‘Could I leave? Please? It’s just, I really have somewhere to be’
A bewildered person wrestles with an endless series of surreal tasks dictated by a snarky, persistent mystery voice.
A new short comedy about the absurd chaos of modern existence – marking the professional debut of Leo Simpe-Asante, winner of the inaugural 2025 Royal Court Young Playwrights Award and named 2026 Jerwood New Playwright, directed by Aneesha Srinivasan.
Godot’s To Do List will be presented as a curtain-raiser and will be followed, every performance, by Gary Oldman (Slow Horses) in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape which returns to the Royal Court, where it played in 1958.
This celebrates a seven-decade-old tradition of curtain-raisers: Krapp’s Last Tape’s own debut was as a curtain-raiser on our stage. Leo is the 2026 recipient of the Jerwood New Playwright accolade. The Royal Court Theatre’s Jerwood New Playwright Programme is supported by Jerwood Foundation.
“To think that this play – which started as an idea in a drama school text analysis class, and then went on to win the inaugural Young Playwrights Award – is now going on to have a full run in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, is absolutely astounding.” Leo Simpe-Asante
