Highlighted in academic journals as an innovative approach to celebrating literature, the Enniskillen International Beckett Festival and events bring together a wide range of performers, both local and international. From theatre to art, from talks to comedy, sport, music and poetry, our literary programmes explore the physical and emotional borderlines of people and place.
By creating a new and unique way of interpreting work using a biofest methodology, creative director Sean Doran curated Beckett’s influences in a multi-arts format – providing the platform to expand and build on the concepts for other writers including Wilde and Friel. Place was central to this methodology – with authenticity at the heart of the biofest model.
From homegrown talent such as Adrian Dunbar and Dylan Quinn to international names such as Toby Jones, Ruby Philogene and Edna O’Brien, from theatre companies to poets, from talks to walks, our literary programmes celebrate the lives, legacies and works of Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde.
Beckett amidst the ruins. Beckett in the pub, community college, cinema, castle and hairdresser. Beckett even at the butcher, where a sign proclaims ‘Happy Days Food Festival’ alongside ‘Fermanagh Black Bacon’ … Barbershops proposed ‘Beckett haircuts’, a local coffee shop offered ‘Endgame’ (Hamm & Clov) and ‘Krapp’ (banana & Nutella) sandwiches – all in jokes for those familiar with the character names and actions in these plays … Enniskillen certainly seems to have embraced the festival with wide open arms.
With the border as a stage, these ground-breaking literature events explore the physical and emotional borderlines of the Irish experience, staging the works of Northern Ireland’s great playwrights, poets and novelists in dramatic, site-specific locations. They are rising stars of the international festival circuit, attracting performers and producers with a international audiences, and feature in the best-of-year round-ups in travel and arts media.
Our events
Theatre makers:
Robert Wilson, The Berliner Ensemble, Peter Stein, Maguy Marin, Max Stafford Clark,
Writers:
Edna O’Brien, Clive James, Paul Muldoon, Antonia Fraser, Germaine Greer, Susie Orbach, Eimear McBride, Michael Longley
Actors:
Klaus Maria Brandauer, Dame Harriet Walter, Miranda Richardson, David Soul, Ian McElhinney, Adrian Dunbar
Visual artists:
Steve McQueen, Antony Gormley, Joseph Kosuth, Tacita Dean, Atom Egoyan, Neil Jordan, Joseph Kosuth, Gerard Byrne, Derek Jarman.
Musicians:
The Vienna Piano Trio, Ian Bostridge, Gavin Bryars Ensemble, Alfred Brendel, Florian Boesch, Sir John Tomlinson, Heiner Goebbels
Some special Beckett & Wilde site-specific events
An Inferno Reading:
Thirty-three speakers, all coming from the local community and representing a range of nationalities (Chinese, German, French, Spanish, Russian, etc.) gave a reading of Dante’s Inferno bookended by Beckett’s Not I and Purcell’s Dido’s Lament, all 50 metres underground in the depths of the Marble Arch Caves, one of two UNESCO sites in Northern Ireland
All Strange Away:
A reading of Beckett by actor Ian McElhinney in Enniskillen Police Station, first ever arts event in a PSNI station.
The Precious Little Concerts:
Free classical music performances (each lasting 20 minutes) given by major international artists in St. Michael’s Church to first-time audiences of 700.
- Ohio Impromptu: Beckett’s play, performed on Devenish Island (a sixth century monastic site) on Lough Erne, which involved the audience travelling by boat to the venue at sunset.
- Phedra: Benjamin Britten’s 15 minute cantata Phaedra staged in the Necarne Equestrian Centre with Ulster Orchestra and soprano.
Here, encounters with Beckett’s work brought people into deeper contact with themselves and with one another. Local resident and festival participant said this festival was ‘embedded in the fabric of the town…the entire built environment was made to sing’