Happy Days Festival by Nerve Centre

HAPPY DAYS enniskillen international

BECKETT festival

PORTORA ROYAL SCHOOL

PROGRAMME

Photo: John Minihan

22 - 26 AUGUST 2013

www.happy-days-enniskillen.com Box Office: 028 6632 5000

Dante

LA COMMEDIA THE DIVINE COMEDY An Inspiration

INFERNO – into the caves PURGATORIO – to the islands PARADISO – through the clouds PARADISO – Romeo Castelluci FALLING – Tomoko Mukaiyama & Jean Kalman A STILL LIFE IS A REAL LIFE – Robert Wilson NOT I – Neil Jordan Pages 2 – 11

Image on opposite page: Drawing for Not I by Jocelyn Herbert for 1973 production at the Royal Court Theatre (first performance in Britain). Copyright Jocelyn Herbert Archive, Wimbledon College of Art.

SOME OF OUR ENNISKILLEN VENUES

Programme Design: whitenoisestudios.com

FESTIVAL SPECIAL EVENT

INFERNO

into the caves Location: Marble Arch Caves Date: Wed 21 - Sun 25 Aug Time: 7.30pm & 9.30pm Price: Wed, Thu & Sun - £20/£18 Fri & Sat - £25/£22 Duration: 50 mins Capacity: 27 per performance Early booking advised.

Dante’s Commedia (the Divine Comedy), written in the early 14th century, is acclaimed as the great poetry epic of the second millennium. It was Samuel Beckett’s favourite literary work and much referenced in his own writing. Dante was Beckett’s mentor.

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I Descend 100 or more steps into the cool subterranean temperature of 50 metres below ground. Ferrymen will take you in three silent boats to the cavern where three sinkhole rivers meet. Still in the boat, Samuel Beckett’s short play Not I will be performed. II Virgil, a soul-guide will lead you deep into the caves, single file, to walk through the soundscape of Inferno recited by thirty-three souls in a babble of languages. All this, against a backdrop of the Marble Arch Caves, with frenzied water, dripping ice and visions of 150250,000 year old stalactites above to flow-pots of frozen tears below.

III At the point of Moses Walk the waters will divide for your passing and upon reaching Journey’s End you will hear the live plaintive strains of Dido’s Lament. Then to the more joyful singing of Amazing Grace, you will be led to ascend from the caves, back to the light.

“Dwan’s is a dazzling technical performance.” Daily Telegraph

CAST:

I: Not I - Lisa Dwan (7.30pm), Chicca Minini (9.30pm) II: Dante’s Inferno: Read by 33 women & men of Fermanagh III: Dido’s Lament: Ruby Philogene MBE mezzo-soprano Additional info: In the event of heavy rain, access to the caves may be prohibited. Please call Box Office or check website for up to date information.

Due to the nature of this event, wheelchair access is not possible.

FESTIVAL SPECIAL EVENT

PURGATORIO to the islands

FOUR EARLY MORNINGS Locations: Fri - Tully Castle, Sat - Devenish Island Sun - Paris Island, Mon - White Island Date: Fri 23 - Mon 26 Aug Time: 7am from The Round ‘O’ Price: £10/£8 Duration: Various, visit www.happy-days-enniskillen.com Capacity: Limited capacity of 50

Start your day with a journey on The Smeraldina, out onto the purgatorial waters of Lough Erne. Alight on a reeded islet of pre-Christian stone figures (White Island), majestic monastic ruins (Devenish and Inishmacsaint), or just wooded (Paris) for a special reading of Samuel Beckett’s short prose. The readers will be selected from the Words Without Acts programme. Confirmed names will be released end of July. Tickets on sale now. Black tea and dry toast will be readily available. Sunday only, it’s croissants, beurre and confiture!

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Photo by Sean Moss

FESTIVAL SPECIAL EVENT

MOUNT PURGATORY Approach Mount Purgatory, with entrance to Mount Lourdes to your left, by passing through The Pillars of Pain (Dentists and Solicitors) and climb 39+ steps to the Forthill Park entrance gate for your journey to begin. Tread the pilgrim walkways of the seven terraces of sin to be marked out on Forthill Park (Mount Purgatory) and climb the 108 steps inside Dante’s Tower (Cole’s Monument) to Enniskillen’s highest point. Look down on the chaos below.

ANTE-PURGATORY Below Mount Purgatory (Forthill Park) lies AntePurgatory, the still watery underpasses of the east bridges. Visit the lost serene world of water, walkways and where wastrels wait...

PARADISO

through the clouds A poetic flight of the imagination Location: Edinburgh Airport to Enniskillen St Angelo Date & Time: Departure 10am - Sun 25 Aug Arrival in Enniskillen - 11.30am. Return 1pm Mon 26 Aug. Arrival in Edinburgh - 2.30pm. Price: £99 return Duration: 24 hours + Capacity: Limited capacity of 33 Accommodation not included

PRICE

£99 RETURN

A 2013 EDINBURGH FRINGE EVENT A 24 hour experience starting and finishing in Edinburgh Book your once-in-a-lifetime celestial seat for a faceto-face in the heavens with the poetry of Dante, Beckett and Yeats. Fly from the Edinburgh International Festival to the Enniskillen International Beckett Festival in this specially chartered ‘special event’ plane. On arrival at Enniskillen’s St Angelo Airport you will be taken by boat into town, passing Devenish Island and the Portora Royal School and disembarking at Enniskillen Castle. Then for 24 hours, browse at your leisure and enjoy the many fantastic events at the Happy Days Festival. We invite all our international visitors to quietly read their own Paradiso Canto up in the clouds on their plane journey to Ireland.

Photos by Ruairi McCaffrey

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ART INSTALLATIONS

PARADISO

ART INSTALLATIONS

FALLING

Romeo Castelluci (Italy)

Tomoko Mukaiyama (Japan) & Jean Kalman (France)

Irish Premiere

UK & IRISH PREMIERE

Location: Mount Lourdes, The Gym Date: Thu 22 - Mon 26 Aug Time: 1pm - 6pm Price: Free Duration: 30 mins approx.

Location: Servants Tunnel, Castle Coole Date: Thu 22 - Mon 26 Aug Time: 10am - 5pm Price: Free

Conception:

“The spectator is led into a white blinding room. It’s a decompression chamber. A round hole, just like a huge glance-eye on one of the walls. That black rose window, like a deep well, reveals its being a walkable cavity. By perfectly sticking to the last image of the Purgatory, that obscure centre, almost detaching itself from the psychic threshold of the second performance moment, leads you - without solution of continuity - into a very dark room, a room without profiles, where a night questioning one’s senses reigns on everything. One can listen to violent water pouring, while the audience is literally fumbling down in the dark. The sight is suddenly caught by something which looks like a light point, very dim, very feeble, something that you feel is staring at you, as if you’re caught in a trap.”

“The tunnel, or cylinder, according to The Lost Ones by Samuel Beckett, invites you to search a journey of your own tale, probably a tale of loss. This unrealistic seemingly underground universe presents wrecks of civilisations as a form of a graveyard. The deep murk creates music, its timbre evokes the consonance which you used to share. Familiar air with moist and warm temperature touches your memories. There has always been an exit, where all these have started. The tunnel, a little pilgrim to visit yourself.” Tomoko Mukaiyama and Jean Kalman

Excerpted from ‘A Figure of Disaster’ by Piersandro Di Monteo Presented by Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio – Romeo Castellucci Director’s Assistant: Silvia Costa Collaboration to the Set Design: Ciacomo Strada and Istvan Zimmermann Staging coordination for the building of the set: Dario Boldrin

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ART INSTALLATIONS

Not I BY SAMUEL BECKETT Director: Neil Jordan (Ireland) Location: The Masonic Hall Date: Wed 21 - Mon 26 Aug Time: 10am - 6pm Price: Free

UK PREMIERE

A Still Life is a Real Life

In constructing these spaces, we see an image which can be thought of as a portrait. If we look carefully, this still life is a real life. And in a way, if we think about it and look at them long enough, the mental spaces become mental landscapes.

IRISH PREMIERE

Often people ask me, “What are the ideas behind the images?” I do not interpret my work. Interpretation is for others. To fix a meaning to a work limits its poetry and the possibility of other ideas. They are personal, poetic statements of different personalities.”

Robert Wilson (America) Location: Higher Bridges Gallery, Mount Lourdes Date: Wed 21 - Mon 26 Aug Time: 10am - 5pm Price: Free

“The video portraits can be seen in the three traditional ways that artists construct space. If I hold my hand in front of my face, I can say it is a portrait. If I see my hand at a distance, I can say it is part of a still life, and if I see it from across the street, I can say that it is part of a landscape.

