Callow and Pickup Join McKellen and Stewart for 'GODOT'

Simon Callow (Pozzo) and Ronald Pickup (Lucky) will join Ian McKellen (Estragon) and Patrick Stewart (Vladimir) in Sean Mathias' Theatre Royal Haymarket production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Waiting for Godot will preview at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from 30 April with press night on 6 May 2009 and is booking until 28 June 2009 for a strictly limited season. Designs are by Stephen Brimson Lewis and lighting is by Paul Pyant. Waiting for Godot is produced by the Theatre Royal Haymarket Company in partnership with Duncan C. Weldon Productions Ltd.

Prior to the Theatre Royal Haymarket run, Waiting for Godot tours to Malvern Theatres (5 - 14 March), Milton Keynes Theatre (16 - 21 March), Brighton Theatre Royal (23 - 28 March), Bath Theatre Royal (30 March - 4 April), Norwich Theatre Royal (6 - 11 April), Edinburgh King's Theatre (13 - 18 April) and Newcastle Theatre Royal (20 - 25 April).

Waiting for Godot follows two consecutive days in the lives of Vladimir and Estragon, who divert themselves by clowning around, joking and arguing, while waiting expectantly and unsuccessfully for the mysterious Godot. Beckett's Waiting for Godot exploded on to the London stage over 50 years ago when it shocked as many people as it delighted.

Waiting for Godot received its world premiere at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris in 1953. The English-language premiere in 1955, was directed by Peter Hall at the Arts Theatre. Beckett himself directed the play at the Schiller Theatre, Berlin in 1975. Born in Dublin in 1906, Samuel Beckett was an Irish writer, dramatist, critic and poet. He wrote in both French and English and is best known for his plays including Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape and Happy Days as well as Waiting for Godot. Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

Simon Callow's extensive theatre credits include The Kiss of the Spider Woman for the Bush, Total Eclipse and Faust Parts 1and II for the Lyric Hammersmith, Restoration for the Royal Court and Titus Andronicus for the Bristol Old Vic. His many National Theatre credits include Amadeus, Sisterly Feelings, Galileo and Single Spies. He performed The Mystery of Charles Dickens in the West End and on tour internationally. His many directing credits include Shirley Valentine both in the West End and on Broadway, Les Enfants du Paradis for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Carmen Jones for the Old Vic. His numerous film credits include Amadeus, A Room With a View, Maurice, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love, Postcards from The Edge and, most recently, Chemical Wedding. His many television credits include Angels in America, Galileo's Daughter, Hope Against Hope, Miss Marple, Lewis, Midsomer Murders, The Mystery of Charles Dickens and Dr Who. Simon Callow was made a CBE in 1999. 

Ronald Pickup's more recent theatre credits include 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. His many television credits include The Worst Week of My Life; Holby City, Sea of Souls, The Last Detective, Cambridge Spies, Midsomer Murders, Waking the Dead, Dalziel and Pascoe, Ivanhoe, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, Silent Witness, The Rector's Wife, Absolute Hell, Dr Jeykll and Mr Hyde, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chekhov in Yalta, The Fortunes of War and Pope John Paul II. His film credits include Tulse Luper Suitcase, The Secret Passage, Lolita, Danny the Champion of the World, The Fourth Protocol, The Mission, Camille, Never Say Never Again and The 39 Steps.

Ian McKellen makes his Beckett debut as Estragon. He will play alongside Patrick Stewart following their onscreen rivalry in the X-Men films. McKellen has previously collaborated with Sean Mathias who has directed him as Uncle Vanya, the Captain in Dance of Death and as Widow Twankey twice. Since he started acting in 1961, he has worked non-stop on stage and screen. For The National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Companies, McKellen has produced and acted in plays old and new, most recently on the RSC's world tour as King Lear. He produced and wrote the screenplay for his Richard III and was nominated for an Oscar for Gods and Monsters and for Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. He recently played in Coronation Street and has just completed ITV's remake of The Prisoner.

Patrick Stewart recently played Claudius/Ghost in Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Novello Theatre. Last year he won an Evening Standard Award, a Critics' Circle Award, a TMA Theatre Award, a Theatregoers' Choice Award nomination, an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination, a Laurence Olivier Award nomination, and a Tony Award nomination for playing the title role in Rupert Goold's Chichester Festival Theatre production of Macbeth which subsequently transferred to the West End and then Broadway. His many other appearances for the RSC include The Tempest and Antony and Cleopatra both in Stratford and at the Novello Theatre. His other London theatre credits include A Life in The Theatre and The Masterbuilder and in New York his credits include Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Ride Down Mount Morgan and The Tempest. Stewart performed his acclaimed, award winning one-man show, A Christmas Carol, both in the West End and on Broadway. His many film and television credits include the X-Men films, Moby Dick, King of Texas and King Lear, as well as his role as Jean-Luc Picard in the Star Trek series. Stewart was made an OBE in 2001.

Director and writer Sean Mathias most recently directed Triptych at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg and the Southwark Playhouse and Ring Round the Moon for The Playhouse Theatre. Previously he has directed Ian McKellen in Uncle Vanya for The National Theatre, Dance of Death in London, on Broadway and in Australia and Aladdin for the Old Vic. In London he has directed plays including 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 and Design For Living at the Donmar, for both of which he was awarded the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Best Director Award. Mathias also directed Bent at the Adelphi, National and Garrick Theatres and later directed a film version, winning the Prix de la Jeunesse at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997. His other Broadway credits include The Elephant Man, Marlene and Indiscretions for which he was nominated Best Director at the Tony Awards. Also in the US his productions include Company as part of the Kennedy Centre Sondheim Celebration and a production of The Cherry Orchard at the Mark Taper Forum starring Annette Bening. As a writer his plays include Cowardice, Infidelities, A Prayer for Wings, Poor Nanny and Swansea Boys.

Performances: Tuesday - Saturday at 7.30pm

Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm

Sundays at 3pm

nb there is no Wednesday matinee on 6 May

Ticket prices: £47.50 - £10.00

Day Seats - a number of top price tickets at £10 for each performance of will go on sale on the day of each performance at 12 noon and can purchased from the Theatre Royal Haymarket Box Office in person

Theatre Royal Haymarket

Haymarket

London

SW1Y 4HT

Box Office: 0845 481 1870

www.waitingforgodottheplay.com

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