Samuel Beckett’s secret wedding in Folkestone inspires festival 60 years on

Writer’s attempts to stay ‘invisible’ while marrying Suzanne Déchevaux-Dumesnil will be explored in monologues by well-known authors and actors

Sixty years ago, in 1961, Samuel Beckett slipped away to Folkestone to marry his long-time partner Suzanne Déchevaux-Dumesnil at a secret ceremony. Now the playwright and novelist’s incognito wedding at the register office in Kent has inspired an immersive multimedia event at the forthcoming Folkestone book festival, with major names Helen Oyeyemi, Rupert Thomson and Eimear McBride writing a series of monologues from the perspectives of those there at the time.

In March 1961, Beckett drove from his home in Paris to Le Touquet airport, flying from there to Lydd airport in Kent and checking in for two weeks at the Hotel Bristol on the Leas clifftop in Folkestone. He spent the evenings working on his play Happy Days in local pubs, with the Kent place names Borough Green and Sevenoaks making their way into his second draft.

Related: Beckett's letters to Barbara Bray: 'Hammer hammer adamantine words'

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