ne of the most productive British screen actors look forward to trading the studio for one of the most unique performances of his career.
Toby Jones has brought to life characters as diverse as Dobby the house elf in Harry Potter and the fictional 1970s spy Percy Alleline, and has recently become best known for his role in Detectorists.
But this weekend he will perform on a boat floating in the reeds on Lough Erne to read excerpts from one of his favorite playwrights.
Jones will be one of the headliners of the Happy Days Enniskillen Beckett Festival, which returns to the town of Co Fermanagh for the first time since 2019.
The five-day international multi-arts festival will run from Thursday and will also feature Dame Sarah Connolly, Fleur Barron, Tadhg Murphy, Liam Ó Maonlaí and Adrian Dunbar.
Jones will lecture on Saturdays at the Breandrum Chapel of Rest in Enniskillen, and on Sunday mornings he will on the Kestrel ferry to near Devenish Island and drift among the reeds as he reads two parts from the end of Krapp’s Last Tape.He told the PA news agency that he is looking forward to his first visit to the west of Northern Ireland and be immersed in Beckett.
“I’m familiar with working on those kinds of programs, but the great thing is that it’s Beckett, one of the first writers I really got involved with as a teenager,” he said.
“It’s a great opportunity for me to get acquainted with literature in an extraordinary situation.
“In school I loved literature and acting gives you this great opportunity to experience literature in three dimensions and often experience pieces repeatedly and explore them repeatedly in performance.
“That’s one of the privileges of the job – you can immerse yourself in things that you used to be excited about in school, like Beckett, and then you come as an adult, you get Beckett moving three-dimensionally on stage or here on a boat.” … who is going to refuse that? What a fantastic opportunity.”
Beckett was born in Dublin but spent several years in Enniskillen as an apprentice at Portora Royal School before going on to study at Trinity College.
The festival is the lalargest worldwide celebration of the Irish Nobel laureate, with a plethora of Beckett-inspired performances.
It is celebrating its 10th anniversary and is returning for the first time since the pandemic. Jones insisted on hearing the author’s work speak rather than just reading it.
“All of his writing is in a sense very direct, if puzzling, and at times seemingly very sober and strange on the page. Once you start saying it, it has a chatty and a directness and often a humor and certainly a humanity. Hearing it often makes it more accessible than sitting down and reading it,” he said.Meanwhile, Jones will be shooting a one-off extended episode of Detectorists next month.Festival founder and artistic director Sean Doran said he was delighted to be returning to Enniskillen after the pandemic.“After three years of forced silence from Covid, we are delighted to bring its unique and only international festival, Happy Days, back to Enniskillen,” he said.
“It really is a special festival, attracting not only international names and faces to perform, but also attracting audiences from all over the world.“We are extremely excited to re-assemble three ‘Made in Fermanagh’ classics from the past 10 years for our 10th anniversary: Walking For Waiting For Godot, Ohio Impromptu and Inferno-Not I.
“These tailor-made productions distinguish this destination festival from other summer festivals.
“Not only are they site specific to Fermanagh – they use the beautiful landscapes of Fermanagh to enhance the experience of Beckett’s plays – but they also include experiential journeys to the event by the audience, whether on foot for Waiting For Godot , by boat to Ohio Impromptu and Inferno-Not I is truly unique.”Bookings can be made at www.ardhowen.com, with most tickets between £5 and £15.
For more information and the full program of events, see www.artsoverborders.com.