ACT Reviews 2022-2023 Season

Estragon’s and Vladimir’s comradeship was shown to be very believable; these men have known each other for many, many years and both Mike’s and Gordon’s performances brought this to life very well. I liked their little dance routines and as mentioned in Gordon’s notes in the programme that they are very much like Laurel and Hardy. However, I would put Gogo as Laurel and Didi as Hardy. Two strangers appear in both acts, but their actions in both acts are vastly different. Lucky was portrayed by James Seymour, and Pozzo portrayed by Ben Ventress. Pozzo to me appeared to be a Lord of the Manor character with Lucky as his sidekick/manservant or menial as Pozzo calls him. Lucky met to Pozzo’s daily needs on demand by Pozzo, crouched over to move Pozzo’s stool or to pass him the basket. Ben portrayed Pozzo with style and just the right authority to control his slave. Even though he probably came across as a bully, I could sense that he cared for Lucky and needed him in his life, despite wanting to sell him at a market probably for reasons Pozzo had no choice to do so. This became evident in act two when they both reappear, but Pozzo doesn’t know where he is or who he is with as he suddenly became blind, possibly overnight since the previous encounter. We are not told how he became blind but that is not needed to be known, we just know he is blind. I could sense from the moment they reappeared that Pozzo was

blind and as I don’t know the play, Ben’s portrayal in this scene was very convincing and very real indeed. Now Lucky, his menial, sidekick, friend was