After we presented Worstward Ho at the Explosives Factory in 2023, we wanted to continue to work on the fascinating puzzle presented by Samuel Beckett’s late prose. We read through all the works from his last 20 years and finally chose 6 short pieces for our focus. Three of them were connected by the use of the word ‘Still’ in their titles: Fizzle Still, Variations on a Still Point (which comprises 2 works: Still 3 and Sounds) and Stirrings Still. We added two other that felt like they completed the suite: Heard in the Dark and One Evening. As far as we know, these were not written with each other consciously in mind. But to our amazement, they seem to echo, reflect upon and develop words, phrases and themes throughout.

​

At a time when daily news is so full of the death-dealing cruelty, violence and hypocrisy of the human race, it has been our joy to return each rehearsal to the deep humane-ness of Beckett’s sensibility. This may seem a paradox, given his reputation for gloomy melancholy and mordant, morbid wit - a reputation gained because of his refusal to gild the harsh realities of living with false sentimentality. He is in fact the most caring, most positive of writers. And the most precise. His later texts are so spare and minimal because there is not a word wasted, or misused. He rescues language from the shattering and cheapening it has received from the corruption of politics and the mass media. These six works present with care and a limitless depth of understanding the experiences of an ordinary man, alone in his thoughts and actions at a critical juncture in his life.

​

We have attempted to render these experiences with the care and clarity with which he writes them. It has been our delight. We hope it will be yours.