Krapp’s Last Tape / Godot’s To-Do List at the Royal Court Theatre

Before entering the Royal Court Theatre auditorium, we are asked to switch off our phones completely, as the show “is very quiet”, and even a vibration would prove distracting. Gary Oldman – returning to the stage after more than three decades with this production, which premiered last year at the York Theatre Royal – walks in, sits at his desk, and eats bananas. Extremely quiet indeed. No declamatory monologue, no breaking of the fourth wall, no sense of urgency. He is an ageing man searching through handwritten notes and boxes of numbered tape spools. There is a second character too, its bulky presence illuminated by the orange lamp at the centre of the room: a tape recorder.

The set design and props are arranged with meticulous precision to recreate an old, dusty studio. Malcolm Rippeth’s lighting is warm and carefully focused. It is a comforting space, yet eerie in the isolation it conveys: the cave of an intensely lonely man. And while the pleasure Krapp takes in eating two bananas in succession, along with his almost childlike delight in repeating the word “spool”, may endear him to the audience, what follows – his detached response to news from his mother’s nursing home, the breakdown of a love affair – paints the portrait of a man consumed by hubris.

The gravelly voice of Oldman emerges from the tape recorder in a meditative tone, savouring both the consonants and the very act of recording his thoughts. The words are delivered with rounded precision, while the memories of the 39-year-old Krapp are initially received with the crackling attentiveness of the 69-year-old man listening back. As the recollections turn towards that missed “chance at happiness”, Oldman’s present-day Krapp becomes stern: frustration takes hold, gestures grow deliberate, and a monumental stillness settles over the stage. It is a performance that permeates every muscle, every breath, every measured pause, to the point that even from the Circle, Oldman’s commanding presence is unmistakable. His stage persona contrasts the lonely heaviness of age with the boisterousness of his younger self, still self-centred and indulgent in memories not yet soured by time.

The measured pace of Krapp’s Last Tape feels even more striking when set against its curtain-raiser, Godot’s To-Do List by Leo Simpe-Asante (winner of the inaugural 2025 Royal Court Young Playwrights Award and the 2026 Jerwood New Playwright award). Vigorously performed by Shakeel Haakim, this short piece offers a comic and idealistic prequel to Waiting for Godot. Here too, a disembodied voice acts as an alterity interacting with the protagonist on stage, but unlike the subsequent act, the exchange is responsive and the rhythm dynamic, at times overlapping.

As part of the Royal Court Theatre’s 70^th anniversary programme, this double bill celebrates both the past and the future of Beckettian theatre, posing compelling questions about time, companionship, memory, and technology.