THE Samuel Beckett festival is set to return to Enniskillen this summer to mark it’s 10th anniversary after a two year abscence due to Covid 19.
This occasion will mark 100 years of Beckett’s time in Enniskillen, from when he attended Portora Royal School .
Seán Doran, from Doran Browne Artspreneurs who is organising the event said, “This is a very unique festival and it is a very international festival, people from all over come to it.”
“For this year’s festival we will use the churches St Michael’s and St Macartin’s for the classical music and we have Dame Sarah Connolly who will perform on Friday July 22.”
“Every year we have a singer perform Fraz Schubert’s Winterreise which means Winter’s Journey and it is a cycle of 24 songs and it was Beckett’s single favourite work and the singer that will be performing it this year is Fleur Barron on the closing night July 25.We also have the singer Liam Ó Maonlaí from the Hothouse Flowers that will be performing at the opening event on Thursday July 21”
Mr Doran explained there will be a number of Beckett’s famous plays that will be performed throughout the weekend including ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Ohio Impromptu.’
He said, “We do an event called ‘Walking for Waiting for Godot,’ and we commissioned the sculptor Anthony Gormley, who created the sculpter ‘Angel of the North’ to create a special tree for us and we will put that up in the upland bog in the Marble Arch Caves Geo Park. The audience will then go on a bus and walk for three kilometres around the hillside where the performance is going to be and they will be surprised by four male actors who perform the play. For instance in 2019, the film actor Donal Gleeson was one of the actors that appeared in the play.”
“We also have a sunrise event where we take the audience out to Devenish Island and Beckett’s ‘Ohio Impromptu’ is performed and Adrian Dunbar will direct the production. There will also be a new production this year on Beckett’s letters which will be directed by the film director Alan Gilsenan.”
Mr Doran spoke of the incredible tourism boost the festival will bring to Enniskillen.
He said, “This event sends an image of Enniskillen as a vocal point for hosting an international festival of this stature and The New York Times have come to it five times over the past 10 years as well as French and German newspapers so when tourists are coming to Ireland Enniskillen will be in their minds having read those articles.”
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