Robert Wilson Winona Ryder (Actor) channels the character Winnie in this silent meditative interpretation of the Samuel Beckett theatre work Happy Days. Buried to her neck in sand, with a Carmen Miranda headdress, an open purse, toothbrush and gun, night passes into day and day into night.

This unique film-based installation, directed by Neil Jordan and featuring the American actress Julianne Moore, is based on Samuel Beckett’s play Not I, 1972. Neil Jordan filmed his interpretation, which is 13 minutes in duration, from multiple angles in long, complete, 13-minute takes, since the piece only reveals itself through the pressure and physical demands of the uninterrupted performance of the text. Realising that each take had its own integrity Jordan developed his original film version into a multi-screen installation in which Moore’s mouth appears on six screens arranged in a circular configuration. Six screen installation with sound Producer: Blue Angel Films Collection: Irish Museum of Modern Art Donation: The artist, 2000 Production Still: Pat Redmond © Company of Wolves Éire Ltd, Co. Dublin

Musical score: Michael Galasso With thanks to Dissident Industries

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OUR PARTNERS

CONTENTS

Roisín McDonough Chief Executive Arts Council Northern Ireland Happy Days are here again! The genius of a great idea is that it seems so obvious … once someone else has thought it first. And that’s how it felt with last year’s inaugural Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival. Not just a Fermanagh first, but, incredibly, a world first! Yes, the plans were ambitious – Northern Ireland hasn’t staged a new international multi-arts festival on this scale for 50 years – but the potential to transform the cultural scene in Fermanagh and to lift Northern Ireland’s creative profile was enormous. And like all truly great ideas, Happy Days has been a phenomenal success. We’re delighted to be on board as a principal supporter once again this year.

Arlene Foster Tourism Minister

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FESTIVAL COMMISSION – PUBLIC ART

14 - 15

FIRST MOVES – DANCE

16 - 18

FIRST MOVES – WAITING FOR GODOT

It’s hard to believe it has been a year since the Enniskillen International Beckett Festival made its debut to critical acclaim.

MIDDLE GAME – THEATRE

20 - 23

END GAME – THEATRE

24 - 25

And I have no doubt that the 2013 event will be equally as successful.

FESTIVAL COMMISSION EXHIBITION

With visitors from as far away as Japan, Australia and the USA last year, the Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival has claimed its place on the world’s cultural stage. This is a solid foundation for this year’s event to build on. Linking tourism with culture can do more for local economies than promoting them separately. By sharing our cultural heritage with visitors, we can reap the economic benefits of tourism. The world’s eyes were on Fermanagh when the G8 summit was held at the Lough Erne Resort and I’ve no doubt that this year’s Enniskillen International Beckett Festival will once again help shine the global spotlight on this beautiful and historic county.

CONTENTS

WRITERS & ARTISTS: THE TALKS THE WATT PROGRAMME 28 - 34 WORDS WITHOUT ACTS ACT WITHOUT WORDS II

35 - 38 39

CLASSICAL BECKETT

40 - 45

FAB (FOOLING AROUND BECKETT)

46 - 51

MISS FITT’S SINDAY NIGHT COMEDY VISUAL ARTS

52 53 - 54

TV & RADIO PLAYS

BEND IT LIKE BECKETT

FESTIVAL INFORMATION

57 - 64

FESTIVAL COMMISSION PuBlic art

THE SAMUEL BECKETT CHESS SET Alan Milligan

WORLD PREMIERE Date & Location: 15 July - 21 Aug, 32 Enniskillen locations Thu 22 - Mon 26 Aug: The Diamond

FESTIVAL COMMISSION PUBLIC ART

NOTE FROM THE ARTIST “I decided to approach the chess pieces by basing them figuratively on the characters and props of Beckett’s invention. Finding the images of Beckett’s works is a very rich dense and detailed well to draw from, the body language is monumental. I use the props predominantly as pawns and the figures as the nobility but not exclusively. This rule is broken when the characters relating to one another in master servile roles seemed to fit the game. The role of fire in the making of these works should not be underestimated. Bronze is the medium I like to work in. An ancient traditional material yet I find its fluid quality very able for expression. For this reaction to occur requires great heat. The solid becoming molten then still again like a camera captures a moment. The other material used is wood which reacts quite differently to a flames touch, giving me shades of light and dark. Scorching the hundred year old timber blocks allowed me to darken the wood for the mounts that define the black pieces from the white as well as the white squares from the black on the board itself. The marks on the base and sides of the timber blocks are the key to the character’s station in the game. These marks are so small as to allow the audience to engage primarily with the bronze characters as they move around the board as players on a stage.” Alan Milligan

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FIRST MOVES DANCE

WANHA

Tero Saarinen Company (Finland) IRISH PREMIERE

Location: Ardhowen Theatre Date: Sat 24 & Sun 25 Aug Time: 7pm Price: £8/£6 Duration: 30 mins Suitable for adults and children

Two men in tuxedos and hats tell a tale of friendship, life and ageing. The piece has been compared to Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot; the mood is similarly expectant and delicate, while also mundanely cruel and tinged with melancholy humor.

“Richly original, and scrupulously intelligent.” The Guardian

“Majestic and revolutionary” – Le Figaro “Supreme Artistry” – The Australian WANHA (1994) is an early piece by Tero Saarinen. The above is press comment on the choreographer and his other work.

Photo: Esa Kyyrö / P.D.C.

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Choreography: Tero Saarinen Music: Henryk Górecki (Three pieces in olden style for string orchestra, Quasi una Fantasia: String Quartet No.2) Lighting Design: Mikki Kunttu Costume Design: Tero Saarinen Dance: Henrikki Heikkilä, Mikko Lampinen Premiere: June 13, 1994 Kuopio Dance Festival

Dos A Deux 2nd Act (France)

Irish Premiere Location: Ardhowen Theatre Date: Sun 25 & Mon 26 Aug Time: 2pm Price: £8/£6 Duration: 60 mins

FAMILY TICKET £20

Inspired by Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, this is a beautiful and innovative adaptation, one that is absent of speech making it a wholly physical (dis)play. The words become bodies, yet it is not a dance show. It is theatre making where gesture and the body in motion substitute for speech. The duets tell a simple, essentially funny poetic tale of two men who are waiting for someone who will never come. They spend time struggling, wriggling, bickering ‘visually’ with quickquip clever body-clowning. They are ‘lunar clowns’ who have not aged, their archetypes exist and are still echoes in the dreams and childhood buried in every being of our modern society. “An explosion of imagination, creativity and humour and the mingling of comedy and tragedy, all contained within the theme of waiting... Simple, yet sophisticated, it spoke to the spirit of each person in the audience who gave the duo a standing ovation.” Afternoon Despatch and Courier Writings, direction, choregraphy and scenery Artur Ribeiro and André Curti / With Guillaume Lepape and Clément Chaboche / Soundtracks Artur Ribeiro and André Curti / Original music Fernando Mota / Make Up Maria Adelia.

FIRST MOVES DANCE

FIRST MOVES WAITING FOR GODOT

FULCRUM

Dylan Quinn Dance Theatre (Ireland) Irish Premiere Location: St Macartin's Hall Date & Time: Sat 24 Aug - 9pm & Sun 25 Aug - 6pm Price: £8/£6 Duration: 45 mins

Created collaboratively between dancer/ choreograher Dylan Quinn, dancer Jenny Ecke and composer/singer Andy Garbi, Fulcrum has been inspired by the themes and political context of Samuel Beckett’s short play Catastrophe and its relationship to Václav Havel.

Antony Gormley Tree for Waiting for Godot / See page 54 / Photo by eMOTION Photography

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett Aboriginal Australia & Ireland A First Reading – Open Public Rehearsal Location: La Salle de l'Union, Regal Pass Date: Sun 25 Aug Time: 11am - 2pm Price: £3 Duration: Rehearsal duration 3hrs (with interval) Free to come and go anytime during rehearsal

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Inspired by the world’s largest limestone plateau (reef of memory) of the Nullabor Plain in the West Australian landscape, this production commission makes its first move in Enniskillen in 2013 to return to Enniskillen for its world premiere in 2014. With Aboriginal actors playing Didi & Gogo (Ernie Dingo & Aaron Pederson) and Irish actors as Pozzo & Lucky (Mark Lambert and Aaron Monaghan), both pairs of actors will meet each other for the first time on stage at this rehearsal. The production will have two directors, Conall Morrison (Ireland – Act 2) and Kyle Morrison (Australia – Act 1). The future creative team includes tree and set by Antony Gormley (see page 54) and Lighting by Jean Kalman (see page 9). 19

MIDDLE GAME THEATRE

BECKETT: WHAT WHERE Teatro Plastico (Portugal)

A triple bill: Rough for Theatre 2 What Where What is the word UK & Irish Premiere Location: Ardhowen Theatre Date & Time: Thu 22 Aug - 6.30pm, Fri 23 Aug - 9pm, Sat 24 Aug - 12 noon Price: £14/£12 Duration: 60 mins

Teatro Plastico has dedicated itself to the work of Samuel Beckett’s plays, recognising him as the most influential author of contemporary theatre of the last century. Their highly visual work brings the dramatic, poetic and audiovisual potency of Beckett into a new visceral world whilst exploring our own inescapable universe as a mental and physical territory that always remains important to an understanding of our reality and our humanity.

