All 19 plays of Samuel Beckett are to be filmed for television and cinema, RTE announced at the weekend.
The Beckett canon is currently under production in a joint venture between RTE and Channel 4. It will be on Irish television screens in the autumn, RTE's managing director of television, E, Mr Joe Mulholland, said. Describing the production as a "unique and wonderful artistic event", he expressed his gratitude to the Beckett estate for having granted the rights to film the entire canon, for the first time, to RTE and the artistic director of the Gate Theatre in Dublin, Mr Michael Colgan.
"By bringing to the screen the work of the most innovative and significant playwright of the 20th century, work that has captured the imagination across five continents, RTE will have made a most important contribution to celebrating the achievement of one of Ireland's great literary giants," he said.
"This is one of the most significant millennium projects to be undertaken by any broadcasting organisation anywhere in the world."
Among those involved in the project are the director Neil Jordan and actors Michael Gambon, Dame Judi Dench, Julianne Moore, John Hurt and Harold Pinter.
The 19 plays were staged at the Gate Theatre in 1991, to critical acclaim, before being brought to New York in 1996. They were presented, again under the artistic direction of Mr Colgan, at the Barbican Centre in London last September. Krapp's Last Tape is currently playing at the New Ambassador Theatre in London with John Hurt.
Mr Colgan said he was "thrilled" that the plays were being brought to television and cinema, and described Mr Mulholland as the "true champion" of the project.
"I had brought the canon to New York and London after staging them at the Gate, and though I would regard Beckett as actually the finest writer of the last century, I didn't want to just keep touring the canon."
The plays are being filmed by Blue Angel Films under the production of Mr Alan Moloney and Mr Colgan. Mr Mulholand is the executive producer.
What Where, directed by Mr Damien O'Donnell, and Endgame, directed by Conor McPherson, have already been filmed.
