Harold Pinter’s 1960 drama The Caretaker is one of those classics that seems to have fallen off the to-do list. Sydney hasn’t seen a mainstage production of the play for 20 years (the last being Belvoir’s in 2002).

This production, directed by Ian Sinclair, serves as a reminder of The Caretaker’s unsettlingly timeless qualities, of its enduring influence on later generations of playwrights, and of the singular comic genius of actor Darren Gilshenan.

Darren Gilshenan and Anthony Gooley in The Caretaker, Ensemble Theatre, 2022. Photo © Prudence Upton

He is Davies, a homeless tramp rescued from a back lane beating (deserved, probably) by the mild-mannered Aston (Anthony Gooley), who offers him the spare bed in his dingy London flat.

Davies is grateful, yet immediately on the look-out for any kind of advantage, any chance to deepen the tiny foothold he has been granted. He quickly pegs Aston – who later reveals he has spent time in a mental health facility – as an easy mark.

But Davies doesn’t count on the arrival of Aston’s younger brother, Mick (Henry Nixon), a loquacious bully boy possessed of an entrepreneurial spirit and a quixotic temper,...