Full Cast Announced for WAITING FOR GODOT UK Tour

Following a successful tour of Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends, today London Classic Theatre announces the cast for its production of Waiting for Godot, as part of the company's 15th anniversary season. London Classic Theatre Artistic Director Michael Cabot directs Jonathan Ashley (Pozzo), Peter Cadden (Vladimir), Richard Heap (Estragon), Michael Keane (Lucky) and Sonja Zobel (A Boy). The production tours to 37 venues around the UK this autumn, starting at Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury on 9 September.

A country road. A tree. Evening. Vladimir and Estragon meet as dusk approaches. Estragon tries to remove his boot. Vladimir examines his hat. A conversation begins, a joke is interrupted. A carrot is eaten. The two men quarrel, then embrace. A pair of eccentric travellers arrive. Seemingly master and servant, one stands weighed down at the end of a long rope, the other carries a whip.

So begins Samuel Beckett's 60-year-old masterpiece Waiting for Godot, a ground-breaking, anarchic meditation on the meaning of life and death. Part allegory, part burlesque, Beckett's unique, timeless play moves seamlessly between absurdist comic sketch and captivating philosophical drama. Waiting for Godot was first produced in the UK at the Arts Theatre, London in 1955, directed by Sir Peter Hall. In 1999, it was voted the most significant English language play of the 20th Century.

Samuel Beckett (1906 - 1989) was an Irish writer, dramatist and poet. He wrote in both English and French, and his principal works include Krapp's Last Tape, Happy Days and Endgame. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

Jonathan Ashley plays Pozzo. For the company, he has appeared in Entertaining Mr Sloane, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Double Inconstancy. His other theatre credits include The Tempest and Hansel and Gretel (Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds), Abigail's Party, Arsenic and Old Lace, Dick Barton and the Secret of the Pharoah's Tomb, One for the Pot, Ladies in Retirement, Hay Fever and Salad Days (Southwold Summer Theatre), The Hooligan Clown (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith), Scapin's Tricks and The Winter's Tale (Wimbledon Studio Theatre), Waiting for Godot and The Dumb Waiter (Albany Empire) and Landscape (Finborough Theatre).

Peter Cadden plays Vladimir. For the company he has also appeared in The Importance of Being Earnest, Ghosts, Humble Boy, Frozen, Molly Sweeney and Entertaining Mr Sloane. Other theatre credits include 3 Winters (National Theatre), A Flea in Her Ear and Pygmalion (Old Vic), The Sunshine Boys (West End), King Lear (West Yorkshire Playhouse), The Recovery Position (Lion and Unicorn), Measure for Measure (Theatre Royal Bath), Ohio Impromptu (Gate Dublin/Barbican), The Real Inspector Hound/Black Comedy (Theatre Royal Bath/West End/UK tour),The Creeper (Theatre Royal Windsor/UK tour), The Diary of Anne Frank and Lady Windermere's Fan (Birmingham Rep), Sense and Sensibility (Exeter Northcott) and All My Sons (English Theatre of Vienna). For television, he has appeared in Grange Hill and My Hero and his film roles have included Silver Lining and 99 and Counting.

Richard Heap plays Estragon. His other theatre roles have included The Green Bay Tree (Jermyn Street), Fields Unsown (Attic Theatre), Mansfield Park (Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds), Hard Times, Arcadia, Great Expectations, A Doll's House, Skylight, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Manchester Library), The Quiet Little Englishman (Liverpool Capital of Culture), The Story of Vasco (Orange Tree), The Demolition Man, Broken Glass (Bolton Octagon), Tom Thumb, Under Milk Wood, The Accrington Pals, A Christmas Carol (Dukes Lancaster), To Kill A Mockingbird (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Birmingham Rep), Natural Selection, White People (Theatre 503), Angels in America (Liverpool Unity), The Winter's Tale (Salisbury Playhouse), Robbers (Tristan Bates Theatre) and Endgame (Compass Theatre). He has appeared widely in television and his film work includes A Little Chaos and There's Only One Jimmy Grimble.

Michael Keane plays Lucky. His theatre work includes Henry VI (Union Theatre), Once Upon A Christmas (Look Left Look Right), Dry Rot (Fricker/Kenwright Prods), The Winter's Tale (ETT/Old Vic Tunnels), The Ride of Your Life (On Theatre/Polka), The Inconsiderate Aberrations of Billy the Kid (2Headed Pigeon), The Night Before Christmas (Signal), The Meeting (Fiddy West), Macbeth (Love & Madness), Trying Jokes (Hammergrin), Fireface (Granary) and Chatroom (NT Connections). Television work includes The Hollow Crown and for film his work includes Mr Turner, Warhol, The Conversations and The Strangest Story of Six Strangers.

Sonja Zobel makes her professional touring debut with London Classic Theatre. Her other theatre roles include The Quentin Dentin Show (RichMix) and The Castro of the Mediterranean (Teatro Technis). Her television her work includes Das Glück der Erde.

Michael Cabot is the founder and Artistic Director of London Classic Theatre. He has directed all thirty-two LCT productions since their debut in 1993. These have included Absent Friends, Entertaining Mr Sloane, Betrayal, The Importance of Being Earnest, Equus, Ghosts, After Miss Julie and The Caretaker. He has overseen the company's transition from one of the success stories of the London Fringe in the late nineties to its current position as one of the UK's most prolific touring companies. As a director, his other work includes Pera Palas (Arcola), The Power of Love (Southwark Playhouse), Marat/Sade (Arcola), Tattoo (New Grove), and most recently Henry Naylor's The Collector at the Arcola, which previously won a Fringe First at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival.

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