Harold Pinter_No Man's Land_Bolsova Street Directions

Famous 'Bolsova Street' route direction scene from Pinter's 1974 mysterious and bleak play 'No Mans Land'. Clip taken from UK Granada's 1978 production featuring John Guilgud and Terence Rigby (with Ralph Richardson and Michael Kitchen as other pair in this four-hander). Apparently at the time, it was quite common for the directions to 'Bolsova Street' to be learnt and quoted as often as the better Python sketches!

[BRIGGS]
I was standing on a street corner.

A car drew up.

It was him.

He asked me the way
to Bolsover street.

I told him, Bolsover street, was
in the middle

of an intricate one-way system.

It was a one-way system
easy enough to get into.

The only trouble was that, once in,
you couldn’t get out.

I told him his best bet if he really
wanted to get to Bolsover Street

was to take the first left,
the first right, second right,

third on the left,

keep his eye open
for a hardware shop,

go right round the square,
keeping to the inside lane,

take the second Mews on the right
and then stop.

He'll find himself
facing a very tall office block,

with a crescent courtyard.

He can take advantage
of this tower block,

he can go round the crescent
to come out the other way,

follow the arrows,
go past two sets of traffic lights

and take the next left indicated by
the first green filter he comes across.

He’s got the Post Office Tower
in his vision the whole time.

All he’s got to do is to reverse
into the underground car park,

change gear, go straight on,
and he’ll find himself in Bolsover street:

with no trouble at all.

I did warn him, though,

that he will still be faced
with the problem,

having found Bolsover street,
of losing it.

I mean I told him I knew one or two people

who’d been wandering up and down
Bolsover street for years.

They wasted their bloody youth there.

The people who live there

their faces are grey,

they’re in a state of despair,

but nobody pays any attention, you see:

all people are worried about
are their ill-gotten gains.

I wrote to The Times about it.

Life At A Dead End, l called it.

It went for nothing.

Anyway, I told him that probably
the best thing he could do

was to forget the whole idea
of getting to Bolsover Street.

I remember saying to him,
this trip you've got in mind,

drop it, it could prove fatal.

But he said he had to deliver a parcel!.

Anyway, I went
to all this trouble with him

because he had a nice open face.

He looked like aman
who would do good to others himself.

Normally, I wouldn't give a fuck.