May Godot forgive me, but Beckett is a bore

James Macdonald’s new production is by contrast pure undiluted Samuel Beckett and it is I have to say not for the faint of heart. I saw the youthful fans of Ben Whishaw massing outside the theatre on the first night and I wondered if they were fully aware what they had let themselves in for. Sure enough, the yawnometer went off the scale during the two-and-three-quarter-hours the show runs.

Whishaw is, however, a reliably brilliant actor and always a joy to behold. He has that rare skill in his profession that when he laughs or sighs it seems totally spontaneous. As Estragon, he establishes a good chemistry with Lucian Msamati as Vladimir. The former still alert to the possibilities of life, the latter dead to them. 

There’s a case to be made for how relevant the dystopian setting of the play now seems in a world that’s so far from perfect. The casual cruelty of Jonathan Slinger’s Pozzo to Tom Eden’s tragically misnamed Lucky speaks, too, to the scenes of inhumanity we see daily coming out of Gaza. Alexander Joseph in the part of Boy communicates very well a sense of a child born at the wrong time in the wrong place. 

It all seems rather forced, however, and there is just no getting around the fact that Beckett is for an awful lot of people – and I am afraid I one of them – very heavy-going. Still, if you ask me if  the production could have been performed any more faithfully and effectively the answer is almost certainly no. The play is just the thing that bores me rigid.