David Farnor | On 26, Sep 2023

Gabriel Byrne will play Samuel Beckett in Dance First, a new Sky Original film.

Directed by James Marsh (Man on Wire, The Theory of Everything) and written by Neil Forsyth (Guilt), Dance First sees Byrne (The Usual Suspects) play Beckett, with young Beckett played by Fionn O’Shea (Normal People) in a sweeping account of the life of this 20th-century icon.

Parisian bon vivant, World War II resistance fighter, Nobel Prize-winning playwright, philandering husband and recluse, Beckett lived a life of many parts. In this playful film we see his life through his mistakes and fraught relationships with James Joyce (Aidan Gillen – Game Of Thrones), his wife Suzanne (Sandrine Bonnaire – Vagabond) and his lover Barbara Bray (Maxine Peake – The Theory of Everything).

Dance First is produced by 2LE Media, Sky and Creative UK. Producers include 2LE Media’s Michael Livingstone and Tom Thostrup, alongside Viktória Petrányi of Hungary’s Proton Cinema, Belgium’s Umedia and Fabien Westerhoff of Constellation Productions. Julia Stuart (Sky Cinema), Philip Edgar-Jones and Tilusha Ghelani (Sky Arts), Paul Ashton from Creative UK and Richard Mansell are Executive Producers. The film was developed from a Sky Arts Urban Myth.

It will have its world premiere at San Sebastián Film Festival on 30th September and be released in cinemas on 3rd November. It will be available to stream on Sky Cinema in December and air on Sky Arts and Freeview in 2024.

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