Samuel Beckett in Confinement: Festival 6th – 8th May 2022

There’s no more waiting for Beckett with tickets now available for a weekend festival of the works of Samuel Beckett, exploring the politics of closed space as a reading of our times.

The University of Liverpool’s Institute of Irish Studies and University of Notre Dame in association with Unreal Cities Theatre Company is pleased to present Samuel Beckett in Confinement, a three-day festival of Samuel Beckett’s plays, associated musical performances and lectures.

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) was one of the 20th century’s most celebrated playwrights and authors, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. His works examine what it means to be human, in all its absurd, existentialist and sometimes bleak comedy.

The programme, curated by celebrated actor and director Adrian Dunbar and internationally renowned musician and composer Nick Roth, presents an exciting blend of Beckett’s work, including multiple performances of some of his most rarely performed plays – Ohio Impromptu, Catastrophe and Krapp’s Last Tape alongside a musical series featuring Words and Music, his radio play collaboration with Morton Feldman, and a Ghost Trio concert with Fidelio Trio performing Beethoven and Schubert, two of his favourite composers.

The festival is funded by Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool, University of Notre Dame and Culture Ireland.

Central to the programme is a keynote by James Little introduced by Frank Shovlin, and a roundtable “Samuel Beckett’s Politics of Confinement” with William Davies, Emilie Morin and Hannah Simpson.

Beckett Confined will present his works in some of Liverpool’s most interesting and non-traditional performance spaces, bringing them alive in new and unconventional ways.

For the full programme, tickets and further information on events please visit: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/humanities-and-social-sciences/research/beckett/