Review: Fragments

Then there is the one about a blind man and a cripple. "Why don't you let yourself die?" asks the cripple. "Not unhappy enough," answers the blind man. "Unhappy," he adds, "but not unhappy enough." Really funny that one.

In a show that lasts just under an hour, these are some of the people who populate four playlets and one poem by a dramatist who unblinkingly observes the desolate in the human condition and the aspect of our existence which most can only bear to glance at - our mortality. Though not director Peter Brook, who shares Beckett's instinct to reduce a play to its minimalist core.

We may laugh at the Godot-like sketch with two poor wretches played by Marcello Magni and Khalifa Natour, and we may titter at Kathryn Hunter's tired woman who takes to her rocking chair - but only to hide our fearful whimpers, and to distract from the knowledge that the rocking chair will eventually tip her into a grave. (Tel: 020 7922 2922)