text: Hirst is an alcoholic upper-class litterateur who lives in a grand house presumed to be in Hampstead, with Foster and Briggs, respectively his purported amanuensis and man servant (or apparent bodyguard), who may be lovers. Spooner, a "failed, down-at-heel poet" whom Hirst has "picked up in a Hampstead pub" and invited home for a drink, becomes Hirst's house guest for the night; claiming to be a fellow poet, through a contest of at least-partly fantastic reminiscences, he appears to have known Hirst at university and to have shared male and female acquaintances and relationships. The four characters are named after cricket players. It has been suggested that Spooner was originally inspired by the poet Eddie Linden, whom Pinter knew.
  Plot synopsis
  Act 1
  In the 1970s, Hirst, an ageing man of means begins a night of heavy drinking in his drawing room with an anonymous peer whom he only just met at a pub. Hirst's talkative and somewhat disheveled guest, calling himself a poet, long-windedly explains how he is penetratingly perceptive, until he finally introduces himself as "Spooner". The pair becomes increasingly intoxicated, Hirst remaining quiet as Spooner rambles on, culminating in his taunting Hirst's masculinity and wife. Suddenly, Hirst rises and throws his glass, merely commenting "No man's land...does not move...or change...or grow old...remains...forever...icy...silent", before collapsing twice and crawling out of the room. Two domestic employees of Hirst's, younger men named Foster and Briggs, enter, talk aimlessly, and question Spooner, who now becomes the softspoken man in the room.