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A new production of Samuel Beckett’s 1953 classic Waiting for Godot opens at the West End’s Theatre Royal, Haymarket May 6 following previews that began April 30. The limited engagement runs through July 26.
Godot arrives in the West End following a national tour that began at Malvern Theatres March 6, and continued to Milton Keynes, Bath, Norwich, Edinburgh and Newcastle.
The revival is staged by Sean Mathias as the first production in his tenure as artistic director of the 2009 Theatre Royal Haymarket Company. Mathias follows in the footsteps of Jonathan Kent, who directed three productions there, The Country Wife, The Sea and the musical Marguerite in 2007-08.
The Waiting for Godot cast comprises Ian McKellen as Estragon and Patrick Stewart as Vladimir, with Simon Callow as Pozzo and Ronald Pickup as Lucky.
Callow, who plays Pozzo, was most recently seen on the London stage as Mr. Darling/Captain Hook in the Richmond pantomime version of Peter Pan. He is a stage, cinema and TV actor, theatre director and writer. His extensive theatre credits include The Kiss of the Spider Woman for the Bush, Total Eclipse and Faust Parts I and II for the Lyric Hammersmith, Restoration for the Royal Court and Titus Andronicus for the Bristol Old Vic.
Ronald Pickup, who plays Lucky, has been seen in Look Back in Anger at the Theatre Royal Bath, Proof for the Donmar Warehouse, Amy’s View, Peer Gynt, Three Sisters, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Richard II and As You Like It all for the National Theatre, The Norman Conquests at the Gielgud, Julius Caesar for the Royal Court, Hobson’s Choice and Little Eyolf for the Lyric Hammersmith, The Cherry Orchard at the Aldwych and Uncle Vanya both on tour and for the Rose Theatre Kingston.
McKellen and Stewart, who respectively play Estragon and Vladimir, first worked together in the original production of Tom Stoppard’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1977 and more recently in the “X-Men” films, as Magneto and Professor X. Each of them has established his own iconic screen persona, as Gandalf in “The Lord of the Rings” and as Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek,” respectively.
Director and writer Mathias recently directed Triptych at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg and the Southwark Playhouse and Ring Round the Moon for the Playhouse Theatre. Amongst his extensive credits, he has directed Talking Heads for the Theatre Royal Haymarket, A Little Night Music and Antony and Cleopatra for the National Theatre, Suddenly Last Summer for Warehouse Productions at the Comedy Theatre, Shoreditch Madonna at the Soho Theatre as well as Les Parents Terribles for the National (subsequently restaged on Broadway under the title Indiscretions, for which he was Tony-nominated) and Design For Living at the Donmar, for both of which he was awarded the Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Best Director Award. His other Broadway credits include The Elephant Man and Marlene.
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