Pleasance at EICC, EdinburghFlabbergast Theatre’s production of Samuel Beckett’s desolate play leans into slapstick – and loses some of the searing threatThis production by Flabbergast Theatre, which specialises in physical comedy, shows you what a good fit clowning is for Samuel Beckett’s work. The tragicomic characters in director Henry Maynard’s production are wretchedly grotesque. Hamm (Maynard), the master of this reduced and desolate world, or what remains of it, is recognisably bombastic, with flamboyant flourishes to his attire (an enormous hanky in his breast pocket, an ancient-looking rug on this knees). Clov (Simon Gleave) is his vaudevillian sidekick, with such exaggerated comic limps and gurns that you almost expect pratfalls. The tragic dustbin duo of Nagg (Derek Elwood) and Nell (Annabel Arden) are ash-faced yet upbeat.The relationship between the sad clowns holed up in their grimy space, just about surviving the postapocalyptic threat outside, leans into slapstick. It is amusing but lightens the material, undercutting the tragedy, although you certainly feel the sense of loneliness. But their respective ends are not emotionally searing, and neither is the production quite as threatening in its master-slave games. Continue reading...