It is the beauty of internet that I am taking a lecture like this for free. That audience is lucky to sit there and listen your thoughts about this play in person.

This is one of the greatest lectures I've ever heard on any subject from any person.

You've illuminated what matters most about this play and its playwright. I've loved it for years, but couldn't quite articulate to myself or others what (beyond the bleak humor) moves me. The San Quentin anecdote is a wonderful starting point.

This is the most outstanding commentary I have ever heard on Waiting for Godot. Thank you Nick...you're spot on. I was first introduced to this play 35 years ago at Canterbury University in Christchurch, New Zealand. In my 3rd year and I have held on to it ever since as a life compass - the other thing is I have a firm belief in God and huge faith in what will eventually happen to me and my soul - how bizarre is that......... Philip Kubiak

This is one of the most impeccable works I have seen on Beckett's play, Waiting For Godot. Thankyou so much for taking this initiative Sir Mount.

Amazing lecture! I have seen this play live (in Philadelphia/US), and throughout I grew frustrated watching the two men go on and on and watching them wait and wait. I was with a friend who had the same sentiments; at intermission she asked if we should leave, and because the intermission was after more than half the play, I wanted to stay to see how things played out. I just had to see Godot. Was he/she God? Death? A dream realized? 🤷🏽‍♀️ So we stayed. Of course I left the play disappointed and unfulfilled because of its ending. That was a year ago. I have frequently thought of the play from time to time, smirking at the time wasted in seeing it. It wasn’t until this very moment (about 20 mins ago at 6:39AM Saturday mourning/morning) that I realized how clever Sam B was; not only was his audience thrust into the play themselves to casually see which character they identified with, but for me and my friend, we actually became the two main characters if but for one moment. “Do you wanna leave?” “No...let’s WAIT and see.” And to that end I’ll say, live in every moment; whatever’s coming will come anyway, if it’s meant to; but don’t waste your time watching the time, waiting to act, waiting for Godot. In doing so (waiting) you will upset the balance of your suffering. Just live in the meantime ❤️#waitingforgodot

Absolutely brilliant exposition...suffice to say I keep coming back to this, as a way of consoling my own sense of the absurdity of existence.

Really made me appreciate this play a lot more! Thank you so much!

My AP Lit teacher is making me watch this and I'm glad she did. :))

Fascinating. Thank you so very much for this.

This lecture is so enriching and I feel so blessed to be able to hear it, thank you very much for this wonderful work and for uploading!

Thank you for sharing this.

Just no words I keep coming back to this make me as good as you!!

Really excellent, Nick - Thank you for sharing

Outstanding lecture, absolutely loved it

Absolutely stunning!!

This is a great lecture. Thank you.

Such a great lecture, and a wonderful complement to my watching Godot yesterday (for the first time). Thank you!

these lectures are brilliant

Thank you for this brilliant lecture sir

Thank you for your amazing lecture ☺️! Just fascinating!

This is the best lecture on Waiting For Godot...thank you for making me fall in love again with literature with your commentary.Will be looking forward to more of your commentaries Sir.

That this lecture is awe-inspiring would be an understatement. It is unparalleled.

Once again, brilliant!

Like the way Mr Mount keeps glancing at his watch ...

Thank you for this excellent lecture!

This was so well presented and articulated. Thank you for this, it helped me understand so many more layers that "Waiting For Godot" has to it.

Brilliantly delivered exposition 👌🏻.

A great informative lecture! Thank you so much

my god this is a genius, extremely informative, enriching lecture. i wish it were longer. so many points that you mentioned, i noticed while reading the play, and it's amazing to have you analyze it and share your knowledge. teachers like yourself are the ones who make me love learning. thank you a ton, can't wait to watch your lecture on woolf's to the lighthouse!

Xcellent lecture...the best i ever herad while going through waiting for godot..thanx sir

Well done. Excellent. Thank you

Interpretation of a text which has no context, within a multitude of possible contexts, requires skill. This was great. Especially, the focus on 'waiting' as a medium for Time to show itself in the space of a stage. :)

Truly understood every single point of this very absurd play. The lecture is absolutely the best I have come across on the internet regarding the concept.

Brilliant, extremely helpful. Thank you.

What an enjoyable lecture Sir! Kudos!

Amazing. Thank you

I watched this thinking I would be given an explanation of the strange-seeming events in the play that I watched recently, and found so deeply compelling but so inexplicable. Instead you explained that there is no explanation, and that somehow makes the play all the more appealing and brilliant.

Please count me in the people who were clapping in the last two seconds of the video. You deserve the loudest applaud.

This is such an excellent explanation of people now waiting for President Godot in the time of the Corona virus.

Well done!! Very enlightening

Richly Rewarding Lecture. Grateful For Enlightenment, Sir. Great Contribution To My Translation Into Punjabi. Regards.

