Beckett Double Bill Krapps Last Tape The Old Tune

Krapps Last Tape James Hayes uses his natural Irish accent to deliver the best known of these works a meditation on ageing He plays the eponymous Krapp a sad lonely man recollecting emotion in tranquility with the assistance of a reel to reel tape recorder Now somewhere near 70 he is reminded of the past as a recording of his 39yearold self recalls life a dozen years before As such we are able to glimpse the hope of relative youth the acceptance of middle age failure and the resignation of an old man The Old Tune It features two old men sitting on a park bench next to a hurdygurdy and almost inevitably brings to mind the song from Gigi I Remember It Well As cars pass irritating the men who fondly remember the days of horsedrawn carriages every statement delivered by either Niall Buggy or David Threlfall playing the grumpy septuagenarians is instantly contradicted by his fellow often to great humorous effect