(Michael Billington’s article appeared in the Guardian, 11/29.)

Harold Pinter was a born letter writer. In later years his communications, at least to me as his biographer, largely took the form of cryptic postcards. Often they accompanied the text of a new play, or poem, and would simply say, in his boldly assertive hand, “Here it is.” But, in his 20s, Pinter wrote long letters to the close friends of his Hackney youth and a tranche of them has been acquired by the British Library from Henry Woolf and the estate of the late Mick Goldstein. From a brief sampling of them several things emerge: Pinter’s enduring capacity for friendship, his instinctive appreciation of Samuel Beckett and his passionate love of cricket.

None of this may surprise us, but it is fascinating to have it so richly confirmed by the letters; and the mere fact of their existence is testament to Pinter’s life-long devotion to his Hackney pals. In the immediate postwar years, a gang of them – including Pinter, Woolf, Goldstein and Moishe Wernick – would sit in Hackney cafes, endlessly argue and exchange ideas and go on whatever cultural jaunts they could afford. Although it was a democratic group, Pinter instinctively assumed the role of leader of the pack. As Woolf wrote in a moving essay in the memorial volume of the annual Pinter Review: “Without a penny in his pocket, he still lit up the world like a glow torch: when he wasn’t introducing us to Beckett or Henry Miller, he was dragging us off to see avant-garde movies like Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou and we roamed around Hackney spouting Dylan Thomas or John Webster’s The White Devil.”

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/nov/29/harold-pinter-and-the-hackney-gang

(Tom Ward’s article appeared in Esquire Weekly, UK, 11/4, via Pam Green.)

When I was 25, I wish I’d know how easy it is to be out. I think my life started when I was 49. It was like discovering religion and being born again. The person who encouraged me to do so was Armistead Maupin, author of Tales Of The City. It was the best advice I've ever had, for my life and my career.

Some relationships get easier as you get older, depending on what sort of person you are. I don’t think I’ve got any better at them.

I like sleeping a lot. I was asleep half an hour ago. My friend said I enjoy it because I don’t want to face up to the world.

Self presentation is something we all care about. Once human beings start wearing clothes or cutting their hair – neither of them particularly natural things to do – then you are making decisions as to how you look and how you want people to think.

http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/article/7281/ian-mckellen-interview-what-ive-learned/

(Jeremy Egner’s article appeared in The New York Times, 11/20, via Pam Green.)

Mike Nichols, one of the few directors to achieve commercial and critical success in Hollywood and on Broadway, died on Wednesday. He was 83.

Mr. Nichols oversaw an impressive array of films, plays and television programs, including “The Graduate” in 1967, the Neil Simon play “The Odd Couple” in 1965 and the HBO adaptation of “Angels in America” in 2003. As recently as 2012, he won a Tony for directing a celebrated revival of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.”

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/remembering-mike-nichols/?_r=0

(Jennifer Schuessler’s article appeared in The New York Times, 11/25.)

First folios of Shakespeare’s plays are among the world’s rarest books, intensely scrutinized by scholars for what their sometimes-minute variations — each copy is different — reveal about the playwright’s intentions.

Now a previously unknown folio has surfaced at a small library in northern France, bringing the world’s known total of surviving first folios to 233.

“This is huge,” said Eric Rasmussen, an American Shakespeare expert who traveled to France over the weekend to authenticate the volume. “First folios don’t turn up very often, and when they do, it’s usually a really chewed up, uninteresting copy. But this one is magnificent.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/26/arts/shakespeare-folio-discovered-in-france-.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A8%22%7D