These are reser ed or the illuminated letters o the Book o Kells

Perhaps we will be able to quiz him about why he is so in lexible, and whether he sees Beckett's stage directions as integral parts o the text. Tonight, we are here or an appointment with Edward Beckett, Samuel's nephew and the executor o his estate.He is a contro ersial igure, since he grants or denies theatre companies the right to per orm the Beckett oeu re. He is notoriously strict, disallowing ree interpretations o the plays. Ten new productions o his plays are being per ormed here, by actors including Sian Philips and Michael Gambon. "It's an international incident," says the laconic reporter rom The Lady.We make it, inally, to the Gate Theatre.

This small grey Palladian-style building, where the young Beckett irst saw Synge and O'Casey, is the beating heart o the esti al. Motherly members o Tourism Ireland distribute umbrellas; there is a little squeal as the Japanese reporter steps on the oot o the Parisian bibliophile. These are reser ed or the illuminated letters o the Book o Kells.Outside, the Beckett press corps is struggling with broken umbrellas and blustering rain. I also notice, tucked behind the stand, a set o greetings cards printed with his amous phrase " ail again ail better" But no ridge magnets. Some o his personal correspondence is pleasingly characteristic: he writes, about a bicycle trip, to his old riend Barbara Bray, "Legs not quite gone. Going though." There is a ormal letter written in the mid- i ties in which he turns down an in itation to sit or a photographer because he is not "due" a sitting till 1960. And there is a certain piquancy, also, in seeing on display in Trinity College, Dublin a letter in which Beckett complains about his editorial treatment by the college's student newspaper.Downstairs in the library shop there is a comprehensi e display o Beckett texts and biographies.

This becomes crabbed and smaller with age - a irst dra t o a 1950s work called "Still" is written in a tiny astidious script, the hand that Edna O'Brien called "a study in ugiti eness". There is a Dublin Uni ersity Cricket Club photograph rom 1925 eaturing a dozen or so young aces, his e entually recognisable or its spectacles, its angular wince. There are his care ul, neat notes on Dante, written in a cur ing youth ul hand. I soon learn, howe er, that they are actually waiting or admission to the medie al Book o Kells.Upstairs, in the grand, quiet and queue- ree Long Room, Beckett's accumulated papers are displayed under glass. And there seems to be an impressi e number o them: despite the gloomy skies, there is a queue o about a hundred isitors, hushed in their Pacamacs. The e ect is somewhat undermined by some students who are standing behind them, rolling their eyes, ha ing emerged rom their library or a cigarette break.Round the corner, in the Trinity College Library's Long Room, another more authentic commemoration o Beckett is taking place. This is a new exhibition o his archi e o personal correspondence and his notebooks, entitled all this this here This is surely the destination or true Beckettians.