The Wait Is On

Ben Whishaw (This Is Going To Hurt, Paddington) makes his long-awaited West End return opposite Lucian Msamti in Samuel Beckett's seminal absurdist masterpiece, coming to the Theatre Royal Haymarket in September 2024. First seen in 1953, the play in which "nothing happens, twice" has become one of Beckett's most recognisable works, braiding together surrealism, philosophy, comedy and tragedy as the two central characters Vladimir (Whishaw) and Estragon (Msamti) await the arrival of the titular Godot.

What Is The Story?

Waiting for Godot centres on the colourful conversations between two tramps Vladimir and Estragon as they wait for the arrival of someone named Godot. As they perform mundane tasks and converse about a wide array of subjects from the trivial to the serious, they encounter three other characters who compound their experience of nothingness, i.e. Vladimir and Estragon keep waiting for someone who'll never show up in a theatrical limbo that poses many an empirical question but answers none.