Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Adrian Edmondson, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Simon Callow, Christopher Ryan, Madeleine Paulson.
In many ways Waiting For Waiting For Godot is the play that Adrian Edmondson was born to write; full of pathos, a piece of art from Samuel Beckett that has had the actor/writer/comedian enthralled and obsessed since he was a young man.
If alternate realities exist then somewhere some fortunate crowds have had the honour of seeing Mr. Edmondson and Rik Mayall perform as their two famous creations from Bottom in the roles of Vladimir and Estragon; such is the near fanatical joy in which the man who made Eddie Hitler, Vyvyan, and gave a comedic edge to Baron von Richthofen in Blackadder, gives his character of The Sofa Surfer to the audience in such a way that the premise of the piece, set against the backdrop of the day after the announcement of the Covid regulations and the fallout of the closure of theatres and social venues in March 2020, is to the banality of life when the small truths appear as punctuations to the boredom of the soul for the group of actors trapped in their own worst nightmare…dealing with each other.
The questions of life and the meaning of eternally absurd is heightened as the actors are suddenly bereft of work halfway through a tour of Beckett’s masterpiece and left wondering in short stabbing sentences as they wait for an answer on the question of payment that never comes.
Alongside The voice of the Equity provided by Kiell Smith-Bynoe, The Hoarder played by the excellent Simon Callow, Christopher Ryan as the babbling nonsensical Unlucky Jim, and the forever unseen to the group voice on the tannoy Madeleine Paulson, the play’s rhythm is staringly progressive, the mood of that moment when the nation was gripped by the unknown placed directly before the listener as a reminder that it just takes one speech to put constant dread in the mind and for the absurd to be recognised.
Waiting For Waiting For Godot, like its namesake, is a perfect study in the absurdity of time, that in which we choose to wait without making a decision, on the power it has over us as we procrastinate, and as the country went into virtual stillness for what felt like months on end, so the circle of time is complete, so we see time moved on without us and we nothing more than now playing catch up.
Born to play the part, in which he effectively did in Bottom, born to write its homage for the modern-day hangover of a post-Covid world, Adrian Edmondson’s Waiting For Waiting For Godot is its masterpiece of audio theatre.
Ian D. Hall