Waiting for Godot

Time Out“This is a warm, tender 'Godot', generous in its compassion...” It's harrowing, it's funny, it's human: go and see it, and laugh till you cry...

Financial Times“Two of the roles have been recast, and the production is even better...” As for the pairing of McKellen’s Lancastrian Gogo and Rees’s north London Didi, they are natural and fluent enough to overcome the portentousness of the high-concept design...

The Independent“McKellen continues to inhabit his role with conviction...” The belly laughs in Beckett are dragged from a void in which Estragon fails to see he is only a bare, forked version of the radish he disdains. The light and knowing laughs here are saying, oh yeah, it's that life-is-meaningless thing, ha-ha-ha...

Whatsonstage.com“he production remains a feast of fancy foot work on a blasted heath...” Mathias' fine production is now completely different: Rees’ Vladimir is spryer, more proactive, even more cheerful, if that’s a word one can use in relation to Beckett. But he’s definitely the junior partner in the act...

The Times“McKellen and Rees put me in mind of Morecambe and Wise...” McKellen’s Estragon is funnier than last year, funnier even than his famous Widow Twankey. The glum Lancashire accent helps. So does the warty nose. And so does some immaculate timing. He now gets laughs where I’ve never heard them before...

The Stage“This is for those who prefer Beckett-lite...” Both McKellen and Rees excel in the slapstick and vaudeville routines and both strongly convey the heroic struggles of old age against the fading of the light. What’s missing is a sense of high seriousness, and poetry...

The Telegraph“There is so much to enjoy...” This isn’t a definitive Godot – but it is almost certainly the funniest and most compassionate production of the play you will ever see...

Guardian“It all becomes as winsome as a greetings card...” This is quite the jolliest Godot I've seen, and while the play is not unremittingly bleak (there is, indeed, something absurdly optimistic in Estragon and Vladimir's continued waiting), it seems odd when it comes across quite as cosily as this...

this is london“While the result is not exactly chirpy, there’s an emphasis on comedy...” This isn’t naked, austere Beckett. Instead it’s a ritzy version, generously embellished. A starker rendering might also be a wiser, more haunting one, but McKellen’s performance remains a technical masterclass, and this is accessible and engagi

New Statesman“Not yet reviewed”