Samuel Beckett and the Art of Radio

Summary

Samuel Beckett's work for radio is a highly significant part of his oeuvre and far less fully discussed in the mounting literature on Beckett than his other output, far less readily available, also, in performance, which alone can bring out its full flavor. But beyond that, Beckett's experience with broadcasting, and above all radio, has played a significant and little-known part in his development as an artist.

It has become a kind of cliché of the Beckett literature that the BBC commissioned radio plays from Beckett. Even the cover of the first American publication of All That Fall and Embers in the Grove Press paperback Krapp's Last Tape and Other Dramatic Pieces (1960) baldly states: “Two radio plays commissioned by the BBC's Third Programme.” Beckett himself has always strenuously denied that he writes plays on commission from anyone. And the truth is that he was, indeed, never commissioned by the BBC to write anything. The real story of the genesis of these radio plays is far more complex and interesting.

The first communication between Beckett and the BBC goes back to the period before his rise to fame as the author of Waiting for Godot.