A new concept in walking tours, available throughout the year and currently featuring at Belfast Book Festival
10 to 19 June 2022
This is a self-guided audio tour. Walk at your own pace. Immerse yourself in another world inside the enigmatic imagination of Samuel Beckett, one of the greatest Irish writers.
It is adapted from Both Sides by Jane Coyle, a play of two halves, comprising two interlocking monologues inspired by the works of Samuel Beckett.
The first Me Here, Me is set in a Paris cafe. A down-at-heel young woman sits alone, looking out into the street and observing the passers-by. Each one seems weighed down by a troubling history. She is too. With the arrival of a mysterious figure at a nearby table, she suddenly fears that hers will soon be revealed.
The second, Before Before, unfolds in a busy bar in the old town of Nice, where a solitary, once-glamorous, middle-aged woman is drowning her sorrows in a spirit of rueful celebration. She looks back on a colourful, bohemian life while battling with the memory of an unimaginably painful personal loss.
Stella and Estelle. Two women of different generations, living in different cities, yet inextricably connected. And then, there’s a man, many men – but one man in particular.
Who are they? Who is he?
Jane Coyle’s intriguing play has been performed to critical and public acclaim at arts and literary festivals, the Paris Fringe, the inaugural Beckett Paris Festival and in arts centres and theatres across Ireland.
The first monologue has been adapted by the writer into this self-guided audio walking tour, which winds its way around Belfast’s cosmopolitan university quarter, taking in the sights and sounds and characters of this vibrant corner of the city.
It is narrated by Hannah Coyle, who played Stella in the stage production. The director of the play – and the tour commentary – is Rhiann Jeffrey.
Walking With Beckett was launched at the 2021 Belfast International Arts Festival and is soon to be made permanently available to the public via Visit Belfast. It also features as an event at Belfast Book Festival 2022.
Here’s a quote from one happy customer:
“Like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. My own private walking tour took me into such a strange, imaginary world. I loved it.”
Walking With Beckett is presented by Powerstone in association with the Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast and No Alibis Bookstore, Belfast (which offers a 10% discount to walkers).
Links: https://visitbelfast.com/event/walking-with-beckett-2/
https://belfastbookfestival.com/explore/beckett-walking-tour
Commentary script and route map with numbered locations can be downloaded below.
The Even Hand 