Major New Samuel Beckett Biennale to Include First Ulster-Scots Translation of Waiting for Godot

A new celebration of the life and work of Samuel Beckett will take place in rural and urban settings in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and England from April to December 2026, then return in January 2028 in Belfast, with the Beckett Winter School.
 
Produced by Arts Over Borders, the Samuel Beckett Biennale succeeds the annual Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival which ran from 2012 to 2022.

From Good Friday (Beckett was born on Good Friday in 1906), April 3, the world’s first production of Waiting for Godot translated into Ulster-Scots will take place on the slopes of Slemish Mountain, the first Irish home of St Patrick, near Ballymena and Gracehill, where Beckett’s mother grew up. The new translation by Frank Ferguson of Ulster University chimes with the lead characters' reminiscences about the 1890s, a time when Ulster-Scots was widely spoken in rural north-east Ireland where the play will be performed. Productions in Aboriginal Noongar, Sami, and Inuit will follow from 2029.

“The Ulster Scots language is waiting for preservation, like Estragon and Vladimir longing for their Godot, it passes the time in the dialogue of tragicomedy," said Ferguson, "one-part revelling in comic wordplay and one-part transfixed by the eloquent pathos of loss.” 
 
Other 2026 highlights include:

• March 20-22  - a new production of Beckett’s 1958 play Krapp’s Last Tape in the Whale Theatre Greystones, Co. Wicklow, the coastal town where Beckett’s mother lived and where she and Beckett’s father are buried, featuring an AI generated voice for the 39-year-old actor thanks to special permission from the Beckett Estate.
• June/July - monologue play Not I (1972) directed by Rufus Norris
• July/August - Happy Days (1961) performed by Irish actor Clara Simpson, encased in a red-earth mound for three days and nights in a white cube space in Folkestone where Beckett was married the same year
• July/August: Love, Sam – an exclusive new production of Beckett’s letters at the Wexford Opera House, conceived and directed by Irish theatre and film director Alan Gilsenan
• July/August - Beckett Voices, new recordings of Beckett short prose
• December 21 - a one-day gallery-based light and sound installation production of Breath (1969), Beckett’s shortest play at just 30 to mark the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year
• December 22 - on the anniversary of Beckett’s death the Irish premiere of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, Beckett’s favourite piece of music, in a church in Foxrock, Dublin, where Beckett was born, with Mark Padmore (tenor) & Bjarke Mogensen (accordion)

The Samuel Beckett Biennale follows the five-year FrielDays 2025-2028 event marking the centenary of playwright Brian Friel, and completion of Arts Over Borders’s pan-European ULYSSES European Odyssey 2022-2024 project which celebrated James Joyce’s work in 18 European cities.