Channel 4 On The Godot with Beckett Slate
by Steve Brennan, The Hollywood Reporter
March 31, 2000
The plays of Nobel Prize winner Samuel Beckett will be taken to the international television market by Channel 4 International under a groundbreaking arrangement with the estate of the late Irish playwright.
The TV versions of Beckett's 19 plays will involve such leading directors as Neil Jordan, Atom Egoyan, Anthony Minghella and David Mamet. Judi Dench, Julianne Moore, John Hurt and Jeremy Irons are among the talent signed to star.
This is the first time Beckett's estate has granted exclusive rights to produce filmed adaptations of all of his plays. The collection will go into presale mode at MIP-TV, which runs April 10-14 in Cannes.
The programs will be produced under an alliance among the U.K.'s Channel 4, Irish national broadcaster RTE and Irish production company Blue Angel Films.
Blue Angel was formed recently by producer Alan Moloney ("A Love Divided") and Michael Colgan, director of Dublin's famed Gate Theatre. Global distribution will be handled by Channel 4 unit C4I.
"It's an honor to be given permission from the Beckett estate to distribute these extraordinary titles to the global marketplace," C4I director of sales and rights investments Barbara Bellini-Witkowski said Thursday. "Samuel Beckett is one of the greatest literary creative forces in history, and his work not only transcends time but also audiences and mediums."
Among the Beckett classics to which talent has already been assigned are "Krapp's Last Tape," which will be directed by Egoyan and will feature Hurt, and "Not I," to be directed by Jordan and starring Moore.
"Catastrophe" will be directed by Mamet and star Harold Pinter. Dench will star in "Rockaby," which will be directed by Richard Eyre.
"This material really lends itself to film, and I think people will be pleasantly surprised at how accessible the material is as a television experience," Blue Angel's Moloney said.
Colgan added, "Having produced all 19 plays on stage, initially at the Gate Theatre in Dublin and later in New York and London, it is tremendously exciting to be bringing the works to a wider audience through the medium of film."
Other Beckett classics include "Waiting for Godot," which has yet to be cast for the U.K./Irish alliance's television project.