Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati to star in West End production of Waiting for Godot

Actors to make merry mischief' in Samuel Beckett's play at Theatre Royal Haymarket in September

Ben Whishaw is to star in a new London production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, the play that inspired him to quit his art foundation course as a teenager and study acting instead. Whishaw will play Vladimir opposite Lucian Msamati as Estragon in the tragicomedy, directed by James Macdonald. It opens at Theatre Royal Haymarket in September.

When I was 18, I was doing an art foundation course in Bedford and went one night with a friend to London to see a play that was part of a season of plays by Samuel Beckett at the Barbican theatre," said Whishaw. The play was Waiting for Godot. The next day I dropped out of my art course, having decided I wanted to study acting instead."