Anna Burnside reviews an excellent production with a ‘magnificent’ central performance.
When Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days was first performed, in 1961, the existential threat was nuclear war. Today, when it’s climate breakdown that keeps us awake at night, the play continues to deliver.
Winnie is buried up to her waist in sand, keeping her spirits up beneath a relentless sun. At one point her parasol catches fire. Willie, her husband, scuttles and grunts in the dunes, covers his head with a knotted hanky and refuses to engage with Winnie’s brittle chat.
Siobhan Redmond, last seen revisiting her magnificent Shona Spurtle in The High Life, is a magnificent Winnie. It’s a hugely demanding part and she meets it head on, handling the comedic moments with a light touch and bringing genuine pathos to her increasingly weak efforts to convince herself of the happiness of the day.
Forbes Masson’s Willie has considerably less to do, but he has the presence required and does what is required with huge elan. He is, as always, a generous performer.
Emma Bailey’s set keeps to Beckett’s original desire for a basic, end of the pier seaside set up but adds an ominous dark space in the middle distance. Is it an iceberg, or a void? With one simple shape she adds an extra dimension to Roxana Silbert’s assured direction.
This is as good as Happy Days gets.
Happy Days performs at Pitlochry Festival Theatre until 10 October 2026. For further details, go to the company’s website.
Photo by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan.
RSS