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MIDDLE GAME THEATRE

EspaÇo DAS AGUNCHEIRAS (Portugal)

ETHICA

Sugarglass Theatre (Ireland)

À Espera do Sr. Samuel Beckett

Four Shorts by Samuel Beckett

UK & Irish Premiere

UK Premiere

FIVE Beckett SHORTS Location: Steele Hall, Portora Royal School Date & Time: Fri 23 Aug - 7pm & Sun 25 Aug - 12 noon Price: £10/£8 Duration: 75 mins

Five Beckett short plays: Rockaby Footfalls Ohio Impromptu Words and Music Come and Go “A turbulence made up of various layers taken from 5 different texts by Samuel Beckett. Present in these lives we have death, solace, pain, involvement, curiosity... with words and much music, and improvisation in Ohio I take a few steps straight to the rocking chair where I come and go. Might they sit, their eyes searching for mine? I steady myself towards crossing the road and oops here I go. There we shall meet.” São José Lapa

Sugarglass Theatre, one of the most exciting new Dublin theatre companies, presents these works in partnership with Trinity College Dublin. With the support of Trinity College Dublin. Directed by Marc Atkinson and Nicholas Johnson Sugarglass Theatre (Dublin).

Location: St Macartin’s Hall Date & Time: Sun 25 Aug - 8pm & Mon 26 Aug at 12 noon Price: £8/£6 Duration: 60 mins

Ethica explores timeless questions of fidelity, justice, and resistance in both domestic and political contexts. Play (1964) strikes us with an image of three heads, the bodies encased in urns, seemingly destined to repeat the story of their love into infinite time. Come and Go (1965) presents another ghostly triad: three women sit on a bench speaking of an enigmatic past they shared. Catastrophe (1979), dedicated to Václav Havel during the time of his imprisonment, explores the situation of a body turned into theatrical material. What Where (1983), Beckett’s final work for the theatre, creates a system of repetition that suggests the pattern of state violence as well as a writer “revolving it all”.

Photography by Pedro Soares

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END GAME THEATRE

ENDGAME

Endgame is considered as Beckett’s greatest play. Set in a shelter on a cliff – outside, a physical wasteland; inside, a divided consciousness.

Blue Raincoat Theatre (Ireland & AUSTRALIA)

“Subtle inflections of the new insight are always welcome in Beckett, and this production has several.”

By Samuel Beckett

UK PREMIERE Location: Steele Hall, Portora Royal School Date & Time: Sat 24 Aug - 3pm & 8.30pm, Sun 25 Aug - 5pm Price: £15/£12 BUY TICKETS Duration: 90 mins Supported by Michael & Ruth West

FOR BOTH ENDGAMES FOR £25/£20

Sunday Independent In this cliffside domicile, on the margin of land and sea, sheltered against a devastated world, the couple live out a life dominated by rituals and repetitions*. “In Beckett’s sly chess metaphor...Hamm is as confined and vulnerable as a king and Blue Raincoat let us find the meaning in his predicament.” Irish Times *Faber & Faber Companion

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ENDGAME

By Samuel Beckett Chaconne by J.S.Bach

Wits’ End (AUSTRALIA) UK & IRISH PREMIERE Location: St Macartin's Hall Date & Time: Thu 22 Aug - 7.30pm, Fri 23 Aug - 6.45pm, Sat 24 Aug - 12 noon BUY TICKETS Price: £15/£12 FOR BOTH Duration: 90 mins ENDGAMES FOR £25/£20

From Australia, an award-winning production of Beckett’s darkly comic masterpiece Endgame, in counterpart with J.S. Bach’s magisterial Chaconne for solo violin. “This is simply a brilliant performance of Beckett’s greatest play.” – The Australian First performed to critical acclaim in 2006, as a tribute to the playwright in his centenary year, it had a second sell-out season in the 2008 Melbourne International Arts Festival. “The performances were already blindingly good; now there are deeper resonances.” – Theatre Notes Beckett once described Endgame as a “cantata for voices”. This production then, honours Beckett the musician.

FESTIVAL COMMISSION EXHIBITION

PARTNERS

NEIL MORTON Headmaster, Portora Royal School There has grown a narrative that states Samuel Beckett hated his time at Portora Royal School. He did not. He quietly asserted himself in sport, ensured that he neither failed nor shone in his studies (although he did win prizes for French) and – like many sharply intelligent and under-challenged students before and since – baited weak teachers. He made good friends at school who remained good friends throughout his life. He fed on the opportunities and support the school afforded him. From any angle, he is seen as a Portoran. Not surprisingly, the school cherishes his contribution to the community. We bask unashamedly in his glory. Once again, we are delighted and proud to play a part in this celebration of the life and works of one of its own.

PORTORA ROYAL SCHOOL

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Councillor Alex Baird Chairman, Fermanagh District Council Fermanagh District Council is delighted to support the Happy Days, Enniskillen International Beckett Festival, when it returns to Enniskillen for a second year in August 2013. Last year’s festival exceeded all expectations. There was a world class programme and we welcomed a host of visitors from near and far. I look forward to another tremendous weekend in August where visitors and residents can experience the very best of all things Beckett. The festival, its innovative programming and use of a diverse range of venues in and around Enniskillen, will showcase the uniqueness of Enniskillen – Ireland’s only island town – and its environs, as a centre for arts, culture and heritage and make Enniskillen world renowned for being Beckett town.

‘Was I sleeping, while the others suffered?’ * Samuel Beckett – Witness to the Twentieth Century

This is the first major exhibition of material pertaining to Beckett’s work since 2007 (Centre Pompidou, Paris), and includes many items never previously on public display. * Vladimir, Waiting for Godot. Curated by Conor Carville and Mark Nixon Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading

WORLD PREMIERE Location: South West College, Central Hall Date: Wed 21 - Mon 26 Aug Time: 10am - 6pm Price: £3

Samuel Beckett had personal experience of the most tumultuous periods and places of twentieth century history: Ireland of the Civil War while attending school in Enniskillen, Nazi Germany, France of the Second World War and Cold War Berlin. Drawing on letters, diaries, photographs, notebooks, manuscripts, posters and programmes, this exhibition tracks the hidden politics and the historical contexts of Beckett’s work and life. New light is thrown on Beckett’s activities in the French resistance, his attitudes to Cold War politics, his opposition to censorship and his deep compassion for the tortured and imprisoned. The Exhibition also shows how Beckett’s plays have been performed in times of crisis across the world, from apartheid South Africa and war-torn Sarajevo to a New Orleans devastated by hurricane Katrina (with selected screenings from some of this events). 27

WRITERS & ARTISTS : The Talks (The WATT programme)

FRIDAY 23 AUGUST

Cormac Ó CuilleanÁin & Ciaran Carson

WITH CARLO GÉBLER An Introduction to Dante

FRIDAY 23 AUGUST

Margaret Drabble & Eoin O’Brien

A.C. Grayling

Beckett’s Philosphers Location: St McArthur's Hall, Methodist Church Date: Fri 23 Aug Time: 8.30pm Price: £10/£8 Duration: 60 mins approx.

Location: St McArthur's Hall, Methodist Church Date: Fri 23 Aug Time: 1pm Price: £5 Duration: 60 mins approx.

Dante’s Divine Comedy was probably Beckett’s favourite work and there is a strong focus on it in this year’s festival. Professor Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin, who is Head of Italian at Trinity College, Dublin, offers an insight into Dante’s life and world and discusses the background to the writing of his great poem. Ciaran Carson will read from his translation of Dante’s Inferno. Ciaran Carson’s poetry has won both the T. S Eliot and the Forward Prizes, and his translation of the Inferno won the Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize. He is Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University. “Ciaran Carson’s remarkable translation of Dante’s Inferno renders the boil and hiss of the medieval underworld with memorable vigour.” – The Guardian

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Location: St McArthur's Hall, Methodist Church Date: Fri 23 Aug Time: 5.30pm Price: £10/£8 Duration: 60 mins approx.

