By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The Caretaker was Harold Pinter’s first successful play, first staged in 1960 in London. The play is a subtle exploration of madness, power, and the inertia at the core of many people’s lives. But because The Caretaker is such a subtle piece of theatre, it might be worth recapping the plot of the play (if we can call it a ‘plot’ as such) before proceeding to an analysis of its themes.