Wikipedia
Victoria Station consists of a radio dialogue between a minicab controller (or dispatcher) and a driver (#274) who is stopped by the side of "a dark park" in Crystal Palace, supposedly waiting further instructions. The stage directions Lights up on office. CONTROLLER sitting at microphone and Lights up on DRIVER in car (45) alternate between these settings.
The controller attempts to instruct the driver to pick up a client from Victoria Station, but the driver declines to move, focusing on his current client (who is apparently unmoving, perhaps even dead, in the back seat). The Controller's mood shifts through various degrees of mystification towards irritation and then possibly compassion masking some more nefarious intention of what to do with this Driver.
Lasting fewer than ten minutes, the play's tone is mostly comic, as the Controller becomes more and more frantic at the Driver's recalcitrance; however, as the play develops, the Controller's orders become increasingly ominous threats: "Drop your passenger. Drop your passenger at his chosen destination and proceed to Victoria Station. Otherwise I'll destroy you bone by bone. I'll suck you in and blow you out in little bubbles. I'll chew your stomach out with my own teeth. I'll eat all the hair off your body. You'll end up looking like a pipe cleaner? Get me?" (58). But Driver reveals that this client is a young female with whom has "fallen in love" (possibly "for the first time") and from whom he refuses to part, imagining that he will even marry her and that they will "die together in this car", despite the previous admission that he is already married to a wife probably "asleep in bed" and the father of (perhaps) "a little daughter"—"Yes, I think that's what she is" (55).
The play becomes more somber in tone, as the Controller tries to assure the fearfully insecure Driver that all will be fine, finally cajoling him to "stay exactly where" he is, as the Controller prepares to leave "this miserable freezing F***ing office"—obsessed in turn by the Driver and the fact that "nobody loves me"—in search of him, saying that he imagines them sharing a holiday together on Barbados (59). In response to the Driver's repeated plea, "Don't leave me" (53–54), the Controller may be prepared to "help" him (as he insists), but one may still wonder if he might actually retain some more menacing possibility (60–62).
'Victoria Station consists of a radio dialogue between a minicab controller (or dispatcher) and a driver (#274) who is stopped by the side of "a dark park" in Crystal Palace, supposedly waiting further instructions. The stage directions Lights up on office. CONTROLLER sitting at microphone and Lights up on DRIVER in car (45) alternate between these settings.
The controller attempts to instruct the driver to pick up a client from Victoria Station, but the driver declines to move, focusing on his current client (who is apparently unmoving,
perhaps even dead, in the back seat). The Controller's mood shifts through various degrees of mystification towards irritation and then possibly compassion masking some more nefarious intention of what to do with this Driver.
Lasting fewer than ten minutes, the play's tone is mostly comic, as the Controller becomes more and more frantic at the Driver's recalcitrance; however, as the play develops, the Controller's orders become increasingly ominous threats: "Drop your passenger. Drop your passenger at his chosen destination and proceed to Victoria Station. Otherwise I'll destroy you bone by bone. I'll suck you in and blow you out in little bubbles. I'll chew your stomach out with my own teeth. I'll eat all the hair off your body. You'll end up looking like a pipe cleaner? Get me?" (58). But Driver reveals that this
client is a young female with whom has "fallen in love" (possibly "for the first time") and from whom he refuses to part, imagining that he will even marry her and that they will "die together in this car", despite the previous admission that he is already married to a wife probably "asleep in bed" and the father of (perhaps) "
a little daughter"—"Yes, I think that's what she is" (55).
The play becomes more somber in tone, as the Controller tries to assure the fearfully insecure Driver that all will be fine, finally cajoling him to "stay exactly where" he is, as the Controller prepares to leave "this miserable freezing f***ing office"—obsessed in turn by the Driver and the fact that "nobody loves me"—in search of him, saying that he imagines them sharing a holiday together on Barbados (59). In response to the Driver's repeated plea, "Don't leave me" (53–54), the Controller may be prepared to "help" him (as he insists), but one may still wonder if he might actually retain some more
menacing possibility (60–62).'
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An intriguing little piece of work that conjures up lots of questions and differing interpretations.
I have viewed it 3 times now and I am still not sure!!!
However I do think that the girl in the back of the car is dead. I also believe the girl to be a child rather than a woman. The 'dark park', the swing with no child on it, his filthy fingernails (long blond hair could apply also). He refers to having 'fallen in love' with the girl in the back seat. He does not say woman.
Another possibility is that the controller and the driver are one and the same person (obviously over a different time period). The morphing of the faces could highlight this. That might account for a difference in time frame. Perhaps he is having a nervous breakdown because he cannot cope with his guilty secret. Perhaps the Mondeo represents a prison cell as does the cab office. Therefore he may have been beaten up in prison for his crime(s).
Or (it's obvious that the controller had had a bang on the head) perhaps he is hallucinating and imagining it all ( out of sync). After all, he sees 3 other people in the office and then they are not there. The phones never ring!! Although he attempts to contact other drivers, he never speaks to anyone else but 274.
Also the guy who is 'waiting' to be collected from Victoria Station is a fisherman carrying rods. Why are there fishing rods in the taxi office? The controller also had pictures of children on his desk area.
Gets more and more intriguing by the minute.
Pinter appears to be 'showing' rather than 'telling' and then leaving the rest to the viewer.
One thing remains constant though throughout - Rufus' voice is just amazing and expressive. No surprise there.
when Rufus says "I think I've fallen in love for the first time in my life"? Because I most certainly did 
)
