The play that changed my life: ‘Waiting for Godot revealed that less is more – it made me fearless’

‘I loved the idea that nothing really had to happen’ … Patrick Stewart, Simon Callow and Ian McKellen in Waiting for Godot at Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, 2009. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Until I was 12 I was in the French school system, where theatre was Molière, Corneille, Racine. Going to the theatre meant The Sound of Music or My Fair Lady. Then it was decided I would switch to school in England. So, at 13, I arrived at Westminster school. It was 1968, and the world opened up.

I went to see a school production of Waiting for Godot in French in a small room with a little stage, and I was sitting at the back. Musically, I was pretty sophisticated – I already knew about all the psychedelic music that had been happening. I’d seen the Mothers of Invention. I’d seen lots and lots and lots. But I didn’t know there was stuff like this. I suddenly became aware that, just like in music, there was a whole new world out there.