SAMUEL Beckett s play Waiting for Godot is regularly performed worldwide but his short plays have significantly rarer outings. Following in the footsteps of the Young Vic, which recently presented five of his short plays to packed audiences, the Company o

SAMUEL Beckett's play Waiting for Godot is regularly performed worldwide but his short plays have significantly rarer outings.

Following in the footsteps of the Young Vic, which recently presented five of his short plays to packed audiences, the Company of Ten are presenting Three Short Plays by Beckett for their next production at the Abbey Theatre in St Albans.

The first is Play in which three characters are buried up to their necks in large urns (pictured). A man, his wife and his mistress recount the history of their affair under the relentless prompting of a single interrogative light.

Footfalls is a delicate and ethereal play centred on May, a middle-aged woman whose relationship with her mother is explored while she paces a narrow strip of floor, all the time conversing with her mother's voice.

The final play, Krapp's Last Tape, is an elegiac reflection of memory and lost love in which the old man, Krapp, who has recorded his private musings every year on his birthday, now listens to his younger self and ponders a lifetime of failed aspirations.

The production runs from next Friday, July 3, to Saturday, July 11, and tickets can be obtained from the box office on 01727 857861.