Happy Days

Synopsis

Talkative housewife Winnie, and her husband Willie, spend their days together under the blazing sun. Winnie talks, prays and sings her way through life with nothing but a bell for waking and a bell for sleep.

Our Review:

Joanne Hartley - 25 May 2011

Lizzie Clachan’s striking design concept, inspired by museum diorama presentation cases, combined with Natasha Chivers’ sensitive lighting design, offer an apparently endless mountainous cyclorama bathed in blinkingly hyper-real sunlight. The initial revelation of this visual is highly effective, my pulse races at the vaudevillian drum roll as the velvet curtains sweep aside to reveal this atmospheric other-world.

Here we meet the unfortunate Winnie, buried to her waist in the ground, living her days on repeat, guided by a bell that dictates when she sleeps and wakes. Winnie has her husband Willie for company, a strong, silent type who we become acquainted with via appearances of the back of his head long before we see his face.

Very little happens in Happy Days, typical of Beckett’s plays. Winnie talks us through the minutia of her daily life, passing the time until the next bell. Willie pipes up from time to time, his interjections a relief to ...

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Latest User Review

Jacqueline Bayliss - 27 May 2011:

Excellent character portrayals by both Pauline McLynn and Peter Gowen brought Beckett to life. The acting and set made for an enjoyable and thought provoking experience and brought home the philosophy of 'always look on the bright side of life'!...

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