Thanks so much for posting this terrific lecture online. Beckett's evasiveness about who Godot is has always puzzled me (was this just the artist being coy?). Your observation that it's the waiting that matters, not Godot, resolved this issue convincingly. I watched your lecture in preparation to see a new production of Godot coming to New York. It's of course now cancelled, but at least the play will take on renewed relevance as we all sit in quarantine :)

Thank you so much!

Now I comprehend what Waiting for Godot is about! Thank you.

Thank you !

Today i saw waiting for godot for the fist time. In the internet. I love it. Captured me. Only this. tks

thank you so much

Sir, I sincerely wish that we had more professors like you. Thank you for such an illuminating insight on the play....And u summed it up brilliantly by saying that Godot represents "any belief system that promises a complete explanation to life!"

Very interesting and I appreciate the interpretation after watching the whole playing, and truly not understanding much of Beckett's life history that formed much of the structure. Well done.

great lecture, thanks

Correction - Waiting for Godot (performed in St Quentin) was not an obscure avant-garde French play. Its an Irish play. The narrator says that Beckett's play was a hit with the prisoners because the play was unpretentious as was its author, Becket. I would suggest that his unpretentousness is hardly a French characteristic but it is an Irish one.

Thank you for sharing this

These are great talks.

Good job ,,, really I thank you

you become my friend i listen to you taking to my self about your thoughts, this is friendships...

Excellent … very enjoyable!

It's becoming a ritual to watch this video every year....In this world where everything is a muddle this lecture makes a lot of sense...

Absolutely brilliant. I wish i could watch it for the first time again.

I am just a random person and for me this is the best lecture of all times

I read WFG when I was young, in the US Navy off the coast of Viet Nam. Didn't really get it. Read it many times over the years and watched the play on KZfaq a few times. Why would someone who didn't get it, return to it over and over? Because there is something intriguing in it. A thing of beauty that we can't describe. A hole that shouldn't be there with an unknown depth. Fortunately, by flipping through various things on KZfaq, this lecture came up. Now I understand what I don't understand. Absolutely brilliant lecture that opened many doors to different universes. Never thought I'd be able to see something invisible, but your lecture has changed my view.

Nick Mount - you are a mightily impressive lecturer on these modern giants of literature. You cut away pretense and reveal the magic... Thanks so much for what you do.

Excellent...in every way.

Excellent. I believe that one of the original critical reviews was, "a play of two acts; where nothing happens, twice"

Having listened to your brilliant lecture on WAITING FOR GODOT, I see remarkable similarities with the thinking in Eckhart Tolle's celebrated THE POWER OF NOW. Especially the issue of time running through both books.

Nice lecture. Enough clarity to anchor the listener, enough uncertainty to allow that this is but one interpretation, albeit multifaceted.

Mesmerizing !

My favorite play.It was sold out when I tried to get my ticket to go and see it in London.I m still waiting for the play to be on again, even tho, I know,I won't be able to get a ticket and will have to wait for a next time...

One thing Professor Mount fails to mention is the Theater of the Absurd movement that began in Paris. Beckett lived in Paris from 1937 till his death, (and wrote both "Godot" and "Endgame" in French.) . Both Camus and Beckett frequented a literary bar called Pont Royal Hotel. Camus was, after the war, the foremost and most popular of the Existentialist writers, and is generally regarded as the inspiration of the "Theatre of the Absurd", to which Beckett and many others , through Harold Pinter to Tom Stoppard, belong. Beckett was an avid reader of philosophical tracts, and would certainly have read "Sysiphe". So would most educated Frenchmen in the 1950's. He must have been familiar with Camus’s philosophical work and his plays. He must have known of the theatrical movement which was best expressed by Camus, Sartre and Ionesco.

Love this

Superb. I like intelligent explanations. Meaning :)

sir you are really good..please upload more such videos.....i can continuously hear you for hours....this was really interesting....

you are brilliant man (y)

Amazing.

Brilliant!

This lecture does well to give some additional meaning and background, as well as sharing the thoughts of one person on the play. However I think the most important take away from this play is what it means to each person who watches. The answers the convicts gave were correct, for each in his own. Thank you so much for sharing. I will have to watch some of your other lectures!

Excellent!

It is about the dichotomy between the humans search for meaning in a meaningless universe. But we just keep going as we've no option. 'Try, fail, try again, fail better' as Sam said.

there is no definitive authority on waiting for godot.. that is waiting for godot.

I just had a 10 day stay in a hospital while in severe pain. It was a humbling experience. Always waiting. I was cared for but after that my issues weren’t that important. To the nurses. They had real work to do. For example. One poor fellow died.

Excellent and insightful review and talk about the nature of this Trinity of a Film. Exceptional stories about our lives now in 2020. Keep looking inside of our Hats...We want Lucky to speak to pass the time, and hoping Lucky will say something meaningful....and does not end offering anything of value.

