From the Radio Archives

The Sound Archive of RTÉ Libraries and Archives contains many works by and about Samuel Beckett. Indeed the relationship between Beckett and RTÉ extends back to 1946 when the great writer penned his The Capital of the Ruins, a description of an Irish Red Cross Hospital in Normandy, for the then Radio Éireann. This was in fact Beckett's first work specifically written for radio. Later he was to write many of his finest plays for broadcasting on radio, including the now famous All That Fall, which was also his first play written in English. Ironically, however, it seems Beckett himself was not overly fond of the microphone and today the RTÉ Sound Archive does not own any recording of the great man's voice. Instead it has several recordings of people who knew him and worked with him, many of which feature on RTÉ Radio's documentary Beckett in Paris to be rebroadcast on 1t May 2006.

Malachy Moran, Manager of RTÉ Radio Audio Services and Archive

 

Bowman: Beckett Archive Special
RTÉ Radio 1, 2 April, 8.30am

Beginning RTÉ Radio 1’s Beckett-100 broadcasts, John Bowman will delve into the RTÉ Radio archives and explore Samuel Beckett.
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John Bowman presents a special archive programme on Beckett on RTÉ Radio 1

Beckett in Paris
RTÉ Radio 1, 1 May, 2.02pm
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Barry McGovern presents the Paris friends of Samuel Beckett. Samuel Beckett's long association with France began in 1926, when, as a student of Trinity College he visited the Loire Valley on a cycling holiday. After graduation, in 1928, he went to the École Normale Supérieure in Paris as a lecturer, returning to Dublin in 1930. He visited Paris briefly in the early 1930's, and in 1937, decided to make the French capital his permanent home.

Writing from Paris, Beckett said "Nothing changes the relief of being back here. Like coming out of jail in April". Paris was to be his home for the next 52 years.

In his book "Foreign Correspondent", Peter Lennon says "Despite popular legend, Beckett was never a recluse. He may have been a hermit in his head, but he had a very active, sporadically controlled social life, his friends a world-wide network of sentinels of his privacy". In this documentary, we meet, among others, Jean Martin, who played "Lucky" in the first production of "Waiting for Godot", and Eleanore Hirt, a board member of Theatre de Babylone when the script of Godot was first submitted.

Producer: Kate Minogue