The countryside around Dublin had a profound effect on Samuel Beckett and on his work. Eoin O’Brien, author of The Beckett Country: Samuel Beckett’s Ireland, celebrates the places that meant most to Beckett, and novelist Margaret Drabble (author of A Writer’s Britain) explores more broadly the relationship between writers and landscape. BUY TICKETS FOR FOUR WATT TALKS AND GET A FIFTH FREE

“We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression that we exist.” Waiting for Godot The great questions of philosophy fascinated Beckett all his life. In this special talk for the festival, A.C. Grayling explores the thinking behind the philosophers who mattered most to Beckett. A.C. Grayling is Master of the New College of the Humanities and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. Until 2011 he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. His books include The Meaning of Things, Ideas That Matter and, most recently, The God Argument: The Case Against Religion And For Humanism.

SATURDAY 24 AUGUST

Anthony Cronin In conversation with Carlo Gébler

Location: St McArthur's Hall, Methodist Church Date: Sat 24 Aug Time: 12 noon Price: £10/£8 Duration: 60 mins approx.

Poet, novelist, biographer and memoirist, Anthony Cronin is one of the major figures in Irish writing. His memoir Dead As Doornails portrayed post-war literary Dublin and his friendship with Brendan Behan, Patrick Kavanagh and Flann O’Brien. In conversation with Carlo Gébler he discusses the challenges he faced in the writing of his acclaimed biography, Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist. “Anthony Cronin, in his beautifully personal slant on Beckett’s life, undercuts the myth of nobility and saintliness that sometimes surrounds Beckett these days… Cronin is a sort of ambassador of Beckett’s humanness and humanity, not always the same thing, and of his greatness as a mature writer… An extraordinary account.” Sebastian Barry, The Times

WRITERS & ARTISTS : The Talks (The WATT programme)

SATURDAY 24 AUGUST

KATHLEEN jAMIE & TIM DEE Alone with Nature

Location: St McArthur's Hall, Methodist Church Date: Sat 24 Aug Time: 2pm Price: £10/£8 Duration: 60 mins approx.

Samuel Beckett was a great walker. Much of his fiction is set outdoors, inhabited by characters walking amidst what is essentially the Irish countryside. Kathleen Jamie and Tim Dee discuss the individual’s engagement with nature through walking and solitude and consider our efforts to align ourselves with the natural world. Kathleen Jamie has written two acclaimed collections of essays, Findings and Sightlines; both books explore her fascination with the natural world and the relationship between humans and other creatures in that world. Tim Dee has been a radio producer at the BBC for over twenty years. His first book, The Running Sky, maps his own observations and encounters over four decades of tracking birds across the globe. 30

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SATURDAY 24 AUGUST

TOM PAULIN Location: St McArthur's Hall, Methodist Church Date: Sat 24 Aug Time: 4pm Price: £10/£8 Duration: 60 mins approx.

CLIVE JAMES Translating Dante By Video link-up Location: South West College Date: 24 Aug Time: 6pm Price: £10/£8 Duration: 60 mins approx.

After Samuel Beckett heard Patrick Magee read extracts from his novel Molloy and from An Abandoned Work on the radio, he wrote Krapp’s Last Tape specifically for the Northern Irish actor. Beckett said Magee’s voice was the one which he heard inside his mind. The poetry of Tom Paulin also resonates with the rhythms and language of the Northern voice and in a special festival exclusive, he reads from his work.

Like Beckett, Clive James has had a lifelong passion for Dante and for The Divine Comedy in particular, and now, in the crowning achievement of his career, he has translated this epic poem. The result, decades in the making, is The Divine Comedy as a page-turner, creating a wonderful momentum that propels the reader along the pilgrim’s path, from Hell to Heaven, from despair to revelation.

Tom Paulin’s collections include Fivemiletown, The Road to Inver and Love’s Bonfire. He is the G. M. Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.

In a special live interview by video link-up, Clive James explains why Dante has meant so much to him and how the experience of translating him relates to the rest of his writing career.

“Love’s Bonfire is as combustible as good conversation but goes beyond conversation – as poetry should.”

“This is the translation that many of us had abandoned all hope of finding. Clive James’s version lets Dante’s genius shine through as it never did before in English verse, and is a reminder that James’s poetry has always been his finest work.”

Kate Kellaway, The Observer

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Edward Mendelson, Columbia University

TARIQ ALI

Ships In the Night: Beckett & Brecht Location: St McArthur's Hall, Methodist Church Date: Sat 24 Aug Time: 8pm Price: £10/£8 Duration: 60 mins approx.

In a special festival commission, Tariq Ali explores how Samuel Beckett and Bertold Brecht, though different in many ways, had to confront similar problems when midnight gripped the twentieth century. Brecht fled Hitler’s Germany and went into exile, first within Europe, later the United States. Beckett, unable to settle intellectually in the Irish colony of the British Empire or its Catholic-nationalist offspring, moved to Paris where he had to confront the German occupation and the Vichy collaborationist regime. Both writers were resisters. How did it affect their work in a period where politics and culture were difficult to separate? What might a conversation between the two men in 1943 have been like? Tariq Ali has been a leading figure of the international left since the ’60s. He is a long-standing editor of the New Left Review and a political commentator who has been published on every continent. His latest play, The New Adventures of Don Quixote premieres in the Essen Schauspielhaus later this year (www.schauspiel-essen. de/vorschau/die-neuen-abenteuer-des-don-quijote). 31

WRITERS & ARTISTS : The Talks (The WATT programme)

SUNDAY 25 AUGUST

MAREK KEDZIERSKI Location: South West College Date: Sun 25 Aug Time: 12noon Price: £10/£8 Duration: 60 mins approx. Barbara Bray

Marek Kedzierski’s video and sound presentation celebrates Barbara Bray´s long involvement with the work of Samuel Beckett. From 2004 to 2009 Kedzierski recorded numerous conversations with Bray, focusing particularly on her years at the BBC, her work as a translator, and her contact with Beckett, Harold Pinter and Marguerite Duras. Prior to moving to Paris in 1961, principally to live close to Beckett, Barbara Bray worked in the Radio Drama Department at the BBC and it was there that she first met Beckett. In Paris she worked as a translator of literary and critical texts, for which she won many awards. After serious illness incapacitated her in 2003, she devoted herself to writing a personal memoir of Samuel Beckett (commissioned by Harvill Press) but her passing away in 2010 prevented her from completing it. “It was not until some years after his death in 1989, after re-reading some of the biographical and other studies, however admirable, of Beckett and his work, that I realised I was the only person who could bear witness to certain precious and unknown aspects of his being”, she wrote in the preface. 32

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SUNDAY 25 AUGUST

JOHN MONTAGUE & THOMAS KILROY Location: St McArthur's Hall, Methodist Church Date: Sun 25 Aug Time: 2pm Price: £10/£8 Duration: 60 mins approx.

“The world mourns the loss of a great writer, for whom recognition was almost a burden, and those of us who knew him will also miss a courteous, punctilious, faintly lunatic friend; a soft touch for a sob story or a permanent loan.” So wrote John Montague on the death of his friend, Samuel Beckett. Montague, one of Ireland's most renowned poets, had moved to Paris whilst working for the Irish Times and during this period he and Beckett became close. One of Ireland's leading playwrights, Thomas Kilroy's Madden-Rooney Public Lecture as the University of Notre-Dame appears in the new issue of Irish Pages, Memory. It is, in his own words, “an attempt to say something about three Anglo-Irish playwrights.... Beckett, Yeats and Shaw.” Coming together specially for the festival, John Montague and Thomas Kilroy discuss Beckett, the man and the writer.

FRANK SKINNER In conversation with Peter Curran

Location: Methodist Church Date: Sun 25 Aug Time: 4pm Price: £15/£13 Duration: 60 mins approx.

RICHARD HOLLOWAY Faith & Doubt

Location: St McArthur's Hall, Methodist Church Date: Sun 25 Aug Time: 6pm Price: £10/£8 Duration: 60 mins approx.

At first glance Samuel Beckett and Frank Skinner may not appear natural bedfellows but appearances can be deceptive. They share, for instance, a huge admiration for the writings of Samuel Johnston. Frank is a former honorary president of the Johnston Society and Beckett once told his biographer, James Knowlson, “They can put me wherever they want, but it’s Johnston, always Johnston, that is with me. And if I follow any tradition, it is his.”

Beckett’s writing is filled with characters who wrestle over questions of belief. In Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt, Richard Holloway describes how, at age fourteen, he left his home town of Alexandria, north of Glasgow, and travelled hundreds of miles to be educated and trained for the priesthood at an English monastery. By the age of twenty-five he had been ordained and was working in the slums of Glasgow.

They also share a great interest in the musical hall tradition. It influenced Beckett in the writing of Waiting for Godot and Frank is an ardent fan of George Formby, having made a documentary on him in which, while playing the ukulele, he gave a brilliant rendition of a Formby song.

