Bemusement is probably the most common reaction to Beckett’s enigmatic play. You can make of it what you will, find metaphors for life’s predicaments, the tragi-comedy of the human condition or just see it as a dramatic essay on the act of waiting.

As far as I know, Beckett, the playwright, chose never to offer an explanation.

However, it rarely fails to provoke discussion and this Wharf Theatre version, directed by Lewis Cowen, who also plays the sinister Pozzo, is both provocative and entertaining.

Paul Snook and Pete Wallis are an engaging duo as Vladimir and Estragon, a couple of tramps,waiting for the eponymous Godot, who is a potential employer, benefactor, landlord? They don’t seem to know. The suggestion from the director in his programme notes is that Beckett may have been inspired by the millions of displaced persons wandering across Europe in the wake of the Second World War.

Snook and Wallis convincingly portray men who have lost their way, almost lost hope, and yet, let’s wait and see what turns up tomorrow. They amuse themselves with trivia until Pozzo and his ‘slave’ Lucky - an exhausted, and apparently mute, man on the end of a rope - appear and provide more diverting entertainment.

Cowen offers strident and macabre comedy as Pozzo, who at one moment is the tyrant in charge and the next just as lost and confused as the two tramps. Darren Beatson (Lucky) earned spontaneous applause after brilliantly delivering a speech of total nonsense, which must be a nightmare to learn.

Completing the cast is Joe McMillan in the small but significant role of The Boy.

Godot is a play every serious theatre-goer ought to see at least once, and this is as enlightening a production as I have seen. If you’ve seen it before, look at it anew in this production.

It runs until Saturday.

Jo Bayne