ACTOR Tom Owen faces his biggest challenge next month in a monologue at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

The former Last Of The Summer Wine actor plays the lead – and only – role in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape.

The play will be performed at Edinburgh Assembly Rooms, from Friday August 3 to Sunday 26.

Tom, the son of Bill Owen – who played Compo in Last Of The Summer Wine– took the role of Compo’s son, Tom Simmonite, in the hit BBC comedy for 11 years.

In Beckett’s play, which was first performed in 1958, Owen will be playing a very different role. An embittered and lonely Krapp reflects on his life by listening to a tape recorded journal.

Krapp has previously been played by many acting greats, such as John Hurt, Harold Pinter and Michael Gambon.