Harold Pinter's The Caretaker "Aston's Monologue"

I really want to know what he means by 'thats why I(pause)' after he talks about them doing the procedure standing up. I'm doing this for my A-levels, it was quite wierd at first but I'm loving it more each time I read it. Aston is just adorably innocent.

@arsenal902 Never thought of it that way...I like your thinking. Looking back, Aston did once smile at Davies when he was asleep, which I found quite bizzare and which could be interpreted as quite malicious, btw your comment could not have come at a better time, I could really use this persepective in my writing. so, thank you!

@LulTomIsL33T It's no metaphor. It's like when you doze off and suddenly wake yourself up. For Aston (and it really comes across in this lethargic performance), dozing off is like dying. If anything, "but I didn't die" is a *refusal* of an unbearable metaphor.

@BenjaminKemp95 yes they have lots of Harold Pinter scripts on mylazysundays . com

This for me is the definitive Aston performance. I keep returning to it. Douglas Hodge has given a sinisterly fragile interpretation too. Ten years or so ago.

Oh God that is so creepy! Im doing this for ALevel english and NONE of the creepiness is conveyed in writing, so lucky i came across this. Before i thought of Aston as a poor soul who'd suffered alot but now oh wow. He is geniunley crazy, the actor lets the crazy seep put slowly and what starts off as a tale of woe turns sinister when "The shed" all of a sudden becomes something scary. He has a sadistic look in his eyes. So annoyed there isnt enough revision notes etc. On this play.

love this monologue ...i am taking acting classes at the present i am gonna learn this monologue ...now fuck off

yes i dont think this could be better also wonderfully enhanced by the subtle camera movements and angles,lighting also the creepy electronic sounds as his monologue progresses.

As great as his monologue about the ship Indianapolis in JAWS.

Shaw rather reminds me of Rudolf Hess.

nice .

I know now that Jude Law copied Robert Shaw in his performance in the Road to Perdition.

compelling

Female doing this for year 12 major project?

Shaw was an astonishingly good actor. RIP.

Shaw. Pinter. Genius...

the greatest of actors for me magnetic and threatening and the same time

One of the best monologues ever existed in British Literature. This performance...Shaw is a great actor.

I can see where Shaw got his inspiration for his amazing Monologue in JAWS. What brilliant actor. WOW!!

Great monologue! Thank you for posting.

The only film in the world that can't be found. L lost my VHS copy. From around 1978 I guess. Whenever VHS came out. I missed a few minutes of the beginning when I recorded it. Wasn't the clearest. The only film worth finding can't be found.

A peak moment from one of my favorite films and favorite plays. What a superb, utterly perfect cast! Aside from Shaw's definitive performance and Donald Pleasance's eloquent listening, notice how carefully and simply Clive Donner directs the sequence. He lets the actors work with very little interference.

This guy is badass ,,,Rock On,,,,

Brillaint,,,only the Brits could do this,,,,Thank you cousins,,,,Eric Clapton loved this film

" In yer interest theres only wun curse a we cun take,,,,,thurs sumethin in yer "brain",,,Oh Golly Gee Thanks Guys! I can Ardly Wait !!!!!"

Red Grant opens up and bears his soul to his boss, Blofeld.

Shaw breaks my heart every time. I can't believe he's the same actor who was all "arrgghs and ham" as Quint in jaws. It's pitch perfect. Also, although I never had ect or a lobotomy, I did have an aneurism, and his regret over his changed brain....rings too true. I cry every time he does it.

shaw was a great actor

This is as far from Hollywood as you can get

I honestly believe this scene is the finest piece of acting Robert Shaw ever did, and I never saw him give a bad performance in anything .

***Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte, just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know... was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Heh.
They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. Y'know, it's... kinda like ol' squares in a battle like, uh, you see in a calendar, like the Battle of Waterloo, and the idea was, shark comes to the nearest man and that man, he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin', and sometimes the shark'd go away... sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. Y'know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'... until he bites ya. And those black eyes roll over white, and then... oh, then you hear that terrible high-pitch screamin', the ocean turns red, and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces.
Y'know, by the end of that first dawn... lost a hundred men. I dunno how many sharks. Maybe a thousand. I dunno how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland- baseball player, boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up... bobbed up and down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. Young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and come in low and three hours later, a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. Y'know, that was the time I was most frightened, waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a life jacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water, three hundred sixteen men come out, and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.
Anyway... we delivered the bomb.***

RIP Mr Shaw +

He brought some of this in the Jaws.

Shaw was very good

This is brilliant, completely brilliant. In my opinion much better than his Jaws monologue.

I never tire from watching the superlative acting of Robert Shaw. Love his novels too.... inspiring writer (or rather was); RIP

Doctor Fuckin Loomis in the house !!!!

Robert Shaw had such a powerful screen presence. He was a great actor. Great actors command attention and you just look at THEM in every scene. Richard Burton was the same. I saw David Suchet in "All My Sons". Another great actor with tremendous stage presence.

Monologue masterclass

Robert Shaw as Aston, astonishing performance!

Simply astonishing.

i cant Drink Guinness in a mug a thick mug you see,,..,, i didnt finish It:::::::.../\]//.,,,0lmnhgfdxcvg

This speech is absolutely harrowing. Reading that part of the play was the equivalent of getting punched very suddenly in the gut for me. I did not see it coming.

Damm what a great actor. 👍

reminds me of the birthday party

Very good enjoyed liked but pretty irked to find theres no link to the film with Robert Shaw in it Where can I watch the whole bloody thing that this is a part of please?! then I might suscribe

Great acting by all.

The master….

Just slowly draws you in like a moth to a flame.