Through the forty years that followed he rose to one of the highest positions in the Anglican Church. But behind his confident public faith lay a restless heart and an inquisitive mind.

In a special ‘in conversation’ for Happy Days, Frank Skinner allows us an insight into the writers and artists that inspire and influence him.

“A compelling account of a journey through life... and a highly readable insight into one of the most humane and engaged minds of our times. It is, quite simply, a wonderful book.” – Alexander McCall Smith

WRITERS & ARTISTS : The Talks (The WATT programme)

SUNDAY 25 AUGUST

JOHN GRAY Location: St McArthur's Hall, Methodist Church Date: Sun 25 Aug Time: 8pm Price: £10/£8 Duration: 60 mins approx.

WORDS WITHOUT ACTS

MONDAY 26 AUGUST

JAN JÖNSON Moments of Reality

NEW WRITING SHORTS - OPEN MIC SESSION Location: The Buttermarket Date & Time: Sat 24 Aug, 3-6pm Invitation for writers and poets to sell directly to the public. All writers and poets welcome.

SINGER SONGWRITER OPEN MIC SESSION Location: The Buttermarket Date & Time: Sat 24 Aug, 8pm until late

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THE TELLERS

Here are just some of the readers that will be taking part.

Juliet Stevenson

Live readings in surprise spaces...

The philosopher, sceptic and writer John Gray is “one of the most consistently interesting and unpredictable thinkers in Britain” – The Observer John Gray's 2002 book Straw Dogs, a devastating attack on liberal humanism, cemented his reputation as a public intellectual and his latest book, The Silence of Animals, draws on the work of Conrad, Borges and Freud to help us reimagine our place in the world. Also referenced is Beckett, a writer whom John Gray greatly admires. He discusses in this festival event Beckett's approach to silence and the limits of language.

WORDS WITHOUT ACTS THE TALES

Location: St McArthur's Hall, Methodist Church Date: Mon 26 Aug Time: 12 noon Price: £8/£6 Duration: 60 mins approx.

Jan Jönson directed Waiting For Godot at Kumla maximum-security prison in Sweden. Just before its second performance, for members of the public in Gothenberg, five of the six inmates escaped, and so Jönson went on stage himself and talked about his experiences at Kumla and about the prisoners and their world. Out of this, his monologue, Moments Of Reality, was born. It would subsequently incorporate his work directing Beckett’s plays in other prisons (most notably San Quentin State Prison in California) and Beckett’s response to those productions. Jan Jönson is a Swedish director, actor and writer.

Worstward Ho / Ill Seen Ill Said Evening / As the Story was Told Dante & the Lobster / An Abandoned Work Fizzles / Assumption / First Love Company / Imagination Dead Imagine Stirrings Still / Neither / Whoroscope Texts for Nothing and more...

VENUES, DATES & TIMES TO BE ANNOUNCED IN JULY. www.happy-days-enniskillen.com Most readings 15-30mins.

In 1992 Juliet Stevenson CBE was honoured with a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance in Death And The Maiden. For her lead role as Nina in Anthony Minghella's Truly, Madly Deeply, Stevenson earned a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress. Other notable screen credits include: Emma, Bend It Like Beckham, When Did You Last See Your Father? Nicholas Nickleby, Being Julia, Drowning By Numbers, Breaking And Entering, Infamous and Mona Lisa Smile. Stevenson has been nominated for five Olivier Awards for Best Actress and is a graduate of RADA. She is an associate artist of The Royal Shakespeare Company. 35

WORDS WITHOUT ACTS

THE TELLERS

Fiona Shaw

Diana Quick

Miranda Richardson

Harriet Walter & GUY PAUL

Fiona Shaw’s film and television credits include the lead in Richard II, Harry Potter’s aunt Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films, My Left Foot, Jane Eyre, Persuasion, Gormenghast, The Black Dahlia and True Blood.

Diana Quick is perhaps best known for the major role of Lady Julia Flyte in the television production of Brideshead Revisited. She received an Emmy and British Academy Television Awards nomination for this production. Quick has also shown her versatility as an actress appearing in many film, theatre and television productions. Her stage work has been truly varied with roles in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida to Brecht's The Threepenny Opera.

Film credits include Rita Skeeter in Harry Potter, Madame Giry in The Phantom of the Opera, Vanessa Bell in The Hours, Lady Elizabeth/Queen Elizabeth in Blackadder Back and Forth; Jude in The Crying Game; Mrs Victor in Empire of the Sun. TV highlights include Bettina in Absolutely Fabulous, Vivienne Haigh-Wood in Tom and Viv and various roles in Blackadder on BBC Television. Theatre credits include The Play What I Wrote, at Wyndham's Theatre directed by Kenneth Brannagh; Beth in Orlando at the Edinburgh Festival, directed by Robert Wilson; Mountain Language directed by Harold Pinter and The Changeling, directed by Richard Eyre, both at the National Theatre Lyttelton.

Harriet Walter has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company in many productions including Nicholas Nickleby, A Midsummer Night's Dream, All's Well That Ends Well, The Castle, Three Sisters, The Duchess of Malfi, Macbeth and Much Ado about Nothing.

Her theatrical credits include Machinal, As You Like It, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Taming of the Shrew, Happy Days, and the title roles in Electra, The Good Person of Sechuan, Hedda Gabler, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Medea, Mother Courage and Her Children.

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Most recently she portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in a documentary drama made for television, The Queen: How Do You Solve The Problem of Camilla? Prior to accepting the role, Diana had played the same character as a younger woman in Alan Bennett 's play, A Question of Attribution.

Miranda has been nominated for two Academy Awards, and has won two Golden Globes (with seven nominations) and a BAFTA (with seven nominations) during her career.

Film credits include Sense and Sensibility, Bedrooms and Hallways, Onegin, Villa des Roses, and Bright Young Things. Guy Paul has a long standing acting career in the film and television industry. His film and television credits include Hyde Park on Hudson, Life on Mars, The Dark Side of the Moon, The Sopranos, Moe n’Joe, Law and Order, Passion, George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation and A Christmas to Remember.

ACT WITHOUT WORDS

WORDS WITHOUT ACTS

THE TELLERS

Evlyne OYEDOKUN

Evlyne Oyedokun is a very exciting young actress. Evlyne has studied at the Guildhall School of Music and has just been selected to train at RADA, her BA course beginning straight after Happy Days.

MORE WORDS WITHOUT ACTS READINGS: FRANK SKINNER JOHN HEGLEY IAN MCELHINNEY RONNIE GOLDEN PAT McCABE ANNA NYGH CIARAN MCMENAMIN

Neil Pearson

As an actor, Neil Pearson is best known for Between The Lines, Drop The Dead Donkey, Bridget Jones’ Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason. Neil is also a book collector and dealer. As the former he specialises in the expatriate literary presses of Paris between the two World Wars (which takes in Beckett, whose book, Whoroscope, was published by Nancy Cunard’s Hours Press in 1930).

Adrian Dunbar

Dunbar was born and brought up in Enniskillen. His film credits include My Left Foot, The Crying Game, The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce and The General. He has also had leading roles in the films Triggermen, Shooters, How Harry Became A Tree, Richard III, and Widows’ Peak. On television, he has starred in many productions, including Tough Love, Inspector Morse, Kidnapped, Murphy's Law, Murder in Mind, Ashes to Ashes and The Quatermass Experiment.

ACT Without WORDS II By Samuel Beckett

Location: Meeting point La Salle de l'Union entrance, Wellington Street Date & Time: Fri 23 & Sat 24 Aug - 9.30pm & 10.30pm Price: £6 Duration: 30 mins

SEÁN DORAN

Founder & Festival Director, Happy Days

Portraits by Aoibheann

Welcome to Happy Days 2013 in Enniskillen, in this very special Northern Ireland year of the UK City of Culture, Derry~Londonderry and Ireland's Gathering. We've introduced several new features for you in this second festival: an emphasis on Samuel Beckett's short plays with many UK/Irish premieres; a wide selection of Beckett's short prose read by a mouth watering roster of actors; and an all audiences friendly FAB (fooling around Beckett) Programme. But our most significant new programme shaper is reserved for Beckett's great mentor, the Italian medieval poet Dante Alighieri, inspiring some major site-specific commissions and art installations.

An outdoor production of Samuel Beckett’s Act Without Words II directed by Beckett Specialist Sarah-Jane Scaife. It is performed live on the street by two superb physical theatre experts, Raymond Keane (Director of leading Irish Theatre of Clown, Barabbas) and Bryan Burroughs. “A powerful poignant vignette of human existence…” Irish Times “One can’t but be astounded by the physical theatre here…”

We invite you to bring all your Beckett props and accessories – bike, umbrella, boots and hats – and flaunt them colourfully to create a momentous atmosphere for Enniskillen as BECKETT TOWN in August as it hosts the world's largest annual celebration of the work of Samuel Beckett and those he has inspired. PS And do put in your 2014 diaries (May 22-26) the arrival of our new sister festival of music, also in regional border Northern Ireland - The FANTASIA Vaughan Williams International Festival ARMAGH.

