Nothing Happens (Twice) review

Taking its title from a review of Samuel Beckett’s 1953 existential classic Waiting for Godot, this comedy from Little Soldier Productions melds slapstick humour with a wry sense of the company’s career frustrations. Just an hour long and directed by Ursula Martinez, it runs on several criss-crossing tracks. Its creators and performers, Little Soldier co-founders Mercè Ribot and Patricia Rodríguez, turn up in baggy suits evoking Godot’s hapless duo Vladimir and Estragon. But the scraps of Beckett are woven into a semi-recreation of a 2018 promo for Andalusia that they performed in Westfield Stratford City – a combination that sees them quick-changing into flamingo costumes, cracking laboured jokes and dancing.

There’s a neat visual gag arising from video footage of the pair arriving for that East London gig, which had them questioning their choice of profession. It’s a seamless transition from there to lip-syncing to the words of a few of the many white, male actors to have acted in Waiting for Godot, some of them at the Royal Shakespeare Company in that other Stratford – upon-Avon. In a split second, there is a world of commentary about theatrical status and who has access to the theatrical canon, delivered by two female performers who have too frequently found themselves cast as Spanish maids or sex workers.