The show belongs to Jonathan Slinger and Ben Whishaw: Waiting for Godot reviewed

Waiting for Godot is a church service for suicidal unbelievers. Those who attend the rite on a regular basis find themselves wondering how boring it will be this time. A bit boring, of course, but there are laughs to be had in James Macdonald’s production. The set resembles a Gazan bombsite with a tree-stump stranded in a pit of ashen rubble. Didi is played as a goofy English toff by Ben Whishaw who supplied the voice of Paddington in the movies. The bear is back.

Whishaw gives an engaging, high-energy performance, like a Blue Peter presenter with a theology degree

Whishaw gives an engaging, high-energy performance, like a Blue Peter presenter with a theology degree, leaping about the stage, staring up into the stars for inspiration or encouraging his pal with affectionate caresses and edible treats. Lucian Msamati’s Gogo is a little too plump for a vagabond who subsists on raw turnips and scavenged carrots. He finds plenty of rancour and petulance in the role but no traces of sweetness or pathos. And how did this man end up homeless? He wears an old boilersuit like a failed lumberjack but he uses the lofty diction of the expensively educated and he claims to have been a poet.

His backstory is hard to unscramble, whereas Whishaw represents a recognisable archetype: the dreamy public-school dropout who swaps affluence for the freedom of the road. Tom Edden’s rigid and unchanging Lucky enters with sucked-in cheeks and crazy eyes, like the ghost of Paganini, but he never alters or develops. He delivers the great speech as a slice of random windbaggery without any internal coherence. This leaves Didi and Gogo to harvest the laughs by reacting with anger and bafflement to his seemingly endless monologue. And yet Edden is a great physical comedian. Why can’t he profit from this opportunity?