Productions of Samuel Beckett’s modernist classic often evoke the world of music hall. The duelling routines of Vladimir and Estragon recall the banter of old-time vaudeville acts. A sequence of hat-swapping could have come straight from Laurel and Hardy.
Echoes of that remain in Dominic Hill’s staging, a co-production with the Liverpool Everyman and Bolton Octagon, but his approach is less end of the pier than end of the road.
The backdrop far behind Matthew Kelly (Estragon) and George Costigan (Vladimir), who always gravitate to the front of the stage, is a lost highway, its telegraph poles fading into the distance, its material ripped and worn to reveal the walls of the theatre. Central to Jean Chan’s design is a post-apocalyptic tree, charred, barren and tapering, as if pointing an accusatory finger at the heavens. [READ MORE]