The Godot Diaries: Behind the Scenes of Beckett’s Play

A fascinating, behind-the-scenes diary account of working on a major production of Beckett’s iconic play from acclaimed actor Lucian Msamati.

From his agent’s phone call offering him the role of Estragon, Lucian Msamati brings brilliantly to life the experience of co-starring with Ben Whishaw in James Macdonald’s celebrated production of Waiting for Godot in London’s West End. With the likes of Jonathan Slinger as Pozzo and Tom Edden as Lucky, this production has some of today’s finest theatre actors bringing new life and meaning to Beckett’s 1949 play.

Through rehearsal room highs and lows, workaday laughs and tears, literal stumbles and grumbles, we journey with Lucian, his fellow actors and creatives, and Beckett’s play, sharing in the personal and dramaturgical discoveries they make and the inevitable emotional contours of an experience as intense as this one.

As the final curtain comes down (and Lucian’s trousers, too, as it happens) after the production’s four-month run, we feel intimately connected with Beckett’s elusive play and characters, slightly more able to navigate the play’s surprising twists and turns, and with a renewed sense of appreciation for the work and graft of an actor and all that comes with it.

Lucian Msamati is an award-winning actor, writer, director and producer. Born in the UK and raised in Zimbabwe by his Tanzanian parents, Msamati is a founding member of Zimbabwe’s acclaimed Over the Edge Theatre Company. His film and TV credits to date include starring roles in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Game of Thrones, Gangs of London, Doctor Who, Black Earth Rising, His Dark Materials, Kiri, Taboo, See How They Run, The Good Liar and Conclave. His theatre credits as an actor include Amadeus, ’Master Harold’...and the boys, The Amen Corner and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (National Theatre); Pericles and Othello (RSC); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Lyric Hammersmith); Little Revolution and Ruined (Almeida); Clybourne Park, Belong and If you Don’t Let Us Dream, We Won’t Let You Sleep (Royal Court); Fabulation, Gem of the Ocean and AWolf in Snakeskin Shoes (Kiln, formerly Tricycle). Between 2010 and 2014, he served as Artistic Director of the acclaimed British African theatre company tiata fahodzi. He is the author of Acting in the National Theatre Backstage Guides series (Methuen Drama, 2025).