C-90

If Samuel Beckett had been a shaggily bearded word lover of a cheerful yet lugubrious disposition then he might have written C-90 instead of Krapp's Last Tape.

Daniel Kitson's totally winning monologue features Henry on his last day at work in a depository for abandoned compilation tapes. The arrival of one addressed to him, together with a player on which he can listen to it, causes him to seek out clues from other tapes as to the identity of the sender.

The audience is in a better position to do this - we're introduced to a popular school teacher, an unpopular librarian, a vet who's a grave danger to her charges and Millicent, a lollipop lady whose delight is to introduce birds to ever more elaborate and unsuitable human foods.

As Kitson brings the mundane everyday existence of these characters to life, he weaves connections between them with the lightest of touches. This is storytelling in the old fashioned sense and it's as quietly gripping as any adventure yarn.

It's sweet, it's charming, it's loving and it's very, very funny. There are exquisite one-liners, most of which arise from an absolute love of language and from the use of appropriate or inappropriate words and thoughts.

Daniel Kitson has the true storyteller's ability to buttonhole an audience so that they hang on his every word. Much of the time he seems artless and rambling but don't be fooled. This is a class act: a cleverly constructed tale, exceptionally well told.