SOURCE: “Pinter's Errors,” in The Spectator, London, June 11, 1965, pp. 755, 758.

In the following review, Benedictus suggests that The Homecoming is a metaphorical representation of Pinter's relation to playwriting and to his audience.

Surely Mr. Harold Pinter is something more than a practical joker. His new play The Homecoming is surely something more than the squalid scenario which a synopsis suggests—unless the confusion over The Homecoming is not simply in the minds of his critics, but a confusion in his own mind as well? Surely not.

There is no confusion about the narrative. Teddy, who has been six years at an American university, where he has acquired a doctorate of philosophy, returns for a brief visit to his family in their sordid but spacious house in London. The family consists of Max, the irascible paterfamilias, Sam, the chauffeur uncle, and Teddy's two brothers, Lenny, the sly one, the pimp...