Irish Examiner 38

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CLASSICAL BECKETT

OLIVIER OPENING PARADISO CONCERT

MORNING MESSIAEN PARADISO CONCERT

Quartet for the End of Time by Olivier Messiaen

Visions De L’amen For Two Pianos By Olivier Messiaen

The Vienna Piano Trio and Matt Hunt - Clarinet

Pierre-Laurent Aimard & Tamara Stefanovich

Location: St Michael’s Church Date: Thur 22 Aug Time: 9.15pm Price: Free Duration: 50 mins

Location: St Macartin’s Cathedral Date: Sat 24 Aug Time: 10.30am Price: £10/£8 Duration: 50 mins

6. Amen de l’agonie de Jésus (Amen of the Agony of Jesus) 7. Amen du jugement (Amen of Judgement) 8. Amen de la consommation (Amen of Consummation) Pierre Laurent Aimard’s 2012/13 season has included solo recitals in London, New York, Chicago, Paris, Tokyo – and now Enniskillen. His concerto performances include the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and New York Philharmonic. Tamara Stefanovich has performed with the Philharmonia and Vladimir Ashkenazy, the London Sinfonietta and at the Salzburgh & Aldeburgh Festivals.

Photograph: Tony Plevin

In 1940, Olivier Messiaen (1908-92) was interned in a German prison camp, where he discovered among his fellow prisoners a clarinettist, a violinist and a violoncellist. The success of a short trio which he wrote for them led him to add seven more movements, and a piano to the ensemble, to create the Quartet for the End of Time. Messiaen and his friends first performed it for their 5,000 fellow prisoners on January 15, 1941. Messiaen’s religious mysticism found a point of departure for the Quartet in the passage in the Book of Revelation about the descent of the seventh angel who announces “that there should be time no longer”.

There are eight movements because God rested on the seventh day after creation, a day which extended into the eighth day of timeless eternity. 1. Liturgy of crystal 2. Vocalise, for the Angel who announces the end of Time 3. Abyss of the birds 4. Interlude 5. Praise to the Eternity of Jesus 6. Dance of fury, for the seven trumpets 7. A mingling of rainbows for the Angel who announces the end of Time 8. Praise to the Immortality of Jesus

Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? 40

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Visions de l’Amen (1943) is a twentieth century music icon, a compelling vision of saints and songbirds propelling us heavenwards. One commentator called it “a defiant affirmation of faith in the face of man’s inhumanity”. The overall mood is celebration. 1. Amen de la Création (Amen of Creation) 2. Amen des étoiles, de la planète à l’anneau (Amen of the stars, of the ringed planet) 3. Amen de l’agonie de Jésus (Amen of the Agony of Jesus) 4. Amen du désir (Amen of Desire) 5. Amen des anges, des saints, du chant des oiseaux (Amen of the Angels, of the Saints, of Bird Song)

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (photograph: Marco Borggreve)

Tamara Stefanovich (photograph: Alexander Rümmele)

Samuel Beckett: Witness to the Twentieth Century 41

CLASSICAL BECKETT

Winterreise

MORNING

By Franz Schubert

Vienna Piano Trio

CLOSING CONCERT

Florian Boesch & Roger Vignoles

Location: Castle Coole Date: Fri 23 Aug Time: 10.30am Price: £10/£8 Duration: 70 mins

Tomoko Mukaiyama, Piano

Location: St Macartin’s Cathedral Date: Sat 24 Aug Time: 2pm Price: £12/£10 Duration: 70 mins

Winterreise (Winter’s Journey) was Samuel Beckett’s favourite musical work by his favourite composer. Happy Days is presenting the work as a constant every year. FLORIAN BOESCH Austrian baritone Florian Boesch has established himself as one of the most exciting young lead interpreters of his generation. He has sung at the Wiener Musikverein, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle, London Wigmore Hall, International Edinburgh Festival, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Operatic engagements have taken him to the Salzburger Festspiele (Così Fan Tutte/ Guglielmo), Hamburgische Staatsoper (Radamisto/ Tiridate), Bregenzer Festspiele, the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre (Die Zauberflöte/ Papageno) and the Oper Köln for Wozzeck. Boesch is regularly working with conductors such as Nicholas Harnoncourt, Sir Roger Norrington, Phillippe 42

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Florian Boesch (baritone)

Roger Vignoles (piano)

Location: Central Hall, South West College Date: Mon 26 Aug Time: 6pm Price: £10/£8 Duration: 60 mins (see page 9 for Tomoko’s installation) Photograph: copyright Shinji Otani

The Nocturne piano concert consists of video, soundtrack and manipulated ‘Nocturnes’ by Chopin. The soundtrack is made out of helicopter sounds and interviews with survivors from the Japanese tsunami of March 2011. This is combined with fragments of a children choir of an elementary school that was closed down due to the aftermath of the tsunami. The children sing several school songs. The intensity of this concert creates a sense of the power of nature, and the fragility of human kind. The piece is dedicated to the children who lost their early lives by this enormous devastation. Tomoko made her own music dramaturgy with compositions from:

Herreweghe and Gustavo Dudamel. His CD with lieder and ballads by Carl Loewe was released in May 2011 for Hyperion with the pianist of his Enniskillen recital, Roger Vignoles. His most recent CD Franz Schubert – Winterreise was released for Onyx classics in October 2011. ROGER VIGNOLES Roger Vignoles is internationally recognised as one of the world’s most distinguished piano accompanists. He has collaborated with leading singers Elisabeth Söderström, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Thomas Allen, Barbara Bonney, Kathleen Battle, Brigitte Fassbaender, Bernarda Fink, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. He performs extensively at major venues across the world such as the Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie Cologne, Vienna Konzerthaus, the Royal Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, La Scala and Théatre des Champs-Élysées.

Nocturne

Haydn: Piano Trio in C-major Hob.XV/27 Schubert: Sonata Movement in B-flat major D.28 Beethoven: Piano Trio in E-flat major, op.70/2

Salvatore Sciarrino – Due notturni crudeli: II Furia Fréderic Chopin – Nocturnes Frederic Rzewski – Piano Piece No.4 Tomoko Mukaiyama – Improvisations Somei Satoh – Incarnation II

CLASSICAL BECKETT FREE

PRECIOUS LITTLE AFTERNOON RECITALS Celebrating the anniversaries of Wagner, Verdi and Britten.

Schubertiade for SAM

Location: St Michael's Church / Time: 3pm / Price: Free / Duration: 20 mins

Friday 23 August

RUBY PHILOGENE MBE

Mezzo Soprano

Sunday 25 August

Monday 26 August

WILLIAM PETTER

JULIAN HUBBARD

Paul Plummer, piano

Aoife O’Sullivan, piano

Tenor

ULSTER ORCHESTRA

A BBC 3 RADIO INVITATION CONCERT

BECKETT LUNCHES All That Fall, Happy Days 2012

Ruby Philogene is a former winner of the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Award and has sung at the Royal Opera House, Deutsche Oper, La Monnaie Brussels and performed with maestros Riccardo Muti, Sir Colin Davis, Antonio Pappano and Michael Tilson Thomas.

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Enter the world of William Blakes, the unofficial festival club, with our own Happy Days ambience of Dante's Inferno - Cafe Merlot (basement), the laid back Ante-Purgatory front bar, the two towering Purgatory back bars Lower & Upper and upstairs a Paradiso dining saloon, Good Heaven's Above (No 6). See William Blake prints of The Divine Comedy on the walls. "A cathedral of a pub... and the best north or south of the border" writes Irish author Colm Tobin.

Tenor

Paul Plummer, piano

Wesendonk Lieder by Richard Wagner

WILLIAM BLAKES

William Petter began his singing life as a chorister at New College, Oxford. He studied Neuroscience at University College, London, and completed his postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music, for which he gained the highest award, distinction with DipRAM. He works as a freelance musician, mainly in London and Hamburg. Britten ‘The Choirmaster's Burial’ from Winter Words. Britten ‘Albert the Good’ from Albert Herring & Poulenc and Lutoslawski.

Verdi’s Macduff's aria from Macbeth, Ah la paterna mano, and other Verdi songs. Julian Hubbard has sung with English National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera Holland Park, ThéâtreRoyal de la Monnaie and at the Montepulciano and Aldeburgh Festivals. He also regularly appears in concerts including at the Wigmore Hall, Snape Maltings and on BBC Radio 3 In Tune.

