Barry McGovern: Reviving the works of Samuel Beckett

DURING the preamble to I’ll Go On, Barry McGovern peered out at the audience. “You can’t leave,” he said, “because you’re afraid it might be worse elsewhere.” The pained laughter continued for 90 minutes.

McGovern has been performing selections from Samuel Beckett’s three post-war novels, Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable, for half a lifetime, clocking up more than 200 performances.

Next week — as part of an Irish armada of Beckett productions at the Edinburgh International Festival, including Michael Gambon in Eh, Joe — McGovern will perform I’ll Go On at the Royal Lyceum Theatre.