is "Bem" the only vowel variant missing from Joyce's wordplay. More importantly, however, is the context that Joyce's combination of "bom," "Bimbam," and "bum" suggest. The percussive "bailiff's bom at the door," immediately followed by "Bimbam at the door," all suggest physical intimidation by agents of the state—something which could only have informed Beckett's choice in naming his characters, even if Joyce's work was not his only source of inspiration. Interpretation As with many of Beckett's later works for the stage and television, one definitive interpretation of What Where has proven elusive. A clear totalitarian edge exists which is why many opt for a political reading but, as with Catastrophe before it, there is more going on here. It can also be interpreted as a portrait of a single consciousness engaged in a self-reflective act. When the Voice of Bam wants the action to restart, rather than instruct the two player to "Start again," it says – significantly – "I start again" suggesting that the words and actions of the two men are being directly controlled, remembered or imagined by the consciousness behind the voice, presumably the Bam as he is in the present. A political reading cannot be simply dismissed though since Beckett himself "briefly entertained making each character wear a tarboosh, fezlike headgear associated with Armenians." Even today "[t]orture and ill-treatment in police custody remain widespread in Armenia. Torture usually occurs in pre-trial detention with the aim of coercing a confession or evidence against third parties." Beckett is famously reported as saying of What Where: "I don't know what it means. Don't ask me what it means. It's an object." There is clearly a danger in taking this remark at face value. Beckett undoubtedly had something quite specific in mind as can be seen in the way he moulded his vision over the three productions in America, Germany and France detailed below. One significant remark he did make was that the Voice of Bam could be thought as coming from "beyond the grave". Beckett, in Proust, calls memory "some miracle of analogy;" he qualifies it in the preceding phrase as "an accident". The inability to remember, to get at the truth, is a focal point in much of his work. Beckett's characters (e.g. May in Footfalls, Mouth in Not I) seem doomed to repeat themselves, as much as the accidents or miracles of analogy allow them some momentary