THIS is a significant production for two reasons.

It is the 27th and last to be directed by Ian Brown in his decade as artistic director of the West Yorkshire Playhouse, and also the first British staging of Samuel Beckett’s 59-year-old puzzle by an all-black cast.

What the play means will always be ripe for debate – save for the oft-quoted concise dissection that it is three hours “in which nothing happens, twice” – but the combination of Brown and black has pointed up new possibilities within its story of two men waiting and waiting and waiting for Godot, whoever Godot may be, religious allegory or not.

The two men are tramps in bowler hats in life’s waiting room, passing the time sat or stood by a bare tree that has broken its way through the barren landscape of Paul Wills’s sparse blue set. They do this every day, the ruminative Vladimir (Jeffery Kissoon) and the on-edge Estragon (Patrick Robinson), a bantering double act with a single aim of waiting for you know who.

They will talk, they will philosophise, they will be sad, happy, bored, excited, hopeful, desperate; they will irritate each other but stay bonded; they will be serious; they will be daft.

Only this time, there is something more than a faded double act about them. They speak with Afro-Caribbean accents, the Irish rhythms and staccato repetitions of Beckett’s writing equally suited to that lilt, but the impact goes deeper than the pleasure of hearing voices purr like Michael Holding.

These two gents of the road are of an age to have been part of the Windrush generation that came to Britain at our invitation, and have since fallen on hard times, where in the words of Kissoon, they are “now under the bridges with their Tennent’s lager”.

What are they waiting for? Liberation, freedom, breaking free of the chains, as symbolised by the arrival in each half of Cornell S John’s dandily dressed Pozzo, with whip in hand and Guy Burgess’s Lucky (or Unlucky, as he is) at the end of his long rope.

The spectre of slavery hangs over Brown’s interpretation, which also re-emphasises the already present themes of displacement, dashed or stymied ambitions, the battle to be top dog or attain even a modicum of power, and the meaning of life, religion and shoes.

This co-production with Talawa Theatre Company is humorous, deeply human, methodical yet mellifluous, and is characterised by moving, magnetic performances by Kissoon and Robinson, partners in time stood still in a play that still bewitches, bothers and bewilders.

“I don’t seem to be able… to depart,” goes one of the play’s most famous lines. Ian Brown is departing, on a high note too, but he will be back at the Playhouse in November, freelance-directing The Wind In The Willows. In the meantime, Ian, thank you for the multitude of memories.

• Waiting For Godot, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until February 25, then on tour. Box office: 0113 213 7700.