Prisoners of Beckett

Samuel Beckett has fascinated Adrian Dunbar since he was a young student. Now, 30 years after Beckett's death in Paris, Dunbar explores what made the man who made Waiting for Godot.

The elusive author of Waiting for Godot cooperated in the production of this portrait, which traces Beckett’s artistic life through his prose, plays, and poetry. Billie Whitelaw, Jack McGowran, and Patrick Magee—Beckett’s great dramatic interpreters—appear in selected extracts from the plays; Beckett specialist David Warrilow narrates a variety of texts.

Documentary about the staging of 'Waiting for Godot' in prison.

As their bodies give way to Parkinson's disease, two New York actors put their hearts into one final Off-Broadway production of Beckett's "Endgame," the play that posits, "there's nothing funnier than unhappiness."

Biography and in-depth look of Beckett and his work.

A wordless, silent interview with Samuel Beckett for Swedish Television after Beckett won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

A documentary which offers insights into the adaptation of the original stage play and the making of this new production of Beckett's work.

When it's sunset in Purgatory and dawn on the Ganges it's noon on the Irish Sea. Filmed on Killiney Hill outside Dublin with John Manning remembering Samuel Beckett. The text echoes the Purgatory.

Watch drug-addled friends through the eyes of a kaleidoscope. See coloured shapes dance and flail around. Witness people clubbing, getting beaten up, dancing and being used as human guinea pigs – all these in segments held together by two French teenagers finding themselves waiting for Godot. Experiment Three is another trip into the disturbing and bizarre world of public service announcements, contorted into something confronting and colourful.

Two derelicts occupy themselves as they wait for 'Godot' to make an appearance on Pozzo's estate.

A two-part biography of the Irish writer Samuel Beckett. The first part covers the traumas of his formative years: his ill-fated love affair with his first cousin, the death of his father, and his decorated service with the French Resistance. He had settled in France before the Second World War, met fellow Irishman James Joyce, and begun writing. Patrick Magee's television performance of `Krapp's Last Tape' (1972) is interwoven with key landscapes and personalities from Beckett's life. The second part concludes the story of how Beckett finally began to connect with his audience, principally through `Waiting for Godot'. Includes an interview with the actress Billie Whitelaw, a celebrated interpreter of his work.

Two seemingly homeless men waiting for someone or something named Godot. Vladimir and Estragon wait near a tree on a barren stretch of road, inhabiting a drama spun from their own consciousness.

Sitting alone on his 69th birthday, Krapp reflects upon the last 30 years of his life as he listens to an old tape recording of himself he made on his 39th Birthday.

Parisian bon vivant, World War II Resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband and recluse…Samuel Beckett lived a life of many parts. Titled after Beckett’s famous ethos “Dance first, think later”, the film is a sweeping account of the life of this 20th-century icon.