Peter Ebsworth is a poet in love with the stage. In Krapp's Last Tape, he treads the line between the audience and the performer, an act of voyeurism and ventriloquism that results in tense snippets of verse only relieved by a tongue in cheek humour that is evident throughout. In his persona poems, he embodies a pantheon of pop culture gods and goddesses such as Marlon Brando, Sticky Vicky, the veteran Benidorm erotic entertainer, and Tony Soprano; in other poems he turns the gaze around to observe them as audience. Selected from literary output ranging over 30 years the tone swings from bullish to reflective, aptly mirroring the gamut of emotions that performers embody on stage. Krapp's Last Tape remains, however, firmly rooted in side stage drama - Ebsworth's interest in Pythagoras is focused on his role as a soldier rather than mathematician, and his girl has a lobster tattoo in place of the dragon of myth.
