Dance First

The words “dance first, think later” are often attributed to Samuel Beckett and thought to epitomize his life ethos. They are thus the premise of James Marsh’s bio-pic of the Irish playwright, novelist, short story writer, theatre director, poet and literary translator. It follows Beckett’s life, from his early childhood in suburban Dublin to his Parisian years working as an assistant to James Joyce, his time as a fighter for the French Resistance during the Second World War, his love-hate partnership with Suzanne Déchevaux-Dumesnil, and his literary rise which eventually earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969.