Theatre Royal Haymarket

Msamati and Wishaw triumph

Much excitement surrounded the star casting of Lucian Msamati and Ben Wishaw in a new production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot. The critics were impressed.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

‘This is the best production I’ve ever seen, ‘ declared Nick Curtis in The Standard (4★). Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati bring a potent, tragicomic chemistry,’ he said. Sarah Hemming from The Financial Times (4★) commented, ‘I’ve never seen the play’s dance along the border between artifice and truth so meaningfully executed. Macdonald and his team relish the play’s philosophical brilliance and emotional depth while underscoring its chastening political power.’

Sam Marlowe at The Stage (4★) noted, ‘It’s not, perhaps, a revelatory staging, and its measured pacing demands patience and close attention. But as sensitively handled as it is here, the play is at once tragic, absorbing and oddly comforting’.

The Times‘ Clive Davis (4★) said Msamati and Wishaw are ‘a beautifully paced double act in which the music hall humour is astutely balanced with dizzying glimpses into the existential abyss.’ He confessed, ‘If, like me, you’ve always been sceptical about the grandiose claims made for this play, Macdonald’s revival forces you to listen and learn.’ Wishaw, he said, ‘is in complete command as Vladimir ‘.

Cindy Marcolina for BroadwayWorld (4★) claimed, ‘This Godot is a bitter tragicomic farce, deeply philosophical but also genuinely funny. It becomes a reflection of staggering humanity in its continuous contradictions.’ She offered a qualified recommendation: ‘Go see it, but don’t break the bank in order to.’

Claire Allfree for the Telegraph  (4★) ‘MacDonald’s capacious revival offers no new radical insight. Rather its strength lies in its resistance to any specific reading while simultaneously appearing to contain many. This is a Godot as spiritual allegory, as political parable, as absurdist tragic comedy and human cry in the wilderness, a production that seems to drag us too into its dreadful struggle against the dark.’

Time Out’s Andrjez Lukowski (4★) told us ‘The performances are the big thing and here they’re acerbically funny and infinitesimally tender, something backed up by the low key humanity of Macdonald’s production.’

Adam Bloodworth in CityAM (4★) thought ‘Lucian Msamati and Whishaw bring freshness to the leads’. ‘It is thrilling to have the opportunity to study this incomparable and mercurial actor live once again,’ said Fiona Mountford in the i (4★) of Ben Wishaw.

Critics also praised the  other actors  The Independent’s Alice Saville (4★) said, ‘Jonathan Slinger is as suave as a circus ringleader in the role of enigmatic stranger Pozzo, his cruelties as precise as his pencil-thin moustachio, while as his abused servant Lucky, Tom Edden moves with the wild-eyed stiffness of Charlie Chaplin after a century-long speed bender.’

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (3★) was less impressed than the other critics: ‘James Macdonald’s production…seems greater parts comedy than tragedy…The comedy works in itself, and so do the dramatic moments, but the two seem slightly disconnected.’ She described’Rae Smith’s set…is a grey, razed landscape, rising up in the backdrop…It could be a post-apocalyptic landscape, a version of purgatory or the aftermath of war’ .

Critics’ Average Rating 3.9★

Value rating 46 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)

Waiting For Godot can be seen at the Theatre Royal Haymarket until 14 December 2024. Buy tickets direct here.

If you’ve seen Waiting For Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, please add your review and rating below