Krapp’s Last Tape starring Gary Oldman - York Theatre Royal

Not sure it would be that hot a ticket; and I'd be very disappointed if TR York massively increased ticket prices in anticipation of unlimited demand.  My first thought was that this was just an actor wanting to go back to his roots.  There will be a sizeable number of people who'd pay to see Gary Oldman read the phonebook but there will also be lots of people who wouldn't go to a Beckett monologue no matter how big a star the performer is. I saw Richard Wilson give a decent performance as Krapp in the tiny studio at Sheffield Crucible.  Ok, he's not quite the huge international star Oldman is (and Polly Findlay's direction didn't help) but he is still a very big name and I don't remember tickets being very expensive or hard to book.   Speaking just for myself, I'd be less inclined to go to Yorkshire to see Oldman in this than I was to see Wilson.

I DON’T BELIEVE IT!

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist 🤣)

On sale 16 Nov.

And there is our ray of sunshine right on time.

As I recall from seeing Gambon do it at the Duchess, the runtime was less than an hour.

It was a really sad, lonely and meaningful hour.

I saw Gambon do this and can’t remember that much about it (apart from Dawn French and Gok Wan in front of me on the way out of the theatre) this and Eh Joe that I also saw him do were in that stage where he couldn’t remember lines, if you can’t get tickets for the first few rows for this, I wouldn’t bother as otherwise you’ll just be listening to those tapes.

I actually acted in this decades ago with an uncooperative reel to reel (least said). I wouldn't say it has mainstream appeal but the language is the perfect Beckettian mix of lyrical and prosaic. Oldman's a big draw though surely?

It's one of Beckett's more accessible pieces and often done in conjunction with other short-form work.  Strong work.


Love Beckett, not too excited. More of a curiosity because of Oldman, perhaps.

Became a member for £72 and got a front row centre ticket for £58.50, so £130.50 total spend. When you consider it’s not rumoured to be going anywhere else, it’s not completely ridiculous and supporting a regional theatre. The website completely crashed during member’s booking and the phone system went to answer machine. Eventually they published a link to a simplified version of the web page, which loaded straight away with no issues. Top price seats are £85 regardless of the day of the week. There are still plenty left at the moment.

Website crashed immediately.

Can't even get onto the queue, just a Bad Gateway page. It always makes me laugh that in 2024 theatres can't put procedures in place to make their website work when they know demand will be this high.