Waiting for Godot: Samuel Beckett's masterpiece 'gleams brighter than ever'

Having premiered in Paris in 1953, Samuel Beckett's masterpiece was first performed in English in London in 1955 – and was promptly named "Most Controversial Play" at the inaugural Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

This famously "challenging" piece has been variously delighting and bewildering audiences ever since, said Nick Curtis in the London Evening Standard. It's an undramatic drama in which two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, "battle against the meaningless of life, waiting in a blasted landscape for a man they don't know, who never comes": "nothing happens, twice", wrote the critic Vivian Mercier in 1956. But in this first-rate production – featuring superb performances from Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati – the play nevertheless emerges as a gripping drama of great wit, absurdity and tragicomedy. "Godot isn't for everyone. But this is the best production I've ever seen."

"The key to Godot lies in finding and holding a balance between its bright comedy and its dark, philosophical hues," said Sarah Crompton on What's on Stage. James Macdonald's version achieves this brilliantly: the director has allowed the "seriousness" to be revealed, but the evening is also imbued with "a surprising amount of love". In this production, the play "gleams brighter than ever": it's both "profoundly funny and infinitely sad".

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

It seemed to me that the production tilts a bit too far towards the comedic, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. In the more overtly clownish second act, Vladimir and Estragon begin to "look like hobos impersonating a music-hall duo. But the comedy brings flabbiness, too, the pace slackening, with not enough prickling tension between them."

Well I found it "beautifully paced" and "astutely balanced", said Clive Davis in The Times: yes, there is music-hall humour, but also "dizzying glimpses into the existential abyss". I've always been sceptical of the "grandiose claims made for this play". But this funny and "utterly compelling" revival "forces you to listen and learn".

Theatre Royal Haymarket, London SW1. Until 14 December