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Dateline: 6th November, 2011

Happy Days - an Annual Samuel Beckett Festival

The world's first annual festival to celebrate the work and influence of Nobel Prize writer Samuel Beckett has been announced. Happy Days will take place each year in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, where Beckett spent his formative years attending Portora Royal School.

The inaugural Happy Days, 23rd - 27th August 2012, is collaborating with the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad, and coincides with the 400th anniversary of the founding of Enniskillen.

Happy Days will be a major cultural event bringing diverse communities together, mixing local and international audiences and artists.

The Festival will present events of wide, popular appeal including:

• the work of Beckett, with world and UK premieres of his major and lesser-known works;
• the influences on Beckett, including music and comedy;
• those Beckett has influenced, including Irish, UK and international writers, directors, actors, visual artists, musicians, comedians, circus artists and individuals prominent in their fields.

There will also be a range of events reflecting Beckett's favourite sports.

The full Happy Days artistic line-up will be announced in April 2012. Some highlights of the 2012 Festival, just announced, include:

• Robert Wilson directing and performing in Krapp's Last Tape, presented in association with Change Performing Arts.
• Ian Bostridge singing Schubert's Winterreise, Beckett's most favoured piece of music.
• Antony Gormley will design a stage element (to form part of a Beckett production in Australia in 2013) which will be installed and publicly exhibited for the first time as part of Happy Days.
• Atom Egoyan's kinetic artwork, Steenbeckett, an inspirational response to the role of film in our understanding of Beckett, presented in association with Artangel.
• Writers Edna O'Brien, Alice Oswald, Melvyn Bragg and John Banville.

Ruth McKenzie, LOCOG Director of Culture (Cultural Olympiad), said, "I'm delighted that this festival, dedicated to one of the greatest world writers Samuel Beckett, will be collaborating with the London 2012 Festival. With world class writing, comedy, music, and amazing scenery, Happy Days is bidding to become one of the great world festivals and we're pleased to be supporting it."

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©Peter Lathan 2011