James Metcalf on the fictionality of the latest archaeological page-turners
Stephen Puddicombe looks at the unusual appeal of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot
Ciaran Rafferty investigates the science of book classification
1. Never question anything. If a character is in a bin, that’s normal. If a woman is buried up to her neck in sand, that’s normal too. And if there’s no character on stage, just a mouth? Totally normal.
2. Dialogue between characters must be repetitive, circular and extremely annoying. There is meaning behind this, and if you haven’t worked it out yet then you’re clearly an ignoramus.
3. It is possible to have play that consists solely of four hooded figures walking around a square to percussion music for ten minutes. If you don’t believe me, watch some for yourself. This is definitely not mind-numbingly dull, there are patterns in it. Yes, patterns.
4. Never show a Beckett play to a friend who does a non-humanities course. They will never respect you again for paying actual money to study and analyse it.
5. There is no possible wrong way in which to interpret one of Beckett’s plays. If you want to write an essay about how Krapp’s Last Tape is clearly a secret message that the apocalypse is nigh and we will soon be overrun by extraterrestrials, then go for it. No-one really knows what they’re about anyway.
6. Any setting for a Beckett play must be a barren, post-apocalyptic style world, inhabited by two or three main characters who have a child-like dependence on each other, and have lost all hope. It is not acceptable to explain how or why they got to this state – the audience must be left to wonder what on earth is going on.
7. You can never have too many pauses in a play. Or questions.
8. Characters don’t need boring names like Jack or Lucy. Names like Estragon, Pozzo, Hamm, Clov and Nagg are far more interesting.
9. In Endgame, when you read/saw that two characters are in bins, you definitely didn’t immediately think of Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street. That would undermine the seriousness and complexity of the play.
10. You can wait for Godot all you like, but he’s never going to come.
Made this joke before, but I'll make it again. Some people like to make puns based on the titles of Beckett's plays...not I.
7 could just as easily be applied to Pinter.
But yes, I've just read my first piece of Beckett this evening - Krapp's Last Tape, as I'm involved in a technically experimental recording of it (as in it's an experiment with technology). Weird, huh.
All of the above apply... and yet I still find Beckett unbelievably interesting - and excellent to discuss in seminars/write essays on because you'll always have enough to say 
With regards to 9...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksL_7WrhWOc
Really great article. Very funny. Good job
Definately laughed out loud by the time I'd gotten to the last point! Fun little article. No wonder I didn't take any kind of Beckett module for English
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