The notices are in for Krapp’s Last Tape at The Cockpit, and they are unusually hard to separate from the circumstances of the performance. Samuel Beckett’s 1958 monologue leaves a man of sixty-nine alone with a reel-to-reel recorder and the voice of his younger self; here he is played by Peter Marinker, 85, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s two years ago, and the tapes he winds through the machine are his own, recorded when he last played the part in 1983. Dave Wybrow’s production leaves its scaffolding in plain sight, with stage manager Marta Fossati feeding Marinker his moves through an earpiece the audience can hear. On Marinker himself the nine critics are of one mind; where they part company is over that audible prompting, which most take to be the making of the evening and one finds keeps lifting her out of it before it wins her round.
The verdict: nine reviews in so far — three five-star notices, four four-star, and two outlets that publish no rating. Among the seven that score, the average is 4.4 out of 5, and not one of the nine has a reservation about Peter Marinker.
What are critics saying about Krapp’s Last Tape?
The Reviews Hub
“Beautiful and raw”
Reviewer: A. Tran Ngoc
“Indeed, right from the start, the one-man play becomes a quiet duo, as Marinker’s monologue is interspersed with quiet live in-ear prompts operated masterfully by stage manager Marta Fossati. The audience’s immersion in Beckett’s deeply poetic texts thus somehow becomes more poignant, as Marinker is audibly reminded of the very choreography of the piece, all while listening to his own younger voice, bringing a realism to the interaction which reaches far beyond the text. Though short, minimalist and relatively unconventional, this performance is undeniably beautiful. Accompanied by Duncan Henderson’s superbly sober stage design, we clearly see Marinker’s actor’s touch shining strongly despite the obstacles.”
Everything Theatre
“A triumph as an actor suffering with Alzheimer’s turns Beckett’s monologue into a profoundly moving meditation on memory and the ageing process.”
Reviewer: Alan Fitter
“Beckett’s 1958 one-man play Krapp’s Last Tape has been experiencing a bit of a renaissance recently with highly acclaimed productions featuring Gary Oldman and Stephen Rea. But this new staging, superbly directed by Dave Wybrow, adds another layer to Beckett’s play all about memory, aging and reflection: the performer, 85 year old Peter Marinker, is suffering from Alzheimer’s and slowly losing his memory.”
West End Best Friend
Reviewer: Phil Meikle
“Marinker is utterly spellbinding as Krapp. As this 85-year-old shuffles around the stage in an old dressing gown, spooling and re-spooling tapes, breath short from each small movement, his haunted gaze fixed on the distance, this feels like far more than mere acting. Marinker doesn’t just inhabit Krapp; he becomes him. This is a life lived, expressed in real time. In fact, you must repeatedly remind yourself that Marinker is 85 and living with Alzheimer's, so naturalistic is his performance, which is exactly what the part demands. When he reaches into his pocket to retrieve a half-eaten banana or painstakingly winds the tape spools, you cannot help but think of your own elderly loved ones and wonder whether we could all show the same patience with them as we do when mesmerised by Marinker.”
Plays International
Reviewer: Jeremy Malies
“A huge takeaway is Marinker’s bravery and lack of ego as he makes us speculate on what might lie ahead in old age amid “the sour end of the cud” and on “this mucky orb”. Only the line “Perhaps my best years are gone?” fails to land now since the question is hardly up for speculation. It does introduce extra irony I suppose if it’s intended to be against the character.”
North West End
Reviewer: Gaurav Singh
“The performance is marked by a profound stillness. Marinker does not rush through Beckett’s language. Each word and phrase seems to arrive separately, as something to be encountered. The text consequently becomes less an uninterrupted stream of language and more a series of moments of perception. The wrangling of the banana, the unspooling and handling of the tape, the pauses between actions all acquire an unusual theatrical weight. The smallest gesture becomes an event because we are given the time to experience it.”
Plays To See
Reviewer: Jad Adams
“Another, deeper level of interpretation is given for this performance: Peter Marinker has Alzheimer’s disease and is given considerable assistance throughout. He is led on by a stage manager, he receives movement cues from an earpiece, the text of his lines is on a screen on the wall. This really is a person fighting the decay of his faculties.”
London Pub Theatres
“Spine-tingling stuff; as meta as it gets”
Reviewer: Nilgün Yusuf
“Initially disconcerting, this choice takes the viewer out of the moment, something most directors usually avoid at all costs. The overarching effect is of a life-sized marionette being guided through every move which leaves viewers to reflect more on the toll Alzheimer’s takes than on Krapp’s taste for bananas or his fascination with the word ‘spool’. To add poignancy to pathos, the recorded voice we hear is also Peter Marinker, playing Krapp at 41. His younger self has a lighter, brighter Irish lilt in contrast to the more hesitant, gravelly Marinker who shuffles and creaks around in a grey robe and slippers in this production.”
Read Nilgün Yusuf’s full review in London Pub Theatres Magazine
Salterton Arts Review
Reviewer: Erin Caswell
“This was my first time seeing Krapp’s Last Tape, perhaps surprising given it’s one of Beckett’s more frequently performed works. I am also an easily-distracted person, so I think I might have been able to better immerse myself in Krapp’s world rather than the mechanics of the production if I had seen it before. However, I was impressed by Marinker’s ability to connect with the material even when very much being in the moment and responding to Fossati’s gentle prompts. His Krapp is sombre, brooding, but also wry and nostalgic. No matter how many other versions I might see in the years to come, I will never see another production of this work that comments so uniquely on the idea of reaching back into the past to connect with versions of oneself. The imperfection and beauty of memory.”
Production photographs by Chris Lincé for Stagefright Films.
Number 9 Reviews
Reviewer: Mary Fogg
“It is the contrast between the man we hear on the tapes and the man we see before us that makes the performance so affecting. The younger Krapp seems so certain of himself, while the older man is increasingly disconnected from the memories that once formed his identity. That raises one of the most powerful questions at the centre of the production, how much of who we are is held within our memories?”
Best of Theatre has gathered the notices for a crowded fortnight of London openings, among them Annie Wobbler (Revisited) at the Finborough Theatre, Holy Fool at Park Theatre, The Story at the National Theatre and A Month in the Country at the Donmar Warehouse.
Krapp’s Last Tape ran at The Cockpit from 2 to 5 September 2026, on pay-what-you-choose tickets with all profits going to the Alzheimer’s Society.
