Colin Firth's Celebratory Dinner in Town :) /''Celebration'' (2007)

One-act, shocking, dark play by British playwright Harold Pinter, full of sarcasm and satire, about three couples dining in the most expensive restaurant in town. TV play with Penelope Wilton, Colin Firth, Michael Gambon, Janie Dee, James Fox (2007).

[@shortcuts-YT]

Filmed at the Astor Grill in Soho.

[@Johnconno]

The cheese is superb. Goat.

[@marxmovies6607]

Brilliant, wonderful, great... Each second. Thank you.

[@kategowen1156]

This plays like the greatest actors’ challenge to not break character EVER.!

[@flight101]

I never fell out of love with colin firth since i was a out 12

[@chrisjenkinson7059]

Superb play. What a cast!

[@BaronMichaelDeBlone1066]

Wonderful cast and performance.

[@kevinchambers1609]

There is no way I could have watched this in the movies, I would have been laughing to hard.

[@zeffiraananas3999]

oh, Kevin!, you most definitely could have … and had company. Why insist on all being silent in the cinema… if you ( they ) demand silence, watch the thing at home.

[@cowboynyc]

ABSOLUTELY! In the theater, I would be laughing so hard that I would have been begging them to stop--"Please, please, stop, I can't breathe, let me breathe!" But it was KZbin, so I could hit "stop." The only other similar experience would have been the parody of "Les Miz" in "Forbidden Broadway." It was right before the intermission and I couldn't stop laughing, at least halfway through the 15-minute pause. My ex-wife thought she might have to throw a pitcher of cold water on me to make me stop.

[@Johnconno]

​@@cowboynycGood looking woman? Your wife I mean.

[@nobredalto]

This is the funniest play I've ever read, so I had to watch it :)

[@scottishgirl8259]

Ya know.... the only person on Earth who can't fully appreciate the unbelievable gorgeousness of Firth, is Firth himself. For that I pity him, he's really missing out.

[@livl5168]

At least he can admire Hugh grant

[@weedygarden]

@@livl5168 LOL!

[@Sapharone]

​@@livl5168😂

[@Iryna61]

Love Colin Firth.... such a great actor!

[@malcolmallen6994]

Absolutely brilliant .I'm just enjoying watching a wonderful dvd box set of Pinter plays called Pinter at the BBC and it jogged my memory of this play .Thanks for uploading this one.

[@timcharles5476]

Michael Gambon is spellbinding: perfect in Pinter as he was in Beckett. RIP Great ensemble acting, like a string quartet.

[@Monklane79]

This is right up there with my very favourite Pinter and it's lovely to see it again. Thank you.

[@cowboynyc]

I'm an American, but Harold Pinter always made perfect sense to me. I'm from the South, so I always "got" Tennessee Williams. I respected and admired Arthur Miller, but I didn't "get" him until I'd lived in New York for ten years. (Funny enough, I'm from Texas, but reading a Sam Shepard play is always bewildering to me--then when I see it onstage, I'm "Oh, THAT'S what it's about.")

[@joepalooka2145]

Wonderful in every way, hilarious and outrageous and crazy and totally human.

[@lawsonj39]

This reminds me of an interview with Eric Clapton where he said that back in the 60s he and his mates used to laugh their heads off at Pinter's plays.

[@forgive7449]

....do you mind if i interject but my grandfather was the drummer with eric clapton and.....

[@pipunaskrikuna]

This was absolutely brilliant 😂

[@punkinthepup]

FANTASTIC, I HADE THE GREATEST TIME LAUGHING ALONG WITH ALL THE SARCASM

[@forgive7449]

"....you're a prick...." 😃

[@tomkent4656]

@@forgive7449 Prig, I think.

[@renukaamarasinghe6633]

Love Colin Firth.... such a great actor

[@forgive7449]

".....do you mind if I interject but i thought you might be interested to know that my grandfather knew Colin Firth when he was a nipper and...."

[@annaverine]

Thank you so much for post this tv show with great actors and particularly Colin Firth, i wait for this for a long long time !!!! :-)

[@ColinTheFirth]

Thank you, you are very welcome!

[@margaretfarquhar9567]

How clever and hilarious. British writers and actors are the best. Find it difficult to watch anything else

[@serenityinside1]

They are ! 🇬🇧🇬🇧

[@abcdoetmee]

thanks for uploading!!

[@ColinTheFirth]

You are very welcome.

[@salvob7224]

Thank you so much for this piece of work! Truly!

[@ColinTheFirth]

Thank you so much!

