DUCHESS THEATRE

Great night out: Yes
Recommend to friends: Definitely

Beckett provides a pretty good definition of the dual nature of Endgame when the legless old lady Nell says "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness. Endgame combines deadly darkness with laughter. Complicite deliver a powerful performance of Samuel Beckett's absurd comedy Endgame at the Duchess Theatre.

Endgame is not a sugary antidote to the current doom and gloom. There are no more sugar plums, no more bicycle wheels, no more pap or even painkillers to make life more endurable. Hamm (Mark Rylance) cannot stand and his beleaguered servant Clov (Simon McBurney) cannot sit and their only company is Hamm's legless parents who are confined to two rubbish bins.

Only two months ago both his lead actors - Richard Briers and Adrian Scarborough pulled out of the production. In an impressive salvaging act McBurney called on Mark Rylance to play Hamm and cast himself as Clov. Both McBurney and Rylance are tremendous theatre artists and they make an intriguing double act. McBurney gives brilliant expression and all-encompassing theatricality to this difficult piece.

Mark Rylance gives a brilliantly funny and painful portrayal of the imperious and despondent Hamm confined to his arm chair. Hamms parents Nagg and Nell who have lost their legs in a tandem biking accident live in rubbish bins. In the confined acting space of two rubbish bins Tom Hickey and Miriam Margolyes give delightful performances. There are fantastic moments when the pair attempt to console each other over the tops of their rubbish bin prisons.

Samuel Beckett himself said that if Endgame is played as he wanted it to be the theatre would be empty. I predict that this will not be the case for Complicites enigmatic and exquisite production.