WITH this offering, Jamie Lloyd conclusively proves himself the supremo when it comes to interpreting Harold Pinter’s plays.

Having treated us for six months to a brilliant rendition of more than 20 of the playwright’s short plays and monologues, he now turns to the full-length drama that many regard as Pinter’s masterpiece.

Simple, sparse and easy to follow, while original in form and style, this production’s cast of three splendid actors mark Betrayal out as a jewel.

Based on Pinter’s own affair with journalist and TV presenter Joan Bakewell, the action is played in reverse so that it begins after the affair has ended and then dissect its poisonous past through to its beginning.

The very word “affair” has connotations, suggesting passion with limitations — a rebellion against the humdrum but with its own stultifying rules.

Perhaps inadvertently, Pinter reveals that an affair is for the well-off who can find the time and money for liaisons that are not extraordinary but symptomatic of a pattern of duplicitousness endemic to a particular class and stemming not from a bid for freedom but from a kind of conformism.

It’s a rot in all the moral pretensions of the well-to-do.

In Betrayal,  Jerry has an affair with Emma, mainly in a flat they’ve casually bought in Kilburn. Emma is Robert’s wife. Robert is Jerry’s best friend. You’d expect fireworks. But this is the world of the stiff upper lip where “civilised” conversation suppresses even the darkest of deeds. This is Pinter’s stronghold, where words are significant, not for what they say, but for what they hide.

When Robert tells Jerry he’s known about the affair all along, Jerry asks in astonishment: “Why didn’t you tell me?’ and then, with almost unfettered indignation: “You’re my best friend!” The bitterest of ironies hangs in the air between them like the spores of dry rot in a timbered house. And the betrayer, himself, feels betrayed. But nothing changes.

All three characters are on stage all the time and the powerful use of their silhouettes on the pale, dappled walls accentuates the ephemeral nature of relationships, their fluidity and the un-solid ground on which they stand.

Zawe Ashton and Charlie Cox as Emma and Jerry give beautifully controlled performances and are riveting in their emotional restraint. Tom Hiddlestone, statuesque yet vulnerable, holds the eye at all times, whether stabbing at his Italian starter as though they were Jerry’s eyes or sitting motionless on a chair in paternal affection as his beautiful child nestles against him. The  performance of a lifetime.

But it is Lloyd’s vision that really sets this production on a pedestal with its intellectual precision, piercing clarity and detailed choreography. Pinter surely would have been delighted.

Runs until June 1, box office: pinteratthepinter.com.