Location: Mount Lourdes Date: Fri 23 Aug Time: 7.15pm Price: Free Duration: 1 hr 45 mins (with interval) Tickets available at www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours

Conductor Michael Seal – Soprano tbc Franz Schubert – Rosamunde, Entr'actes Schubert Songs – Orchestrated by Max Reger Nacht Und Traume, An Die Musik (favourites of Samuel Beckett)

Location: Dining Hall, Portora Royal School Date: Fri 23 Aug - Mon 26 Aug Time: 1pm Price: £13 per lunch A bespoke Beckett 1920s lunch made from ingredients found in the author's work! Irresistible...

DANTE SUPPERS Location: Cafe Merlot (Inferno) Date: Thu 22 Aug - Mon 26 Aug Booking Number: 02866320918 A bespoke three course dinner of Inferno (starters), Purgatorio (mains) and Paradiso (dessert). Booking through Cafe Merlot.

Schubert – Orchestrated by Mahler Death and the Maiden (as mentioned in All That Fall) 45

THE FAB PROGRAMME AT La salle de L'union

THE FAB PROGRAMME FOOLING AROUND BECKETT

LA SALLE DE L'UNION Amidst Toytown, School Days and Babyworld sleeps the long forgotten old Regal Cinema (closed 1971) in the centre of town. Happy Days dusts down the old cinema into a new reincarnation for a French Cabaret style smorgasbord of clown, comedy, slapstick, mime and silent film. Enter the world that swirled around Beckett in Paris during the 1920s-60s inspiring some of the great images and routines in his plays.

The PRINCEss Bride

MORNING MAGIC

Directed by Rob Reiner

SILENT CINEMA MAGIC

Opening Night Screening Location: La Salle de l'Union Entree Wellington Street between Toytown and School Days Date: Thu 22 Aug Time: 6.30pm Price: Free Duration: 100 mins

It is said that Samuel Beckett drove the actor of the film, Andre the Giant, to school some mornings....

Location: La Salle de l'Union / Time: 11am / Price: Free Family friendly

John HegleyThe Adventures of Monsieur Robinet

WAITING FOR GODOT

Location: La Salle de l'Union / Date: Mon 26 Aug Time: 11am / Price: £5 / Duration: 90 mins Family friendly

Saturday Morning

Sunday Morning

Location: La Salle de l'Union / Time: 11am - 2pm Price: See page 19

Fooling Around Beckett offers FAB family fun with classic comedy screenings from Rob Reiner's classic Princess Bride to the top tens from vintage double acts Morecambe and Wise, French and Saunders, Laurel and Hardy, Steptoe and Son and more.

STREET ARTS AROUND TOWN

A confiture packed line up of Europe's very best of clown, mime, comedic and theatre performances. Pop in during the day for an all ages extravaganza or slip away into the night in the atmospheric surroundings of La Salle de l'Union to enjoy a bite to eat and drink at our Parisian Wine and Champagne Bar.

Date: Fri 23 - Mon 26 Aug Price: Free

Location: La Salle de l'Union The Old Regal Cinema (Unionist Hall) Regal Pass Price: FABuLOVEus Ticket Prices from £5 – £8

THE FAB PROGRAMME AT La salle de L'union

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Beckett Vignettes

Presented by Sum of the Parts artists Jon McKenna and Tracey Ann Wood and Fermanagh's wandering wastrels...

John Hegley is one of the UK's most innovative comic poets. Here, the Bard of Luton celebrates Beckett’s French connection with tales of his own can-can dancing grandmother and his father, Rene, who disowned his French heritage and changed his name to Bob. Monsieur Robinet, on the other hand, is a fictional Frenchman with some unusual (but clean) habits, which include burying his dog’s kennel and his own luggage pieces. “Typically brilliant songs and stories about a Gallic small-town hero with a dog called Chirac.” The Guardian

BECKETT BURSARIES

Supported by The Joan Trimble Awards 20 local young people have the chance to receive a £50 bursary to attend Festival events. See website for details.

THE FAB FAB PROGRAMME PROGRAMME FOOLING AROUND BECKETT AT La salle de L'union

THE FAB PROGRAMME AT La salle de L'union

ARTY FAFTERNOONS EspaÇo DAS AGUNCHEIRAS 'Ohio Impromptu' by Samuel Beckett

Dan & Stan by Daniel Rovai

The Royal National THE FRINGE Theatre of Fools – Happy Days by Samuel Beckett Episode ONE THE HACKLERS THEATRE COMPANY

Location: Pat's Bar, The Diamond Date: Fri 23 - Sun 25 Aug Time: 8pm Price: £8 Duration: 60 mins approx.

Location: La Salle de l'Union Date: Sat 24 Aug Time: 2pm & 6pm Price: £2 Duration: 15 mins See page 22 for company details

Location: La Salle de l'Union Date & Time: Sat 24 Aug - 5pm & Sun 25 Aug - 3pm Price: £5 Duration: 60 mins

French clown Daniel Rovai presents Dan & Stan, a classical piece of visual comedy and music for children of all ages from 7-107! Audiences will enter a fantasy world with brilliant mimics and gestures, sparkled with some spectacular magic and virtuoso piano and trombone (courtesy of his eccentric musician Stan!), with a little bit of audience participation thrown in for good measure! An hour of tomfoolery, slapstick, french clowning and fun suitable for all the family! 48

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Location: La Salle de l'Union Date & Time: Sat 24 Aug - 3pm & Sun 25 Aug - 5pm Price: £5 Duration: 60 mins

Cartoon collides with clown theatre as three idiots try and put on a variety show. The company is about to fall apart but everything changes when a big shot impresario is spotted in the audience. Now that they are on the verge of their big break will the company stick together? Will the musical saw ever be played? And what has happened to the ventriloquist? The Royal National Theatre of Fools – Episode One fuses comedy/variety acts with theatrical narrative to tell a simple tale of jealousy, blind ambition and juggling.

Happy Days is considered Beckett’s most cheerful piece. It features Winnie, a woman buried up to her waist in a mound of sand, her opening words, “Another heavenly day” sets the tone for a long monologue which lasts until she can no longer busy herself with the contents of her enormous handbag – Winnie’s husband Willie appears occasionally from behind the mound but the knowledge of his presence is a source of comfort and inspiration to her and doubtless the prerequisite for all her Happy Days. The Hacklers are from Cavan, and have been established for around 30 years. Winnie: Antoinette Cahill / Willie: Peadar Lafferty Director: Damien O’Brien

THE FAB PROGRAMME AT La salle de L'union

ECSTATIC EVENINGS PETA LILY Chastity Belt

Location: La Salle de L'Union Date: Sat 24 & Sun 25 August Time: 9pm Price: £8 Duration: 60 mins aaprox. Ages 16+

CHRIS LYNAM

MEN IN COATS

Location: La Salle de L'union Date: Thur 22 Aug & Fri 23 Aug Time: 9pm Price: £8

Location: La Salle de L'Union Date: Sun 25 Aug Time: 7pm Price: £8 Duration: 60 mins approx.

BUSTER KEATON Buster's Silver Screen Daydreams

PRESEnted by onetaste Location: La Salle de l'Union Date: Fri 23 Aug & Sat 24 Aug Time: 7pm Price: £5

Written and performed by Peta Lily. Set on the battle ground between trust and lust, part comic confession, part one-woman Lysistrata, Peta Lily’s hilarious show asks the impossible questions... Must ‘a certain age’ mean chastity for women? Could a sex strike end war? Is intimacy dangerous? What would the goddess Diana have to say to us today? Do Hags have more fun? Audience responses to Chastity Belt previews include... “For a show about chastity it’s very sexy! Superb writing!” “I laughed joyously out of recognition.” “My husband and I laughed uproariously at the same jokes! Wow!”

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Two men in anoraks. No dialogue, just like Beckett’s Bim and Bom: “One clown stumbles and falls and begs another to help him, naturally leads to the falling of the helper.” Men in Coats are highly visual, completely hilarious and just a little bit crazy. They’ve won many international awards and their first outing at the Happy Days EIBF promises to bring...

LATE NIGHT VARIETY SHOW Men in Coats, Chris Lynam & other artists. Location: Salle de L'union / Date: Sat 24 Aug Time: 11pm / Price: £10 / Duration: 90 mins approx.

