FOR FIVE days during the Northern Ireland August bank holiday weekend, Enniskillen will host the inaugural annual Happy Days International Beckett Festival with a programme of theatre, music, literature, visual arts and comedy – plus Bend it like Beckett sports competitions.
Its Derry-born artistic director and founder, Seán Doran, who has staged similar events in Australia and in other parts of the world, launched the programme for the festival in Dublin last night after a Monday launch in Enniskillen.
“Our aim is to give Beckett lovers across the world an annual home to gather and celebrate the writer’s genius and wit,” said Mr Doran.
Enniskillen was chosen for the festival on the basis that Beckett travelled from Dublin in 1920 to spend three years as a boarder at Portora Royal School in the town, where his brother Frank had gone three years earlier. It was also the alma mater of Oscar Wilde.
At the launch in Enniskillen, local Assembly member and Minister for Tourism Arlene Foster expressed confidence that the festival would “become a hugely significant event on the global cultural calendar, especially for the thousands of devotees, academics and students of Samuel Beckett”.
According to Professor James Knowlson, his friend and authorised biographer, who will be speaking on the writer at the festival, Beckett didn’t quite find himself as a writer at Portora but his three years at the school were important and formative.
Prof Knowlson said Beckett would have been particularly taken with the “width of the festival” which, among numerous events, will feature a performance of Krapp’s Last Tape by American avant garde actor and director Robert Wilson, other of his theatrical productions, discussions and readings by the likes of friends such as Lady Antonia Fraser, and musical performances including Schubert’s Winterreise, a favourite of Beckett’s.
At Portora Beckett was, even then, noted for his gloom, despondency and individualism. He could also be a team player, however, evident from the fact that he excelled at cricket, rugby, boxing and swimming, which explains why, amid the high art, there will be sports competitions during the five-day festival, which run from August 23rd-27th.
More details are at happy-days-enniskillen.com