[@cowboynyc]

@@ColinTheFirth Mr. Firth, you were terrific, but I've been in love with Penelope Wilton ever since she played Vivie to Coral Browne's Mrs. Warren, and I always want to see her do more.

[@marxmovies6607]

Wow! What a great time I am having right now. Thank you. I go on...

[@catlucky9815]

Colin with is Hampshire accent. This is how he talked growing up. Love it.

[@lookingforlove7811]

Show me any film with Colin Firth in it, and I will enjoy it. I love Colin Firth, the actor.

[@weedygarden]

Me, too. In fact, I am on a quest to see all of his movies.

[@weedygarden]

From what I can tell, he is a wonderful human being as well.

[@jarisalonen7788]

No no nou. You know! Jeremy Irons is the Greatest. As such.

[@jarisalonen7788]

...more than drippings of mi nose

[@iloveyoufromthedepthofmyheart]

@@weedygarden That is exactly what gets me! I can sense that too, he is such a sweetheart, such a gent.

[@scottishgirl8259]

I believe in ya Colin. Running out for some filing cabinets...... brb...

[@flightofthebumblebee9529]

Colin Firth is excellent

[@artfulattributes8676]

"In that respect he was like Jesus Christ" Lol! Fkin brilliant.

[@voxpopuval]

Out LOUD!

[@SouthernGospelLady]

Oh my gosh, this is hilarious 😂

[@StephenGrew]

What a peculiar dramatic trifle.

[@alllowercase6277]

Pinter on fire. Pinter in flames. Pinter went out with a bang!

[@forgive7449]

....may i interject but my grandfather knew harold pinter and...

[@alllowercase6277]

@@forgive7449 ha..cool...

[@isabellas.c.scanderbeg2670]

Masterpiece ✨✨✨

[@chanelcampbell1633]

The black actress is so pretty

[@lawsonj39]

Her enunciation reminds me of Diana Rigg.

[@tooleyheadbang4239]

@@lawsonj39 Very much so.

[@cowboynyc]

Miss Okunedo played Cleopatra to Ralph Fiennes' Antony later.

[@nicholasalexander4743]

@@cowboynyc Is that acceptable?

[@geridayao8924]

What a quaint little restaurant where its the waiters that give customers the tip.

[@AltavanWyk-l8j]

They all sound like Michael Caine. :)

[@leslunchco]

If Harold Pinter had only written this he would have earned his Nobel Prize! Full marks for recasting, though. The script does not mention the age of the characters and though I didn't see the original stage production I'm sure that Keith Allen, Andy de la Tour and Danny Dyer were not as good as Michael Gambon, James Bolam and Stephen Rea were in this performance.

[@zeffiraananas3999]

Gawd, Pinter’s hilarious

[@voxpopuval]

Hilarious with saber!

[@livl5168]

Colina very funny in this (and in everything else)

[@EuphoniaPooch]

That was very good. Lovely to have been able to see it here. Here with all of you. Cheers

[@TimonofBath]

This production always makes me throw up laughing.

[@leovaughan1902]

That's grat love this program grat thanks for that 👍 😀

[@catlucky9815]

Colin sounds like Michael Caine .

[@felicitybraxx9394]

Best ever

[@simonlarkin4197]

Gambon upstaged nearly everyone except Rea's insane waiter 🤣 cant say I was impressed by Firth at all🤔

[@agerray]

What is the meaning of "I've got one under the table" at 4.12m?

[@tomkent4656]

Pinter at his best.

[@seanstrygg]

This is how they should have done the Poseidon Adventure - except nobody would get rescued.

[@Garbageman28]

Gambon channeling Spica here

[@GhergheiCarmen]

🎉🎉🎉

[@fionabryant7923]

Gorgeous

[@mrminer071166]

Dylan Thomas knew my father. My father knew Dylan Thomas.

[@theboogie_monsta]

Sexy Beast came out a year later.

[@annieh.8175]

What on earth are you people talking about? I have absolutely NO clue!

[@annieh.8175]

@K Sjodin Thanks - well what do I know all tucked away in California besides that I am absolutely crazy about Colin!!!

[@anonymouspeacefulperson6199]

ANNIE H. Is that what you do talking dirty to your husband Mark Darcy ? I have never thought about seduction of a man like that???? Too naive!!!!! Julia Mackenzie took on the role of Michaels mother, Grace Gibbons. Looks like a trip to Miss Saigon with Lucy Moore and Tom lol Colin’s conversation looks like a trip to Les Miserable when we went on a Virgin deal up to the west end for our anniversary with Mark Antony Adam Leah Su! 😂 🎭 the guy at the end, Jackson Colin looks like Ritchie Lionel pasha in 1991!

