Ulster Scots Godot Brings Beckett Back To The Bog

This Good Friday, Samuel Beckett’s famously spare play will be delivered not on a glittering West End stage but three kilometres into the volcanic Antrim Plateau. Audiences will hike into a windswept peatland to watch Waiting for Godot revived in Ulster Scots — a bold choice that aims to make language and landscape inseparable. The production, billed as Ettlin Fur Godot, is the world premiere of Beckett’s text in Ullans. It takes place beneath a minimalist steel tree on County Antrim’s upland bog, a setting organisers say naturally echoes the play’s bleak, open terrain. The familiar stage direction “A country road. A tree. Evening” will appear in Ulster Scots as part of the translation — a detail that underlines the project’s local roots. Frank Ferguson of Ulster University, who translated the play, presents the staging as a milestone for Ulster Scots. He argues the language can carry major international drama and that the production offers a rare chance for people to hear its rhythms in a place where it is actually spoken. Arts Over Borders, which is producing the show as part of a new Samuel Beckett Biennale, hopes the performance will help audiences begin to recognise Ulster Scots by ear — with translation support if needed. The staging also arrives against a backdrop of formal recognition: a commissioner for Ulster Scots was appointed under the Identity and Language Act in October to act as a cultural guardian for the speech that traces back to 17th‑century Scottish settlement in Ireland. Organisers say the choice of site and the physical approach to the performance are deliberate. Walking into the bog, they suggest, will sharpen spectators’ sense of Estragon’s discomfort and the play’s themes of waiting and yearning — a neat cultural mirror for a minority language that many feel is “waiting” for its moment. The biennale itself is set to be experimental. Over the next decade it will commission versions of Godot in languages such as Noongar, Sami and Inuit, and explore unconventional casts, including productions featuring people who have experienced homelessness. The festival is explicitly positioned against the recent vogue for celebrity-led productions — from Keanu Reeves on Broadway to other famous pairings — arguing that quieter, place-based interpretations can reveal fresh layers in a familiar work. The Ulster Scots Godot is scheduled for 3 April 2026, a Good Friday and the day Beckett was born. The Biennale will appear across rural and urban venues in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and England in 2026, returning in 2028. --- Managing your business finances? TaxAce provides smart online accountancy services for UK businesses with flexible monthly plans. Image and reporting: https://www.theguardian.com | Read original article