BECKETT’S TRILOGY ON THE THIRD PROGRAMME

This text focuses upon the BBC Third Programme's adaptions of Beckett's trilogy between late 1957 and early 1959. It is argued that his own 'revisiting' of the trilogy a decade on demonstrated much more creative licence and collaboration, as well as much greater radio adaptation, than has been previously maintained in Beckett studies. To do this, previously neglected manuscripts relating to his adaptations of the trilogy will be surveyed with an eye to suggesting that Beckett's wider undertakings with the Third Programme in the late 1950s and 1960s played an underestimated role in a new creative breakthrough in his poetics.