Steve and I were lucky enough on Wednesday to get the chance to see the latest production of Samuel Beckett’s ’Waiting for Godot’, starring Sir Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Simon Callow and Ronald Pickup.
We went to the matinee at the Kings Theatre in Edinburgh (looked like a full house from where we were sitting) and it was a wonderful experience. Quite apart from the acting which was exquisite, the actual production itself was fabulous. The set created just the right atmosphere of decay and the ravages of time and the lighting was beautifully executed. The play itself is very dense and full of symbolism and as Beckett himself said, totally open to the interpretation of the viewer as to what it’s actually about. For me it had the feeling of how easy it is to just let yourself drift from one day to the next to the point where you lose track of when or even if something actually happened. Very poignant.
We didn’t do the fan thing of waiting behind for autographs (although I understand the actors have been very accomodating in this respect). Maybe if we hadn’t had 3 kids and granny waiting for us at home we might have hung about for a bit – I love all the actors who were involved so it would have been exciting to meet them but never mind.
On a side note, I see Patrick Stewart was in the paper yesterday after a ‘fan’ got in his face with a camera (this same person tried to photograph the actors onstage). Patrick gave him a severe leathering and rightly so.
I got back stage in London to meet him after some Ibsen play. He wasn’t very cheery as he had a cold, but the mum off the Royale Family was there and chatted away to us. I was only really interested in Big P.
My sister-in-law’s friend went to see it the day after us and purely by chance they were coming out of the pub just as Sir Ian was leaving the theatre.
She got her picture taken with him and said he was a sweetie-pie. I was seething with envy
I reckon PS could be vicious if you got his back up but I still love him. I would actually have liked to have met Ronald Pickup. I remember him on Jackanory when I was about 5 or so.