Not I/Rockaby/Footfalls, Southbank Centre

Following a sell-out run at the Royal Court and the West-End, this one-worman performance of Samuel Beckett's trilogy comes to the Southbank Centre. The theatre is cast in total darkness for the hour-long performance - an experience in itself - and the Irish actor Lisa Dwan delivers a tour de force in her three monologues.

Not I is the absurdist playwright Beckett at his most absurd: a disembodied female mouth floats in darkness, spinning a non-stop stream of consciousness that is spoken at, as  Beckett put it, 'the speed of thought'.  It is widely acknowledged to be one of the most difficult parts an actor could ever play. Billie Whitelaw, who worked closely with the Irish playwright for 25 years, was the first British actress to perform it; Forty years on, Dwan (under Whitelaw’s guidance) is stunning audiences by performing the monologue in a record nine minutes. Actors compete over how fast they can deliver Not I. In 1972 the American actor Jessica Tandy famously took 22 minutes to complete her lines. Beckett told her she had 'destroyed' his play.

Whilst Dwan's unstoppable performance of Not I is impressive, the second and third pieces, delivered at a contrasting, deliberate rate, are arguably more moving, each delving into the strange and devastating elements of the human experience. Rockaby examines loneliness; Footfalls explores death. 

All three pieces are compelling, though, and all the more poignant for the fact that they are directed by Beckett’s old friend and long-term collaborator, Walter Asmus. The pair worked together until Beckett’s death in 1989. Asmus's 2008 production of Waiting for Godot was universally described as the ‘definitive’ production. 

Culture Whisper is thrilled that this production of Not I/Footfalls/Rockaby returns. No-one is better placed to bring Beckett’s ideas to life than Asmus, who worked with Beckett, understood him, and knew what he wanted from his plays. It is selling out fast, so be book now.