ARTS fans are counting down to the welcome return of The Happy Days Enniskillen Beckett Festival, that returns for its10th anniversary to Enniskillen for the first time since 2019.

Running from July 21-25 the five-day international multi-arts festival promises a superb and diverse artistic line-up, with homegrown and international world-class talent including the likes of Toby Jones, Dame Sarah Connolly, Fleur Barron, Tadhg Murphy, Liam Ó Maonlaí and Adrian Dunbar, to name but a few of the top talents involved.

Also featured as part of this year’s festival are two premieres to mark the centenary of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, with sound and film installations featuring stage and screen stars Russell Tovey, Rory Kinnear, Dame Harriet Walter and a world premiere by New York opera and theatre director Robert Wilson.

The festival features a range of local venues, including Marble Arch Caves, Devenish Island, an upland mountain bog, and the Regal and Samuel Beckett’s former Portora Royal School (now Enniskillen Royal Grammar).

Three festival productions return by popular demand: Ohio Impromptu, directed by Adrian Dunbar on Devenish Island; Walking for Waiting for Godot, around sculptor Antony Gormley’s Tree; and INFERNO-NOT I, starring Clara Simpson.

The busy market town is certain to attract people from near and far to once again, host the largest global celebration on Irish Nobel Laureate Samuel Beckett, with a plethora of Beckett-inspired performances in store.

The festival also celebrates Beckett’s formative years in Enniskillen, at Portora Royal School (Enniskillen Royal Grammar), with the return of this year’s festival also marking the centenary of Beckett’s attendance at Portora, from 1920-23.

Getting under way on Thursday, July 21, taking place on the 9th Century monastic Devenish Island, and directed by popular local man and TV star Adrian Dunbar, ‘Ohio Impromptu’ will be presented at the festival for a record fifth time due to popular demand.

An intimately-sized audience (max. 48 people) will be transported by boat at sunset to Devenish Island for a 12-minute play with two actors – Vincent Higgens and Lalor Roddy – who doesn’t speak a word in the entire play.

That’s just an opening attraction in the diverse festival, which stages a number of other equally imaginative and creative events and productions based around Beckett’s timeless works and words.

A particular highlight this year include a newly-commissioned piece of work which has never been seen before in Ireland.

Beckett in Folkestone tells the imagined stories of three people who may have encountered Beckett in Folkestone in 1960 when he travelled there in secret to marry his long-time partner.

In a series of three monologues, written by Eimear McBride, Helen Oyeyemi and Rupert Thomson, delivered at three venues around the town, you will be able to hear from the receptionist, the journalist and the wedding witness, acted by Dame Harriet Walter, Russell Tovey and Jade Anouka – just one highlight of many from this year’s festival.

Speaking ahead of the event, festival founder and Artistic Director Seán Doran said: “After a three-year enforced silence by Covid-19, we are delighted to be bringing back to Enniskillen its unique and only international festival, Happy Days.

“We are particularly thrilled to be remounting for our 10th anniversary three ‘made in Fermanagh’ classics of the past 10 years – Walking for Waiting for Godot, Ohio Impromptu and INFERNO-NOT I.

“World-renowned New York artist Robert Wilson is recognised as one of the greatest theatre and opera directors of our time, and it is a coup for the festival that he has gifted to Ireland the world premiere of his Self Video Portrait inspired by his Krapp’s Last Tape production,” added Sean.

This year’s Happy Days Festival is also especially significant as it marks the inter-related centenary anniversaries of the publication of The Waste Land and Ulysses in 1922, with a related sound installation and a filmed reading paying imaginative tribute, as yet more superb festival highlights to look out for.

The principal partner of Happy Days Enniskillen International Arts Festival 2022 is the T. S. Eliot Foundation, and the festival is funded by Tourism NI and Fermanagh and Omagh District Council.

For further information and the full programme of events, see www.artsoverborders.com, with booking now open at the Ardhowen Theatre, www.ardhowen.com, with most tickets priced from £5-£15.