[@annieh.8175]

Yes, WHAT on earth are you people talking about? I never saw Colin’s ‘Celebratory Dinner in Town’ or remarked on it!

[@cowboynyc]

Well, darling, some people "get" Harold Pinter, some people "get" Tennessee Williams, some people "get" Arthur Miller, some people "get" Sam Shepard--and some people don't.

[@tomkent4656]

In Vino Veritas.

[@emilywest1302]

Eck, this is a lot of drunken banter. Colin Firth looks beautifully colorless and his wife suitably tarty. The waiter is just about to say something meaningful but like the boat it slips away

[@tooleyheadbang4239]

That's Pinter summed-up to a 'T'.

[@cowboynyc]

@@tooleyheadbang4239 Well, you can both just BE THAT WAY.

[@Victoria-gq8gt]

Agreed.

[@danny1682]

Interesting, Pinter always has one character who needs mental help.

[@jessicajohn1962]

Overthetop

[@forgive7449]

you loved every minute 😉

[@来生玉英]

す

[@charlieprice3881]

A masterpiece.

[@susanbinzer3395]

I don't know pinter much and have no desire to, after this waste of my time. I'm reading all the praise here but would love if someone could xplain what's so great Abt this play?!

[@charlieprice3881]

@@susanbinzer3395 Lots of people don't get Pinter, it's understandable, his way of making drama is disorientating and strange. Personally I have a soft spot for the weird, irreal, and uncanny. This play is summative of Pinter's achievement in the theatre, it's dark, it's very funny, the dialogue often contains a deliberate mix of menace, irrelevance, verbosity, surrealism, and false bon homie. It's about people out at a resteraunt, he's clearly interested in a space which concentrates men and women's relationships, and brings gender and sexuality into sharper relief (a lot of people there are going to go home and have sex after all) but the play also explores Pinter's long established notion that characters speak to uphold or guard their status within a room, while conflicts simmer underneath. Pinter is expert at threading mistreatment and betrayal into a supposed ordinary, as comic as it is menacing. This is his last play, it is itself a celebration, and a swan song, of one who believed that the essence and the flame of life is beautiful but that human beings so often betray its spirit. This is a play about how cracks show in relationships, it allows its audience to experience what arrogance, falsehood, and nastiness, feel like when they are utilised, particularly by men, there is a certain keen almost Hitchcokian sense of awe and jealousy at the powers of female sexuality. Pinter always defies analysis, it is too easy to project things onto him that are not there. He would say it's a play about people at a resteraunt, two old couples celebrating a wedding anniversary, a younger couple at their own table, they all meet right at the end, all the while they are served by three waiters. What transpires between them, what possibly can transpire between them, but the stuff of life: humour, love, lust, disappointment, anger, betrayal, sadness, joy. This play is nutritious with vitality, and its ending never fails to move me, the waiter who is both a part of life and yet somehow hopelessly removed from it (a common kind of Pinteresque character). I'll never forget when I saw it at the theatre, the Pinter Theatre Festival of One Act Plays. My advice is to try and enjoy the oddness, try and find the noise human beings make funny, their fixations and idiosyncrasies, M. Esslin is very good on this in Theatre of the Absurd, language is Pinter's way of holding the mirror up to nature, his English audience recognise the idiomatic and surreal use of language in an everyday way and feel forced to confront what they are, as his characters act. I recommend The Birthday Party, The Hothouse, A Slight Ache, and Betrayal (this last one is in particular a good start). Some of the writing in No Man's Land is sublime but that's a more difficult play I think.

[@susanbinzer3395]

​@@charlieprice3881 thx so much 4 taking the time! I'm gonna have to read ur notes several times to comprehend but trust me I will. Have already watched play twice not sure I ve patience for many more viewings.

[@alw2213]

Why does Colin always look so grumpy in movies? 😂😂

[@Victoria-gq8gt]

Lots of profanity, vulgar shock statements and wildly implausible interactions and revelations. And nothing meaningful. Transparently straining to be clever (as is every appearing character), but it's far far from that. It's irritating, passe and boring. Reminds me of Guy Ritchie's dated faux East Ender verbiage. Cringe.

[@tooleyheadbang4239]

Jesus Christ! Why do so many top actors go along with Pinter's tedious gobbledegook?

[@cowboynyc]

Because, darling, when they say Pinter's words, the audience laughs so hard they fall on the floor. In a real theater surrounded by a real audience, you might understand.

[@neilinely]

Perhaps because they understand it and you don't?