Strategy consultant is a 21st-century trade if ever there was one. That wily old fox Harold Pinter knew as much – though he had no idea Celebration would be his last play when he wrote it and how accurate its portrayal of bourgeois life would continue to be.

Groups of diners at an expensive and upmarket restaurant compare material success. They are in desperate need of validation – despite the fact they are gathered to celebrate a wedding anniversary.

A pair of thuggish brothers married to a pair of sisters are later joined by another married couple, a banker and his trophy wife.

“Celebration stands out of all the short plays that I’ve read of his,” explains Tim McQuillen-Wright, who is directing a new production of the play Pinter wrote in 1999.

“It feels incredibly honest in that this is Pinter writing as somebody who actually wants to entertain himself as much as anybody else and you can see he is having fun.

“I certainly don’t want to suggest he knew it was going to be the last thing he wrote but there is a relish he takes in every line. He has a real joy in toying with intricacies of dialogue and the audience’s response.”

Though there are the class issues, the core theme is love.

Brighton’s New Venture Theatre (NVT) has combined Celebration with another one-act play filled with black humour, The Lover.

Both deal with extra-marital affairs.

“It is something which is dealt with repeatedly in Celebration. We are led into questioning the history of just about every character and whether they have had liaisons with each other.

“It is not as cliched as that and certainly never would be with Pinter – in that you would be trying to match up one with another – but it is certainly looking beyond the premise of celebrating a marriage.”

It investigates how people were before they met. How we might react to our spouse on acknowledging they may have had relationships before – and that is not always comfortable. Then you have the issue of, “at what point during a marriage does it become acceptable to start talking about previous relationships? That was the thematic link which brought the plays together.”

Neither contains the lingering silences which people often associate with Pinter. Done wrong in a bad production, the moody moments of silence can alienate the audience.

McQuillen-Wright believes Celebration and The Lover, which will be directed by Kevin Moore, “are a nice way of showing the man is wickedly clever and his dialogue is as sharp and cutting as any modern comedy you could hope for”.

“They show him off extremely well without alienating the hardcore fans and those who are expecting long pauses – all those things people level at Pinter often and usually very unfairly.

“He does have a lot of pauses sometimes. But it’s often that they’ve seen one bad production of Pinter and that it will all be three people standing on stage for ten minutes before the next line appears.”

McQuillen-Wright, who has a cast of nine to direct in Celebration, has previously directed Art in 2009 and Of Mice And Men in 2011 at New Venture Theatre.

“I’m a theatre designer by trade so I get out and about quite a lot.

“I just so enjoy directing and the NVT gives me the opportunity to explore plays that aren’t normally commercially available.”

  • The Lover and Celebration are at New Venture Theatre, Bedford Place, Brighton, from Saturday, June 22, to Saturday, June 29. Starts 7.45pm, Sunday matinees 2.30pm. Tickets £9. Call 01273 746118