Samuel Beckett: Last News

Hot Chip have shared a new single called ‘Eleanor’ – you can listen to it below.The punchy, synth-heavy track is the latest preview of the group’s eighth album ‘Freakout/Release’, which is due to arrive on August 19 via Domino.“It’s about the world smashing into you, waves crashing into you, all-encompassing pain, and how you have to walk through it,” frontman Alexis Taylor explained of ‘Eleanor’ in a statement.“The verses are about separation when families are divided against their will. It’s about strong friends.

Alex Ritman A quartet of French, Australian and English stars are set to come together for upcoming feature “Burnt Piano.” Isabelle Huppert (“Elle,” “The Piano Teacher”), Geoffrey Rush (“The King’s Speech,” “Shine”) Abbie Cornish (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” “Jack Ryan”) and Ray Winstone (“The Gentlemen,” “The Departed”) have joined the cast of the film, which is based on the stage play by Australian writer and playwright Justin Fleming. Newcomer Tarquin Cameron will also star.

Alex Ritman Ben Whishaw isn’t averse to juggling multiple and very different projects, but even he admits there was a point last year when things reached near farcical levels. Around the same time he was shooting Netflix’s pulpy spy thriller series “Black Doves,” playing a contract killer with a conscience alongside Keira Knightley, he was recording the voice of Paddington Bear for the marmalade lover’s latest family adventure, “Paddington in Peru,” while also rehearsing for his lead role in a new West End adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s bleak tragicomedy “Waiting for Godot.” “And all in one week! It was one of the strangest gear switches ever,” he says, speaking to Variety from his apartment in East London during a rare and brief period of rest for one of the U.K.’s most in-demand talents.

Apple TV+ series Slow Horses, will return to the theatre where he began his career – the York Theatre Royal – to perform in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. Oldman first performed at that theatre 45 years ago in the Ben Travers play Thark. Krapp’s Last Tape follows a man who records a new tape reflecting on the year gone by each year on his birthday.

Ellise Shafer Oscar-winning actor Gary Oldman is returning to the stage after nearly four decades to star in a new production of Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape” at London’s York Theatre Royal. Oldman began his career at the York Theatre Royal in 1979 with a production of Ben Travers’ “Thark.” He was also a part of the Royal Shakespeare Company, with which he performed “Romeo and Juliet” and “Hamlet,” and went on to have roles in London productions of “Cabaret,” “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” and more.

EXCLUSIVE: Slow Horses star Gary Oldman is stepping back on stage in April 2025 for the first time after an absence of nearly four decades to star in Samuel Beckett’s celebrated one-man play Krapp’s Last Tape for a limited season at the British theatre where the actor began his professional career in 1979.

Veteran actor Sir Ian McKellen has shared his thoughts on the pressures of public life. He suggested Prince Harry is not "bright enough to help himself in a withering critique of the Royal Family.

EXCLUSIVE: Jamie Lloyd, director of the Broadway-bound Sunset Boulevard musical led by an incandescent Nicole Scherzinger center stage as Norma Desmond, is making a move into the world of movies and reveals to Deadline that his London-based Jamie Lloyd Company “will set up a separate film division and work with new partners from the film world.”

Bill & Ted stars Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are set to reunite for a Broadway production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in autumn 2025.Directed by Jamie Lloyd, the new production will see Reeves play Estragon to Winter’s Vladimir at an ATG theatre that is yet to be announced.In a joint statement (via Deadline), Reeves and Winter said: “We’re incredibly excited to be on stage together and work with the great Jamie Lloyd in one of our favourite plays.”Lloyd said: “It is a real honour to be collaborating with the brilliant Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter on Samuel Beckett’s sublime masterpiece — one of the greatest plays of all time.”Further information about Waiting for Godot including the theatre, production dates, additional casting and creative team will be announced in the coming months.Reeves and Winter, who have been friends for 35 years, played the title characters in the 1989 comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, as well as its 1991 and 2020 sequels.Waiting for Godot will mark Reeves’ Broadway debut, while Winter appeared on Broadway in the 1979 production of Peter Pan, playing John Darling opposite Sandy Duncan. He also played Louis Leonowen’s in The King & I starring Yul Brynner in 1977-78.In other news, Reeves recently spoke out about sustaining a brutal kneecap injury while filming Aziz Ansari’s forthcoming comedy Good Fortune, saying: “It cracked like a potato chip.”Reeves plays the lead in the upcoming film, also starring Sandra Oh, Seth Rogen and Keke Palmer.

Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are reuniting on Broadway. The iconic duo will star in the new stage production of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” marking their first project together since 2020’s “Bill & Ted Face the Music.”Reeves, 59, has signed on to play Estragon, while Winter, 59, will star as Vladimir in the show, directed by Jamie Lloyd.

Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are reuniting for another project together!

Ethan Shanfeld Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are reuniting for a new Broadway production of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” directed by Jamie Lloyd. Reeves will play Estragon and Winter will play Vladimir in the show, which will open at an ATG theater in fall 2025.

Bill & Ted are planning another excellent adventure: Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter will star in a Broadway production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot this fall, with Jamie Lloyd directing.

Callum McLennan The seventh edition of the Quirino Awards, an annual event dedicated to promoting animation in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America, saw Spain win five of the 10 awards on offer. Housed in the Teatro Leal, in the Canary Island’s Santa Cruz de Tenerife, an eclectic and, at times, musical gala concluded an upbeat Quirino Awards. Pablo Berger‘s first foray into animation, the Oscar-nominated “Robot Dreams,” continued its charge, winning awards for best feature film and sound design.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Though the Red Sea Film Festival will feature a slew of films from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region – including 11 feature films from Saudi Arabia – there is a rich roster of international fare set to launch locally from Jeddah. Kaleem Aftab, the festival’s director of international programming, says they received lots more submissions for this year’s third edition.

Guy Lodge Film Critic In a genre not traditionally given to brevity, James Marsh‘s literary biopic “Dance First” at least has that on its side: In 100 minutes, it races through the key events and alliances in the life of Irish author and dramatist Samuel Beckett, even finding time for some metaphysical musings alongside the cradle-to-grave checklist. But Beckett’s characteristic terseness — or radical “lessness,” to borrow a title from one of his stories — isn’t a feature of this creditable but ponderous film, which ultimately achieves its efficient runtime by skirting any meaningful engagement with Beckett’s work and literary legacy.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor European pay TV platform Sky has released the trailer for Sky Original film “Dance First,” ahead of its world premiere at San Sebastian Film Festival on Sept. 30. The film is directed by BAFTA and Academy Award winner James Marsh (“The Theory of Everything”) and written by BAFTA winner Neil Forsyth (“Guilt”).

UK director James Marsh’s literary biopic Dance First, starring Gabriel Byrne as iconic Irish writer Samuel Beckett, will close the 71st San Sebastian Film Festival.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “Dance First,” a portrait of Irish writer Samuel Beckett starring Gabriel Byrne and directed by Oscar winner James Marsh, will close this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival, playing out of competition. Byrne, a memorable lead in “The Usual Suspects” and “Miller’s Crossing” who also won a Golden Globe for his performance in “In Treatment,” plays Samuel Beckett, driving into his deep contradictions and inner torment of a writer who was a Parisian bon vivant, a WWII Resistance fighter and then Nobel Prize-winning playwright who, however, became a recluse, living the last years of his life in a single room in a nursing home, ashamed of past actions and convinced that for much of his life he had been a failure.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic As a critic, I’m always looking for a fresh challenge, which is one reason I took up writing about theater: It still has the capacity to scare me. I’ve reviewed nearly 1,700 movies in my time at Variety, but how to weigh in with authority on stage productions of William Shakespeare or Samuel Beckett when I haven’t seen most of their work performed, but know it only by reputation? Last year, I was nervous going in to a fresh revival of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at Los Angeles’ Geffen Playhouse, as I had only the Mike Nichols movie as a reference point. How to judge Calista Flockhart’s performance, and what might I compare it to, not having seen Uta Hagen play Martha on Broadway? (I did manage to track down a vinyl recording of that show, but still…

Off Broadway’s historic, if long financially beleaguered, Cherry Lane Theatre has been purchased by The Whale and Everything Everywhere All at Once film studio A24.

EXCLUSIVE: Principal photography has wrapped in New York state on COUP!, a period satire starring Peter Sarsgaard and directed by Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman.