Krapp’s Last Tape at the Barbican: ‘Stephen Rea is oddly workmanlike’

Honestly, you wait ages for a decent Krapp and then three come along at once. Samuel Beckett’s pared-down, tragicomic 1958 miniature sees a 69-year-old man with a funny name, surrounded by tins containing the reel-to-reel tape recordings he made before each birthday, listening in wonderment and disgust to his 39-year-old self. Gary Oldman, 67, has just opened in the play at York Theatre Royal, where he began his career.