Beckett: Lieben 2026

Liverpool: 17-20 September 2026

Beckett: Lieben 2026 explores Beckett's fascination with German expressionism, which he first encountered through his relationship with the Sinclair family in Kassel in the 1930s. The full programme of theatre, music, visual art, photography, film, dance and discussion reflects the impact of German painters, writers and theatre makers on Beckett's life and oeuvre.

[direct to programme and booking links]

In keeping with this theme, world-renowned artist Sean Scully has made a Tree for Godot in steel, which will be presented as an installation environment where the tree is both listener and speaker. A number of texts will respond to this rooting of the Tree in Liverpool, including a reading of Catherine Morris' Intimate Power: Autobiography of a City (2025) by the students of LIPA.

This iteration of the festival will see a double bill of Beckett's Play + Come and Go directed by Adrian Dunbar at the Everyman Playhouse Liverpool and performances of Quadrat I-II at LIPA.

Tickets are now available for Play + Come and Go via the Everyman Playhouse website https://everymanplayhouse.com/event/beckett-lieben-2026-play-and-come-and-go/ and FREE tickets for Six Paintings are available via the Tung Auditorium's website at https://thetungauditorium.com/events/beckett-lieben-2026-six-paintings. 

Please check back here in the coming months for updates on the programme. If you want to be added to the Institute of Irish Studies mailing list and be informed of our news and events, including Beckett: Lieben updates, please email irish@liverpool.ac.uk. 

Please find below a brief schedule of events, please note that this is subject to alterations.

Thursday 17 September                                                   

5pm	Welcome Address / Keynote: Professor Mark Nixon: 'Erste Liebe' - Samuel Beckett, Peggy Sinclair and German Culture	Crown Court, St George's Hall Information FREE registration: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1996634244774
7pm	Play / Come and Go	Playhouse Information Tickets: https://everymanplayhouse.com/event/beckett-lieben-2026-play-and-come-and-go/
8pm	Start of Livestream	Sean Scully's Tree for Godot Liverpool School of Architecture, University of Liverpool

Friday 18 September

10am	More Real Than Nothing	LIPA Information
12 noon	Declan Clarke: If I fall, don't pick me up Followed by Talk and Q&A: Walter Asmus and Mark Nixon	Playhouse Information FREE registration: https://everymanplayhouse.com/event/beckett-lieben-2026-film-screening-if-i-fall-dont-pick-me-up/
4pm	More Real Than Nothing	LIPA Information
7pm	Play / Come and Go	Playhouse Information Tickets: everymanplayhouse.com/event/beckett-lieben-2026-play-and-come-and-go/

 

Saturday 19 September

1pm	Play / Come and Go	Playhouse Information Tickets: https://everymanplayhouse.com/event/beckett-lieben-2026-play-and-come-and-go/
2pm	Beckett Shorts	Playhouse Information
4:30pm	More Real Than Nothing	LIPA Information
7pm	Play / Come and Go	Playhouse Information Tickets: https://everymanplayhouse.com/event/beckett-lieben-2026-play-and-come-and-go/

 

Sunday 20 September

1pm	Talk: Richard Pierce: Samuel Beckett and German Expressionism: An Abiding Love	Lecture Theatre 1, Yoko Ono Lennon Centre, University of Liverpool Information FREE registration: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1996979506461
3pm	Performance: Steve Boyland	Sean Scully's Tree for Godot Liverpool School of Architecture, University of Liverpool
4pm	Reading: Catherine Morris	Sean Scully's Tree for Godot Liverpool School of Architecture, University of Liverpool
5pm	Book Launch: Love, Life and Death - John Minihan in his own Words	Lecture Theatre 1, Yoko Ono Lennon Centre, University of Liverpool Information FREE registration: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1996799024635
7:30pm	Six Paintings	Tung Auditorium, Yoko Ono Lennon Centre, University of Liverpool Information For FREE tickets, please go to thetungauditorium.com/events/beckett-lieben-2026-six-paintings

 

Theatre

Play / Come and Go

Thursday, 17 September - 7:00 pm; Friday, 18 September - 7:00 pm; Saturday, 19 September - 1:00 pm;  Saturday, 19 September - 7:00 pm. 

Play (1962/63) was originally written by Samuel Beckett in English and was first performed (as Spiel) at Theater Ulm in June 1963. It was published in German in July of the same year. The fate of three characters, who find themselves trapped in three urns with only their heads showing, is forever sealed by an affair in the past. Their constant remembering might indeed seem an understandable obsession were it not for the on/off light of the unseen interrogator – dictating who speaks, and when.

Come and Go is a short play described as a “dramaticule” on its title page, dedicated to publisher John Calder. It was written in English in January 1965 and was first performed in German at the Schiller Theater Werkstatt, Berlin in January 1966. Critics consider this one of Beckett’s most “perfect” plays.

Beckett himself proposed the pairing to director Walter D. Asmus in Germany and they presented the double-bill together at the Schiller Theater in West Berlin in 1977, with Beckett directing Play and Asmus directing Come and Go.

Director: Adrian Dunbar
Actors: Clara Simpson, Anna Nygh, Orla Charlton, Frank McCusker
Light: Michael Cummins.

£15 (£12 Concessions) + Booking Fee: https://everymanplayhouse.com/event/beckett-lieben-2026-play-and-come-and-go/ 

More Real Than Nothing - Stories and Silence from the Theatrical World of Samuel Beckett

Friday, 18 September - 10:00 am; Friday, 18 September - 4:00pam; Saturday, 19 September - 4:30 pm; Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA).  

A tree descends from the sky in a light-bleached desert...

Figures move in intricate, seemingly impossible patterns...

A woman rocks gently in a chair, remembering...

Scattered voices call forth fragments of a life...

