The Birthday Party is 50

Justin Salinger and Sheila Hancock star in the Lyric's current production of The Birthday Party, which is directed by David Farr. Salinger plays Stanley, who is holed up in a boarding house run by Meg (Hancock) Photograph: Tristram Kenton

In the play, Stan is interrogated by two enigmatic guests named McCann and Goldberg (played by Lloyd Hutchinson and Nicholas Woodeson in the Lyric's revival). The identity of this mysterious pair is never fully explained - perhaps projections of his past guilt Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Critics savaged The Birthday Party when it was unveiled at the Lyric in 1958. It ran for only a handful of performances and Pinter momentarily considered giving up the idea of being a playwright. A rave review by Harold Hobson gave him hope Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Michel Bouquet and Madeleine Barbulee starred as the lodger and his landlady in a stark 1967 revival of The Birthday Party in Paris Photograph: Roger Viollet/Getty

Back in London in 1975, John Alderton played an edgy Stanley smothered by Anna Wing as Meg at the Shaw theatre Photograph: Donald Cooper

The 1975 production also starred Paula Wilcox as Lulu, who attracts the interest of the men in the boarding house Photograph: Corbis

Lisa Dulson is mauled by Timothy West in a 1999 production at London's Piccadilly theatre. West later enthused about Pinter's style of writing: 'a conventional playwright tries to tell you more about the characters than they know about themselves. Pinter wants you to know less about them, because you are an eavesdropper on something that you don't understand' Photograph: Tristram Kenton

The last major London production of The Birthday Party was in 2005, when Eileen Atkins played Meg at the Duchess theatre Photograph: Donald Cooper

The 2005 production, directed by Lindsay Posner, also starred Henry Goodman as Goldberg Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Fifty years on, Pinter's play remains a compelling proposition. 'It's possible to say,' the playwright told Michael Billington recently, 'that two people knocking at the door of someone's residence and terrorising them and taking them away has become more and more actual in our lives ... and that may be a reason for the play's long life. It's not fantasy. It just becomes more and more real.' Photograph: Eamonn McCabe