When I was at university, one of my third-year English literature set works was Irish playwright Samuel Beckett's most well-known play, Waiting for Godot. For reasons both obvious and not, President Cyril Ramaphosa's opening of parliament reminds me so much of this odd and wonderfully enduring play.

Listen to this article 4 min Listen to this article 4 min Waiting for Godot forms part of the Theatre of the Absurd and the principal characters are two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, who sit under a tree waiting for Godot, who never arrives. Meanwhile, they converse, joke, fall asleep, relieve themselves, and wonder what to do next, although they do nothing. On the stage, we see the two men and a tree with no leaves.

Eventually, someone does arrive and both the vagrants think it is Godot, but it is not. Instead, it is a boy who knows Godot and who promises he will come. In the second and last scene, the same boy arrives, denies he was the same person who arrived before, and again promises Godot will arrive. The only other characters are Pozzo and Lucky, who is held by a rope Pozzo carries; they make a brief entrance in both scenes. Eventually, Vladimir and Estragon decide that Godot is not coming and they should hang themselves. But they don't - they fall asleep instead.

I don't know why this play tickles me so much: it's funny yet frustrating; so obviously filled with allegory yet it's also...