There's another new member to greet, I've just noticed.

Welcome sambeckett.

(Please don't expect Godot any time soon.)

A warm welcome, sambeckett

Are we waiting for Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo or Lucky?

welcome welcome. 

# 3        Indeed, the boy, Ron.    Not so disputatious as the strife between Oberon and Titania over the changeling boy but an important cypher nevertheless.

I've just been looking at my postcard collection of Maggi Hambling paintings of Max Wall as Godot's Vladimir (still available at the NPG, I trust).    Wall in particularly good form at the Roundhouse production in the 70s.   He was also a distinguished Archie Rice at Greenwich Theatre, a few years earlier.   Don't think he was ever given his due.

Have also been reading Colin Wilson's "The Angry Years", an enjoyable retread of his emerging years with sharp portraits of Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin but he totally fails to see the humour in Samuel Beckett or the music in his writing.   I do hope that our new and welcome poster is willing to give us his views.

I did see the original production of "Godot" at The Arts in 1955 but the lingering memory is of a pair of tattered boots, abandoned by the "floats" and a shrivelled tree with only one green leaf  - and the timeless reactionary audience.     Peter Bull, in a hilarious memoir (To Sea in a Sieve?) writes about the post-London tour of "Godot" ending a disastrous week at Blackpool - a Beckettian theme in itself.    They steamrolled through every pause in an attempt to catch the last train out of town and to escape the inevitable lynching posse.

Better still, Ron, I'm now tempted to write to Harold Pinter and ask him for a sketch based on his characters in "The Birthday Party"  (Pete & Meg?) who own a Blackpool boarding house.  They could go to The Grand to see a visiting production of "Godot", accompanied by my brainwashed namesake, Stanley.  The conversation on the homebound tram would be a revelation!

If I can find my copy of the Peter Bull memoir, I'll photostat the appropriate chapter and send it to you as it has made me laugh for many years. 

Good day Sam, pleasure to have you. Hope that last post wasn't your endgame...