Writer: Samuel Beckett
Director: Gavin Quinn
Two or three times a day, a grey-clad procession leaves the Jermyn Street Theatre and wends its sinuous way through the gritty back streets of Piccadilly. Beneath their enveloping hoods, they wear headsets, and by this means, the voices of Daniel Reardon and Andrew Bennett tell the processors a story, a story told by a compulsive storyteller, the story of Cascando by Samuel Beckett.
Gavin Quinn (Director) and Aedín Cosgrove (designer) are co-founders of Dublin’s Pan Pan Theatre, and they have brought their particular vision of Beckett’s radio play to London for a two-week run. It is, in the truest sense of the word, immersive. The audience becomes the cowled procession, the streets become the theatre, the voices and the music (composed for the show by Jimmy Eadie) insinuate their way into the audience’s ears and mingle with street sounds – bin lorries, revving motorcycles, happy crowds of pavement drinkers outside the numerous pubs along the route. It is an extraordinary experience.
Is it the best way to access a play by Samuel Beckett? Well, it is fresh and invigorating without offending the complex performance strictures of the Beckett estate. It does shine new light on a radio play, now that radio as a medium is sinking into obscurity. And it does make for felicities of happenstance. A voice says, “There was a time I asked myself, ‘What is it?’ There were times I might have answered, ‘It’s the outing. Two outings. Then the return.’” A passage that has been timed to coincide with the troupe’s return to Jermyn Street, a moment that brings a snort of recognition and pleasure.
It’s a brief half hour of an experience that is probably new, it is a beautifully modulated reading of an intriguing play, it is a different way to experience theatre and London, it is fun. Beckett often is not fun, but this is both faithful to the text and somewhat wacky. And for anyone who dreams of visiting the London Library dressed as a monk, it is simply unmissable.
Runs until 13 September 2025.
