Endgame for Beckett commemorations

CITIES around the world yesterday hosted events to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Samuel Beckett’s birth.

Beckett, who wrote most of his major works in French, was born in Foxrock, Co Dublin, on April 13, 1906.

Dublin yesterday joined London, Paris, New York and Tokyo in organising centenary celebrations.

A host of top actors, including Charles Dance, Michael Gambon, John Kavanagh, David Kelly and Penelope Wilton, read extracts from Beckett’s work at Dublin’s Gate Theatre.

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, the area where Beckett was born, hosted the Beckett Country Exhibition.

Caroline Murphy, a niece of Beckett, launched the Beckett Centenary Travel Bursary for an artist to travel from this part of the country to Paris in search of artistic inspiration.

Fans in Paris made the annual pilgrimage to his grave in Montparnasse Cemetery to lay fresh flowers. Beckett moved to Paris in the late 1930s where his most famous work, Waiting for Godot, was first performed in January 1953.

He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

Previous commemorations were held in Dublin in 1981 and 1986 for his 75th and 80th birthdays.

TD Maire Hoctor yesterday criticised RTÉ for screening Beckett’s plays when most people were likely to be in bed.

“Surely his artistic output, celebrated the world over, deserves more sensible scheduling,” she said.