The Old Tune

by Samuel Beckett

The Play

&

Reviews

Royal Oak
Theatre

"Samuel Beckett would love the environs. An enclosed space in the basement of a bar. A bar that has shut to allow two people to speak on the subject of drying up.

There are two men in greasepaint on the lamplit part of the basement bar. Mr Cream (David Hegarty) and Mr Gorman (Viet Muller) are taking time and lives apart in order to have enervatingly selective-memories.

"A chip off the old black," says the hoarse member of the pair. It is unintentional humour. It is the Irishman's lazy translation, to commission, of Robert Pinget's novel La Manivelle in the Fifties. It was eventually published as a play in 1963.

This is elemental Fringe. No budget, high purpose, short run, In performance dedication to endeavour rather than commercial imperative. Strong stuff."