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

Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati in Waiting for Godot

(Image credit: Marc Brenner)

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".