EDINBURGH 2026: Henry Maynard on ENDGAME Guest Blog

Henry Maynard guest blogs for BroadwayWorld ahead of bringing Samuel Beckett's Endgame to the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Butohand Beckett, Flabbergast Theatre’s influences and practice in ensemble creation.

Flabbergast is now 16 years old and over those years we have built a reputation for highly physical and striking shows, our first six or so years were spent exclusively making puppetry shows for adult audiences with our debut ‘Boris & Sergey’s Vaudevillian Adventure’ being the second highest rated (by stars) show of the 2013 Fringe below the Perrier Award winner that year Dr. Brown, I then developed my clowning and toured ‘Tatterdemalion’ a solo silent(ish) clown show before a foray into immersive work with ‘The Swell Mob’. In 2018 I decided that we should try to move from studio based work to middle scale and that is when our Shakespearian adaptations began with ‘Macbeth’ first out of the gate.

I have always been interested in physical theatre and ‘European theatre arts’ and there is a great crossover between Puppetry, Mask, Clown, Bouffon and Mime. I wanted to see how Shakespeare would behave to a physical theatre (Grotowski/Lecoq) treatment and I’m happy to report that it works astoundingly well to which the last five years of tours can attest. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the talking heads version of Shakespeare as made popular in the last 50 years or so is the aberration. Shakespeare drew heavily from Commedia Dell A’rte (which survives as Pantomime and Punch and Judy) and traditions of physical performance.

Butoh we started to explore whilst working on Macbeth and it has become a core tenant of our tool box along with Bouffon. Butoh as a dance style is an exploration of pain, fragility and transformation and it rejects decorative movement, it is a process of becoming and done well is truly fascinating. Whilst exploring Endgame we felt that this was a perfect physical place to work from as his characters are not purely conventionally psychological and can exist as symbols as well as people trapped in cycles of decay, habit and endurance.

Beckett (much as Shakespeare does) holds the weight of literary interpretation and as a true masterpiece has a well-earned place in many people’s hearts but, as often as not, it is produced with starry casts in unimaginative ways that can lead to boredom… the last thing we want is to bore people… this necessitates examining the physical comedy, clowning, and Bouffonic challenges that Beckett - to my mind - clearly set out. I don’t doubt that we will ruffle the bourgeoise in the same way we have with creative interpretations of Shakespeare, but I can’t see the point in remounting a play without finding our unique take on it.

I am constantly seeking to create ensemble lead work and although I direct, I see it primarily as facilitation and guidance, our ensemble are all creative giants, especially true as on this occasion as co-founder of Complicité, Annabel Arden, is joining the cast.

Devising skills are crucial, as is the willingness to listen, take a back seat, and allow things that don’t seem immediately right to develop… often we create far more material than we can use and then pair it back. The Audience and their reactions are also of heightened importance when working with clown.

Beckett was a huge fan of Buster Keaton and a lot of his writing is deliberately proscriptive in the actions as he was writing physical scores, this of course says nothing of the performer and how it is done, indeed with my own solo clown show, if it were it written out and then performed without humour, that would be very dull indeed, the skill is in the corners, the humour and the tragedy, Hamm is a Bouffon character and frequently challenges the audience directly – ‘use your head can’t you? Use your head, you’re on Earth there is no cure for that!’

I hope our interpretation will invigorate audiences and challenge some preconceptions about what Beckett is, and can be, I’d also like people to have fun and to laugh even when the situation is bleak… it is after all one of the things humans are very good at ‘there is nothing funnier than unhappiness I grant you that’ - Nell

Endgame by Samuel Becket will be performed at 6pm at Pleasance at the EICC from 5th – 30th August (8:30pm on 27th)

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