 

Funny, bleak and ultimately beautiful, a series of brief encounters across a haunting theatrical landscape invite us to confront the ultimate question: what, against all odds, keeps us going?

 

Bringing together Act Without Words, Quad, That Time, Rockaby, What Where and extracts from First Love, More Real Than Nothing is a percussive journey through Samuel Beckett’s extraordinary imagination.

 

(registration details tba)

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Sean Scully's Tree for Godot

Thursday, 17 September - 8:00 pm until Sunday, 20 September - 8:00pm; online and Liverpool School of Architecture, University of Liverpool (physical access dependent on building opening times).

Launched by Unreal Cities on Hampstead Heath to mark the occasion of the artist's 80th birthday in 2025, Sean Scully has created a Tree for Godot in steel, which in Liverpool will become an interactive installation, with the tree serving as both listener and speaker. A number of performances will respond to this rooting of the Tree for Godot in the city, including specially-commissioned performances by performer Steve Boyland and author Catherine Morris, whose book Intimate Power: Autobiography of a City (2025) will also be read by the students of the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) .

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Kino / Cinema

The Lieben 2026 film programme includes the UK premiere of Irish director Declan Clarke's If I fall, don't pick me up, a biopic on German director Walter D. Asmus, a close collaborator of Beckett for many years.

If I Fall, Don’t Pick Me Up by  Declan Clarke

Friday 18 September - 12:00 noon, Playhouse.

Irish filmmaker Declan Clarke explores the relationship between iconic Irish author Samuel Beckett and renowned German theatre director Walter D. Asmus, and considers a legacy built on interpretation and performance: when the original actors have departed the stage, what remains?

Following the screening, theatre director Walter Asmus will be joined onstage by Professor Mark Nixon for a Q+A.

The film was commissioned by the Embassy of Ireland in Germany as part of Zeitgeist Ireland, a joint initiative of Culture Ireland and the Embassy to bring a season of Irish culture across Germany in 2024.

FREE Registration: https://everymanplayhouse.com/event/beckett-lieben-2026-film-screening-if-i-fall-dont-pick-me-up/ 

Beckett Shorts

Saturday, 19 September - 4:00 pm; Playhouse.

The Beckett Shorts programme presents a series of short works on film including Alan Gilsenan's Eh Joe (1986), Paul Joyce's The Goad (1965) and the first screening of Michael O'Neill's Peggy (2026).

Registration details tba

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Keynote and Discussions

Professor Mark Nixon, the director of the Beckett International Foundation and the editor of Samuel Beckett's German Diaries 1936-1937, will give the keynote address.

Further talks will feature German director Walter D. Asmus, a close collaborator of Beckett for many years, who will be joined by Mark Nixon (see Kino/Cinema section), and artist / architect Richard Pierce with a talk on Samuel Beckett and German Expressionism: An Abiding Love, as well as the launch of "Love, Life and Death: John Minihan".

Welcome event and Keynote: Professor Mark Nixon - Erste Liebe: Samuel Beckett, Peggy Sinclair and German Culture

Thursday, 17 September - 5:00 pm; Crown Court, St George's Hall.

Illustrated talk giving an overview of the long-lasting relationship between Beckett and Germany, and looking at the way his life and work was profoundly shaped by his engagement with German literature, art, philosophy and music.

FREE Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1996634244774

Richard Pierce: Samuel Beckett and German Expressionism: An Abiding Love

Sunday, 20 September - 1:00 pm;  Lecture Theatre 1, Yoko Ono Lennon Centre, University of Liverpool.

Richard Pierce, Irish architect, watercolorist, photographer and raconteur, will present Samuel Beckett and German Expressionism: An Abiding Love, a visual account of Samuel Beckett’s discovery of, and reaction to, German Expressionist paintings with stories of his own, parallel, journey.

FREE Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1996979506461 

Book Launch - Love, Life and Death: John Minihan in His Own Words

Sunday, 20 September - 5:00 pm; Lecture Theatre 1, Yoko Ono Lennon Centre, University of Liverpool.

We are delighted to welcome back Irish photographer John Minihan, to mark the launch of "Love, Life and Death: John Minihan in His Own Words", his new book edited by Gerry Diver and Declan Houten at the Institute of Irish Studies. The launch will be in the form of a conversation between John Minihan and the editors, with a particular focus on his photos of Samuel Beckett.

FREE Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1996799024635 

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Photography

Liverpool School of Architecture, University of Liverpool (physical access dependent on building opening times).

The photography strand will feature Irish photographer John Minihan's 'Krapps Last Tape' and Steve Schapiro's set photography from Beckett's Film.

We already had the pleasure of listening to John Minihan give an illustrated talk about his encounters with Samuel Beckett as part of Beckett Unbound (2024), if you wish you can watch a recording of this, featuring Minihan's photos of Beckett on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/jspVqhDreDA. 

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Evening concert

Six Paintings

Sunday, 20 September - 7:30 pm; The Tung Auditorium, Yoko Ono Lennon Centre, University of Liverpool.

The Six Paintings concert explores the interplay between visual art and music, developed by Unreal Cities in consultation with Professor Mark Nixon, the director of the Beckett International Foundation and the editor of Beckett’s German diaries, to be published for the first time in 2026. 

The programme brings together six of the world’s leading musicians to respond to six paintings that each play a role in this complex story, alongside Samuel Beckett’s impressions and writings.

Voice + electronics: Iarla Ó Lionáird

Voice: Michelle O'Rourke

Gujin: Cheng Yu

Guitar: Niwel Tsumbu

Guitar: Benjamin Dwyer

Piano: Mary Dullea

Narration: Anna Nygh

FREE Tickets required: https://thetungauditorium.com/events/beckett-lieben-2026-six-paintings 

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