comfort of Strangers.
Festival director Torin Douglas said: “Michael and I were delighted to be able to fulfil a promise we made to Lady Antonia Fraser, who was married to the playwright for 28 years. At the 2020 Festival, as reported by The Observer, Lady Antonia said Harold’s screen work deserved great recognition and she held out hope that it might be celebrated in a season of films for the general public. We said we’d try to make it happen and we’re very grateful to Chris Parker, the marketing manager of The Chiswick Cinema, for his support.”
Harold Pinter is one of Chiswick’s two winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and is featured on the Festival’s Writers Trail and Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books.
The season began on Saturday April 27th 2024 with a launch screening of the Joseph Losey-Harold Pinter thriller Accident, including a Q&A introduction with Michael Billington and a drinks reception afterwards. Further films were screened monthly on Sunday evenings.
Each September, the Chiswick Book Festival brings together top authors and their readers for a week of talks on a range of fiction, non-fiction and children’s books. It is a non-profit-making community event, raising money for three reading charities and St Michael & All Angels Church, which organises the festival with support from local businesses, media and many volunteers. Sign up here for news updates.
The 16th Chiswick Book Festival took place from September 11th to 18th 2024. See details and updates.