Actors Prepare to Launch ‘Waiting for Godot’ in the East Riding

East Yorkshire-based Other Lives Productions take to the stage with their most ambitious play yet when actors Richard Avery and Neil King open with Waiting for Godot  in an eight-venue East Riding tour, that includes a performance at Toll United Gavel Church on Thursday 20th January.

Samuel Beckett’s play, which was first published in 1952, features two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon,  sitting by the roadside waiting for a man called Godot. They think they have been there before to wait for him, but they have no sense of time, even though the subject of time obsesses them.

To pass the time while they wait, they play word games, taunt each other, think about hanging themselves and consider aspects of life and the universe. The arrival of the two other characters, the brutal Pozzo and his servant Lucky,  provides an entertaining diversion, but by the end of Act I they are still waiting for Godot.

Theatre critics have said that although Samuel Beckett could be obscure and offbeat, audiences can certainly see in this production how he was influenced as much by the Marx Brothers as by James Joyce, and that he would appear to be as much an influence on sitcom writers such as Galton and Simpson (Hancock, Steptoe and Son) as on Harold Pinter and Sir Tom Stoppard.

Other Lives decided to stage Godot after the idea was raised by a member of the audience during Richard and Neil’s East Riding pre-Christmas tour in 2009.

Neil King says: “We had to wait for this play to be available but it’s been worth it. We found the rights difficult to obtain on account of the London production which ran during 2009 and 2010, but were delighted to hear that we had secured the professional rights for January 2011.”

Richard adds: “It is one of the great plays of the twentieth century and, if performed right, is both moving and very funny. To say too much of what happens would be to deprive audiences new to the play of a voyage of discovery.”

The duo have been rehearsing for several weeks in London where the director John Peters lives, and this will continue until the early part of January in the Capital and Beverley. The decision has been made to do a limited run of 13 performances in carefully-chosen venues in Hull and the East Riding and, if the production is successful, it may be revived at a later date outside the area.

Tour dates in Beverley:

Thursday 20th January: Toll United Gavel Church, Beverley, 2pm  (tickets £8/£4) and 8pm (£8):  01482 862752.

Tour dates Other Venues:

Saturday 15th January :Howden Shire Hall, 7.45pm. Tickets: £8 from 01430 431535
Wednesday 19th January: Block Theatre, Driffield School, 7.30pm. Tickets and prices, call:  01377 253632
Friday 21st January: Bishop Burton Village Hall, 8pm. Tickets: £8 from 01482 862752.
Saturday 22nd January: Warter Church, Warter, 1.30pm. Tickets: £8 from  01377 219135
Saturday 22nd January, Spotlight Theatre, Bridlington, 7.30pm.  Tickets: £8 from 01262 601006.
Tuesday 25th January: Tom Stoppard Theatre, Pocklington School, 7.30pm. Tickets: call 01759 321200.
Wednesday 26th-Saturday 29th January: Hull Truck Studio Theatre, 7.45pm nightly
plus Thursday matinee, 2pm. Tickets: £10/£8 from 01482 323638.