Siobhán Redmond Will Lead HAPPY DAYS at Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Pitlochry Festival Theatre has announced that Siobhán Redmond will star in a new production of Samuel Beckett’s surreal masterpiece Happy Days.

A new addition to Alan Cumming’s inaugural season as Artistic Director, the revival of Beckett’s iconic 1960 play Happy Days will run at Pitlochry Festival Theatre Royal from 18 September – 10 October. The production will be directed by Roxana Silbert (Girls of Slender Means, Edinburgh Lyceum and Adults, Traverse Theatre). 

Samuel Beckett's Happy Days is a hauntingly comic meditation on the human spirit, a renowned masterpiece that helped secure Beckett the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, and one that has lost none of its power since.

Winnie is buried up to her waist — and later, her neck — yet she refuses to surrender. With only a small bag of everyday objects, she fills the endless hours with routine, memories, and a fierce, almost defiant optimism. Nearby, her companion Willie hovers at the edges of her world, offering little more than the odd muttered response.

 Is Winnie’s cheerfulness resilience delusion, or something in between? Stark, unsettling, and darkly comic, Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days becomes a haunting exploration of endurance, isolation, and the stubborn human need to keep going, no matter how tight the walls close in.

Playing the role of Winnie will be played by the celebrated Scottish stage and screen actress Siobhán Redmond. Siobhán is best known for appearing on screen in Between the Lines, Two Doors Down, Death in Paradise, The Nest and Unforgotten. Her extensive stage credits include Hamlet and Top Girls (National Theatre); The Human Body (Donmar); Vassa (Almeida); Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors and Much Ado About Nothing (Royal Shakespeare Company) and most recently The High Life – The Musical (National Theatre of Scotland and Dundee Rep Theatre in association with Aberdeen Performing Arts and Capital Theatres).

Happy Days, written in 1960, premiered off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City on 17 September 1961. The production, directed by Alan Schneider, featured Ruth White and John C. Becher. The play was subsequently presented at London's Royal Court Theatre on 1 November 1962. Directed by George Devine and Tony Richardson, the production featured Brenda Bruce and Peter Duguid. In 1979, Beckett directed Happy Days at the Royal Court, London. Winnie was played by his beloved collaborator, Billie Whitelaw. Over the years the role of Winnie has been played by Felicity Kendal, Fiona Shaw, Dianne Wiest, Maxine Peake, Juliet Stevenson and Lisa Dwan.

Happy Days will join the line up for Alan Cumming’s inaugural season as Artistic Director which will open its 75th Anniversary year in May with the Scottish première of the Tony and Olivier award winning musical Once.