Chris Lynam is renowned for many things, but mainly for bringing his brand of crazed humour to bear on unsuspecting audiences. His comedy is both dangerous and exciting, stretching variety to the limits. Expect the unexpected! “The prospect of a variety night headed by a dangerously inventive comedian, clown and man of many parts, Chris Lynam, is irresistible.” – Time Out “Ever felt like you needed a theatrical alarm clock? Go and get woken up!” – The Independent

OneTaste Theatre, known for their cross-disciplinary performances in the summer festival scene, is premiering this bespoke commission for the Happy Days Festival to celebrate Beckett’s love of Buster Keaton. Journey through the vivid world of Buster with dreamlike mime, physical theatre, music and film as this ingenious troupe bring to life themes of the thinking body, hilariously misguided relationships, women, and his preoccupation with the irremediable loneliness of life. 51

VISUAL ARTS

MISS FITT’S SINDAY COMEDY NIGHT

MISS FITT'S SINDAY COMEDY NIGHT

ELEANOR TIERNAN “Eleanor Tiernan is far and away the best comic actress I have seen on stage.” Hot Press Ireland

PARAllel LINES

Location: Enniskillen Hotel Date: Sun 25 Aug Time: 8pm (doors 7.30pm) Price: £15 Duration: Approx 2-2.5 hrs, including 2 intervals

“The fastest-rising comedy talent in the country.” Irish Times

Location: Fermanagh County Museum Enniskillen Castle & Waterways Ireland Building Date: Wed 21 - Mon 26 Aug / Time: 10am - 5pm / Price: Free

Two teenage sons from 1920s Enniskillen, the painter William Scott (192428) and Samuel Beckett (1920-23), continued their lives through the 20th century never meeting, yet dying within one week of each other December 22 and 29 1989. Each shared the grey skies of Fermanagh, the love of the Dutch Masters, living in France, abstract artists both peaking to prominence in the 1950s, each their most prolific period of work. Selected texts of Beckett will chronologically intersplice the paintings of William Scott.

Beckett is often thought of as dour, glum and alienating. But not tonight! Happy Days celebrate the great man’s legacy of wit, mischief and humour with a line up of some of the most inventive and entertaining stand-ups from the international comedy circuit.

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY (1984)

RONNIE GOLDEN “Funny as Hell!”- Daily Express “Golden is an excellent musical mimic who can slip, like a golden-larynxed chameleon, into any style he chooses.” Daily Mail

William Scott & Samuel Beckett

Documentary Film KEVIN GILDEA

RONNIE GOLDEN

For further details visit the festival website

TREVOR LOCK “Funny, moving and clever.” The Scotsman Son of the celebrated artist William Scott (1913-89), filmmaker James Scott made this idiosyncratic portrait of his father's early years. Scott senior contributes occasional remarks and a young Natasha Richardson makes her first credited screen appearance as an art tutor.

“Strangely charming and absolutely entertaining.” The Independent KEVIN GILDEA “Highly original and explosively funny.” The Sunday Times “Quirky, innovative stand-up with the pioneering Irish comic.” The Guardian

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TREVOR LOCK

ELEANOR TIERNAN

James Scott has enjoyed a diverse career, ranging from early art documentaries about key 60s figures such as Richard Hamilton and R B Kitaj, to the Oscar-winning short A Shocking Accident, based on the short story by Graham Greene. Greene said of short that it was the ‘best adaptation of my work outside of my own’.

JOCELYN HERBERT Location: Barracks Coach House, Enniskillen Castle Date: Wed 21 - Mon 26 August Time: 10am - 5pm Price: FREE

“This exhibition of Jocelyn Herbert prints covers the theatre work of Samuel Beckett. Like him, Jocelyn loved the visual arts. This is a rare occasion to study the result of Beckett’s close collaboration with a woman colleague and friend in whom he had total confidence. As in her work for the explosion of modern English theatre and writing at the Royal Court Theatre where Beckett joined her and George Devine in that revolution, Jocelyn was the great explorer of performance space that guided the directors of a golden age, including Beckett himself. Friendship was at its heart.” David Gothard, Curator. This exhibition has been made possible by the Jocelyn Herbert archive at Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts.

VISUAL ARTS

TV & RADIO PLAYS

TREE FOR WAITING FOR GODOT Antony Gormley

Location: Castle Coole Date: 28 Jun - 26 Aug 60 days marking the 60th anniversary of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Time: 10am - 5pm Price: Free

Come IN

Adrian Dunbar reading the words of Sean Scully Location: The Gallery, Dunbar House, Shore Road Date: Sat 24 Aug Time: 1pm Price: Free

What Where By Samuel Beckett

Location: La Salle de l'Union Date & Time: Sat 24 Aug - 1pm, Mon 26 Aug - 1pm Price: £3 Duration: 12 mins

Director: Walter Asmus / Producer: Anthony Uhlmann Cinematographer and Editor: Ben Denham A Production of The Writing and Society Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney Includes Documentary The Remaking of Samuel Beckett's What Where (15min) Director and Editor: Ben Denham Written by Anthony Uhlmann and Ben Denham

RADIO GOGO

@ the SKULL Beckett at the BBC Location: Blakes of the Hollow (Level 7) Date: See website for scheduling confirmations

Sean Scully, Helen 1997, oil on canvas

“The Tree I have designed as a stage element for Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot accepts its status as an image, and therefore its artificiality but nevertheless evokes place-ness or rooted-ness in an otherwise objectfree horizontal plain. It is almost not a ‘tree’ at all but an aerial or mast, which makes the same connection between sky and earth. It becomes about transmission or extraction rather than a romantic image of nature.”

“In the 1970s my involvement in minimalism and post minimalism was informed by a puritanical zeal. Here I am putting back all the shit that I took out. I was walking up to the art shop and I passed the back of the post office on Lispenard street and there were some beautiful yellow and black stripes, painted so the trucks wouldnt hit the wall. They were painted by someone who had never painted stripes before,and in a way I wish I could paint like that every time. You can only paint like that once, in reality.”

Antony Gormley

Sean Scully

BOX OFFICE: 028 6632 5000

What Where was originally written for the stage. Walter Asmus (assistant director to Beckett on the original German television production) is the director of this new English language production. Asmus was involved in helping Beckett to adapt the stage play for television and brings an intimate understanding of Beckett's vision for this work to this production. What Where is perhaps one of Beckett's most overtly political works, particularly in the way that it deals with the subject of torture, a subject that is no less relevant now than when Beckett originally wrote his stage play.

Seven Samuel Beckett Radio Plays in their original form as commissioned and broadcast by the BBC between 1957 and 1976 including definitive performances by JG Devlin, Patrick Magee and Jack MacGowran. The current Head of Drama for BBC Radio 4 Jeremy Howe will guide us through his own experience directing Beckett and Beckett’s work with BBC Radio. From an Abandoned Work (1957) The Old Tune (1960) All That Fall (1957) Embers (1959) Words and Music (1962) Cascando (1964) Rough for Radio (1976)

BEND IT LIKE BECKETT

INFORMATION

BEND IT LIKE BECKETT

Festival Sports Programme Location: Various Date & Time: Fri 23 - Mon 26 Aug

OUR THANKS Sarah, Bronagh & all the staff at Fermanagh County Museum Frank at the Town Hall Selwyn Johnston Ian Davidson Robert Gibson Terry McCartney Jackie, Mick, Nuala at Ardhowen

At Portora Royal School, Samuel Beckett excelled in many different sports winning medals and honing his competitive spirit. Rugby and cricket in particular were his life-long passions. Keep an eye on our website for the Bend It Like Beckett programme dates and times confirmations. If you would like to compete in any of the following sports contact the Festival Office 028 6622 8158. The Samuel Beckett Muckball Rugby Cup Dido & Gogo’s Sunday Afternoon Crricket The Fastest Artists in Ireland Race The Beckett Quad Skulls The Rainy Day-Cart Bicycle Rally Bring your bike to Enniskillen and be seen to cycle to all our venues in honour of Beckett’s love of the humble bicycle.

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MAJOR SPONSORS

South West College Mount Lourdes St. Macartin's Cathedral Ardhowen Theatre St. Michael's Church Enniskillen Methodist Church Enniskillen Castle Enniskillen Hotel Masonic Hall Castle Coole Waterways Ireland

June Gawley Ruairi MacCaffrey

PORTORA ROYAL SCHOOL

Anne McClean Emer Tiernan Lough Erne Resort Eve Rosato Frank McHugh James Scott

OUR DONORS

Geraldine Cooke All at Carefree Travel

Tanya Cathcart & Louise Curry

Lough Erne Resort

John Richardson & James Monroe

Productions Services Ireland

Richard Watson, Patricia Keane, Kevin, Sean and all at Marble Arch Caves

Cathy Courtney

Maureen McKeever, Katherine Colton, Eamonn at Mount Lourdes

OUR VENUE SUPPORTERS

Sean Henry

Hazel Johnston

Robert Livingstone and all from SHARE

OUR PARTNERS

Loftsound

Paradiso Gold Supporters Michael & Ruth West Tim & Chris Ungar Sir Martin & Elise Smith Bill Repard & Jane Prendiville Giles & Sally Everist Mary Heaney