Beckett Collection: Photographs, Films and Sound Recordings

The collection contains over 800 photographs which capture scenes of Beckett’s work portrayed in theatre and on screen, including ‘En Attendant Godot’, ‘Fin de Partie’, ‘Happy Days’ and ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’, and also images of Beckett himself, aspects of his life, his friends and family.

There are currently over 23 items of film footage recording theatre productions and other events including: ‘Shades’ for ‘The Lively Arts’ series, broadcast in 1977; ‘Ghost Trio’, ‘…but the clouds…’; ‘Not I’; and versions of ‘Eh Joe’ including David Clark’s 1972 version with Patrick Magee and Elvi Hale filmed in colour at the University of London’s Audio-Visual Centre.  There are also two versions of ‘Film’: Alan Schneider’s version with Buster Keaton from 1965 and David Clark’s 1979 full colour and sound version with Max Wall.

From over 45 sound recordings, you can hear interviews with Beckett associates, such as Dr Geoffrey Thompson talking about his lifelong friendship with Beckett; documentaries on Beckett’s life and work, such as ‘A Wake for Sam’, (1990); and performances of Beckett’s plays including the series, ‘The Beckett Festival of Radio Plays’, directed and produced by Everett Frost, (1988).

Further information on the audio-visual material can be found in a blog by Dr Lucy Jeffery, Lecturer and Postdoctoral Researcher for the Samuel Beckett Research Centre.

More Information

• A full description of the Beckett Collection is available via our online database.
• A Handlist for the sound collections can be found here.
• A Handlist for the film collections can be found here
• The Staging Beckett project ( 2012 – 2015) created a searchable database of Samuel Beckett’s stage plays in the UK and Ireland which can be accessed on the project website.
• See also an Introduction to the Beckett Collection for information on our other Beckett related collections.