'Waiting for Godot' review – Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati capture the absurd humour of Beckett's masterpiece

Read our review of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, directed by James Macdonald, now in performances at the Theatre Royal Haymarket to 14 December.

Samuel Beckett’s tragicomedy is one of the most pored over and pondered plays in the English language (though it was written first in French). Its obscurity is seductive, and sensible directors settle for putting their own creative stain on the play, rather than trying to untangle its meaning – left tantalisingly open to interpretation.

Though James Macdonald’s version boasts some fine performances, it is the sheer, terrible darkness enveloping its stage, trapping the characters in their unhappy ignorance, that is most striking, conjuring a blankness that devours all hope. But for all its visual bleakness, this Godot doesn’t quite manage to mine the play’s murkiest corners, ramping up the humour at the expense of despair.

The casting of two top-notch stage actors, whose profiles have been further boosted by screen credits, will be the pull for many: Lucian Msamati plays Estragon (Gogo) opposite Ben Whishaw's Vladimir (Didi), and the pair have easy chemistry. Their codependence is a tactile one: they hold hands, cling, or trail each other around the confined stage. There is a vague, unspoken sexual energy between them too, most noticeable as Whishaw’s cross-legged, pigeon-toed Vladimir poses in front of Estragon, seeking his approval.

Msamati and Whishaw, both in their 40s, are a relatively young take on the pair, and their youth adds a touch of absurdity to Vladimir’s suggestion they’ve spent the last 50 years together. Similarly, their well-spoken English accents are as much at odds with their characters’ derogatory jokes about the English here, as with their dirty, scruffy clothing.

But in a play where a character goes blind and a naked tree grows leaves overnight, time and place are stretchy, tricksy things. Maybe these sorry souls really are relics from more prosperous times, as they claim to be.

Rae Smith’s stark, grey strip of stage appears like a page of an open book, caked in clay and floating, suspended in the surrounding gloom. It’s a timeless setting, though Estragon and Vladimir's clothing is contemporary – their signature bowler hats swapped for a beanie and an earflap cap, bringing their plight into the present.

Into this stubbornly barren setting comes not the eagerly awaited Godot, but another pair of hapless, travelling gents: Jonathan Slinger’s smug Pozzo and Tom Edden’s googly-eyed, gurning Lucky. Together, the four capture the play’s daft humour as they question, contradict and forget one another.

Whether they’re collapsing in a mound of collective despair or hauling one another up again, there’s fine physical acting all round, particularly from Edden, whose Lucky appears like a mechanical Frankenstein from an amusement arcade – his monologue delivered in the monotone ramble of a machine whose voicebox, in the process of breaking down, is exhaling all its programmed phrases one last time before falling silent for good.

While Macdonald’s production nails Beckett’s mordant tone, it lends a lightness to the characters’ conundrum that detracts from the gravity of their eternal, desperate waiting. Still, it's entertaining, and for some its depiction of two men killing time and inadvertently capturing the futility of human existence will be enough.

Seventy years on from its premiere, Beckett’s play continues to feel like an allegory for something that remains hidden in the darkness.

Waiting for Godot is at the Theatre Royal Haymarket through 14 December.

Photo credit: Waiting for Godot (Photos by Marc Brenner)