Living Room Theatre presents 'THE END IS IN THE BEGINNING'

Event information

'In this intimate 80 minute 2-hander performance, our approach to both the comic and the tragic sides of Beckett’s work will give audiences a new way to experience his language. Whether you’re exploring this Nobel Prize winner’s writing for the first time, or building on a body of Beckett knowledge, this theatrical showcase is an encounter not to be missed.

Expect a mystery phone call, impossible-to-remove boots, the horrors of home life, a glass of Jamesons, surreal radio broadcasts, a bevvy of bananas, a bicycle from boyhood, classic clowning, beguiling stillness, and audience up on stage. All encased within hilarious, poignant, possibly challenging but always compelling drama!'

Sarah & Philip embody the endeavours of many of Beckett’s absurd and tragic characters, in their struggle to exist and to remember. Most of all, in their struggle out of silence, towards speaking. Structured as a fragmentary progression, its an entertaining celebration of the act of trying again, failing again, failing better.

Performed by Philip Robinson & Sarah White
Words by Samuel Beckett
Directed by Nikki Sved
Creative Direction by Philip, with Sarah & Nikki
Costume Design by Lindy Yellowlees
Music/Sound by Philip

Duration: 80 mins + 15 mins interval
High quality food/bar/accomodation available at The Falcon Hotel

Info about the company:
Sarah White - Performer
Sarah is an Exeter based performer, producer and Co-Artistic Director of Four of Swords, a theatre company specialising in creating immersive adaptations of classic stories in strange spaces. As such she can often be found hiding in the dark from audiences in caves, quarries, forests and empty office buildings. Recent screen acting credits include the BBCs 'Beyond Paradise' and Cornish horror 'The Cull' where she is type cast as an ancient demon. She's spent the last few summers on the road with Common Players producing and performing in open-air, rural tours of 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'The Tuck Inn' and teaching drama to students in Greece and Shanghai.

Philip Robinson - Performer, Music/Sound
Philip has spent 45 years creating performances internationally, particularly in non-traditional settings: living rooms (where he toured Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape), department stores, buses, lifts, gardens and haunted houses. Most recent tours include Every Brilliant Thing - an audience participatory show about suicide, All Is Mended - a play uniting Shakespeare with real-life pandemic stories from residents of care homes, The Washing Machine Of Destiny - about life as someone who is neurodiverse. Philip is passionate about using the arts to grow and unite communities, working collaboratively to make issue-based shows involving people with a learning or physical disability, the homeless, refugees, and those living with mental health challenges. From Ireland to Iraq via Kosovo to Kidderminster.

Nikki Sved - Director
Nikki was the Artistic Director of contemporary storytellers Theatre Alibi for 28 years, until 2023 when she joined Exeter University’s Drama Department, where she is a Lecturer. Her relationship with Theatre Alibi continues, as a Creative Advisor. During Nikki’s time with the company, she directed numerous shows for audiences of all ages, including Why The Whales Came, which toured nationally and enjoyed a West End run; The Night Before Christmas, which was commissioned by the RSC, and also many shows which toured to tens of thousands of children in Devon Primary schools – the work of which she is most proud.

Living Room Theatre
We are a long-lived ever-changing array of artists and performers, well-held by Philip. Touring shows into theatres yes but mostly into places not known for having theatre in. We like performing intimate shows that are funny and powerful, moving and surprising, which have something important to say. Sometimes scripted plays, and sometimes specially created by us for spaces, events, people. Theatre is for all.