Waiting For Godot
Theatre Royal, Haymarket | ★★★★✩
When 15 years ago Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart teamed up to play Estragon and Vladimir on this very stage, it was like watching two old hams attempting to return day after day to the glory of their acting careers. Even the design of a crumbling theatre with its decrepit lighting rigs suggested that Samuel Beckett’s absurd duo were living in a landscape particular to their past instead of this “bitch of an Earth” where the rest of us live. There was no doubt about their identity.
Not so in this new production directed by James Macdonald. As played by Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati it might be less obvious what and who their Estragon and Vladimir used to be, but the result is that they are more everyman; more us.