At a desk dimly lit by an overhead lamp sits a rumpled figure with a shock of black hair. He is dressed in white shirtsleeves, dark waistcoat, and slacks, and from beneath the desk peek a pair of grubby, off-white boots. He checks the time on a pocket watch. He yawns. Finally, he produces a set of keys and dangles them in front of his face until he locates the one he is looking for. Having unlocked a drawer on the desk’s side, he slides it open to a comical, almost surreal length, and plucks out a banana, which he peels and eats. He discards the skin on the floor and, as we know he will, trips on it a few moments later like the clown that he is.

We could, of course, not be watching anything other than Krapp’s Last Tape, Samuel Beckett’s tragicomic monologue on the themes of lost love and the disillusionment of ageing. Written quickly in February 1958 under the working title ‘The Magee Monologue’ – Patrick Magee was the first actor to play the role, Beckett having heard the Irish actor read extracts from Molly and From an Abandoned Work on the BBC the year before – Krapp emerged as one of Beckett’s most poignant and personal works, a meditation on time’s relentless passage, the weight of memory, and the futility of attempting to reconcile past and present selves.