My oldest and dearest friend recently died. His last words were "I've talked with you about this and that, I explained the twilight, admittedly. But is it enough, that's what tortures me, is it enough?" This then, forced me to dive more deeply into Waiting for Godot. This lecture by Nick Mount is pure genius, and very much appreciated. It is a long journey to try and grasp this play, and I am trying. Someone once asked me how smart I am. "I am smart enough to know, that above me are 'next level" geniuses who operate above the clouds, out of my view." My friend Don was certainly that, and would have enjoyed a coffee with Nick Mount, in a peer to peer conversation. Thank you Nick for a near perfect lecture. Best Regards, Richard

I agree Nick .... thank you.

The tragicomedy that is the human condition. Great analysis. I am powerfully drawn to this play and absurdist philosophy.

Thanks for the lecture! I really enjoyed Godot, pairs well with Adorno aesthetic theory, If this play was making people angry thats perfect, its a reflection of their amusement culture which simply wants to laugh all the time rather than seeking truth. Just like the Guinea pigs.

Very interesting lecture. I thought the play was extremely boring on the first watch, but spent days thinking about it afterwards. It's the perfect allegory for life; it's trivial and nothing much really happens, you assume there must be point to, but there's no big revelation coming and no-one has any real insight or answers.

Waiting for God. My childhood having the craic around an alley. There is no endurance

Absolutely brilliant - I love this play in the way that it is complete absurd and without meaning, its effortlessly both simple and complexe at the same time. Thank you for this! To me, the audience trying to find meaning where there is possibly none, is interesting because we try to fill this "void" and if this play had no meaning, it would be utterly terrifying. It is interesting also to compare Waiting for Godot to Camus' Sisyphus. Camus explore the 7 ways in which we deal with meaninglessness: 1- Suicide (Didi and Gogo), 2- Distraction (Play with hats, insult each other), 3- Denial (they wait for Godot, they sometimes are religious, therefor they pretend there is meaning where there is none), 4- Become an actor (All of them are), 5- Get involved in other art (Didi's singing), 6- Get political (Pozzi and Lucky) The last element is acceptance (Lucky accepting his fate). If we look into more detail into this concept, we can see that each character confronts one or more aspects out of the 7. So many different takes are possible, that's what makes it so approachable and not at the same time!

12:52 it ends exactly as it begins Does not have an ending, does not adhere to a resolution nor even a sighting of a resolution in the classical unity of plays 36:14 action helps us to forget the passage of time, the excruciating wait for full meaning, or a full answer 38:24 not an existentialist play?

It's not a French play. It was written in French. The San Francisco play was in English. I don't think the reason why the original audience didn't like this play is because they were sophisticated but because unlike the prisoners, they were not broken people. Broken people recognise the emotions of the characters immediately on a visceral level.

masterful lecture… phew!

All the references to “amnesia” and forgetfulness reminds me of dementia. I share this as a self-employed senior Caregiver for many years.

This is an interesting and insightful deconstruction of Waiting for Godot. The only issue I have is with the use of the word 'schizophrenic' when talking about tragedy. It seems to be used, as it often mistakenly is, to describe either multiple personality disorder or bipolar disorder. Schizophrenia is more about misinterpreting the world around you or hearing voices (usually telling you to hurt yourself or others). Both these symptoms could be used to interpret various aspects of the play, but that's a different story.

Never in my life had i sat still for 48:14 minutes

Good lecturer. I'm sure he's right. There are no answers. There is nothing else; there is no hope in the wreckage. Thus "Godot". But what if you reject the entire thing? What if we are not born over a grave? What if we are all on a fascinating journey into a beautiful and endlessly wonderful Universe? The journey will end, as all journeys must - but the end is not important. It hardly matters. It is the journey that matters. What if you think that? Why, then, the play is meaningless. Does that mean that any time spent on it is wasted? No. Not if it causes the utter rejection above, and the determination to find something better. I wonder... could that have been Beckett's purpose?

Thank you nick, you should upload a little more frequently....and i request you to give pozzo lucky duo more space in your lecture....and i feel like i have already made this request....but never mind, what's life if it's not repeated 😁

An excellent lecture. So nice to hear 'Godot'' pronounced as Beckett intended as well, not in that weird way that North Americans tend to pronounce French (or French sounding) words.

Vivien Mercer, who was a friend of my father's, said ..the play in which nothing happens...twice.

While I didn't enjoy the play at all, I have to say I really appreciated what you said and I can now at least appreciate the play for its nuance and intentions even if I struggle to personally connect with it.

Like the play this lecture has endless fascination.. Loved it and its clearness. Only if there was more on whether the play is existentialist or not.. Is waiting not a sign of hope? Or the tramps are pretending to be hopeful?