GRASSINGTON Festival Fringe will play host to the staging of local thespian Mark Bamforth’s latest venture, which will be presented in the Octagon Theatre at 9pm this Sunday.

Working with an experienced team drawn from his work with Grassington Players and Penny Plain Theatre, Mr Bamforth will stage an evening of Samuel Beckett’s work featuring three challenging pieces.

Born in Ireland, Beckett lived most of his life in Paris and following the German invasion of Paris in 1940 Beckett joined a resistance cell which was betrayed in 1942, at which point Beckett and his partner Suzanne fled to the South.

In recognition of his work against the occupying forces he was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance by the French government.

Beckett wrote many, well known, critically acclaimed pieces for the stage, radio and film including Waiting for Godot, Happy Days, Endgame, All That Fall and Embers. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.

Having staged and played in Waiting for Godot with Grassington Players in 2013, a production which received great critical acclaim, Mr Bamforth was inspired to bring more of Beckett’s work to the local audience, selecting the evening’s three works for their diversity.

‘Catastrophe’, a short play of not much more than ten minutes “says more about totalitarianism and government sponsored iniquity than many people manage to express in a life time”, according to Bamforth, who directs and performs in the piece alongside Jo Hornsey.

‘Footfalls’ follows on, written specifically for Billie Whitelaw, whom Beckett trusted to interpret his work, featuring Penny Hart-Woods in the role of May.

Finally, Bamforth takes on the monologue Krapp’s Last Tape which was written for Patrick McGee.

Paula Vickers, John Anderson and Dave Oldridge have also been instrumental in bringing the technically challenging show together.

Tickets for the show cost £8 and are available from the Grassington Festival box office on 01756 752691 or on the door.