Review: Happy Days – Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Siobhan Redmond and Forbes Masson continue their ‘rep’ season at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in a very bright, shiny version of Beckett’s ‘Happy Days’. As with all of Beckett’s work, all is not quite as it seems – or maybe truer to say it’s not ever quite clear exactly what is going on.

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A woman (Redmond) – Winnie, all glammed up and literally nowhere to go, as she’s stuck in a sand dune – talks almost incessantly about what a ‘happy day’ this is, whilst her husband Willie is pretty much stuck in a hole beside her, either listening, not listening or pretending one or the other. A satire on modern married life perhaps? She blethers on, occasionally nagging Willie until he eventually crawls back into his hole, with Winnie all the while saying ‘Not like that!’ and resignedly barking out instructions to him to do it properly.

He sits in the baking sun awhile before this and reads out headlines from his newspaper, with no context, until he is distracted by a photograph. Winnie demands to see it and is horrified by the explicit sexual nature of it. Willie loves it and uses it for his own amusement. Satire again? No sexual fulfilment = resort to pornography.

Beckett’s Absurdist Routine: Finding Meaning in the Minutiae

Back to Winnie and her ramblings. She is doing her utmost to keep herself amused, despite her boredom with the unrelenting daily routine – yes, you can see where this is going – so every little distraction is a pleasure. She has one major distraction, and that is the big black bag to her side, from which she pulls a variety of articles, including a revolver. I couldn’t have been the only one in the audience to think, ‘Just shoot me now’, putting myself in Winnie’s predicament. But she continues to amuse herself with the minutiae of her ‘stuck’ life.

Her eyesight is dimming so, even with the help of her reading glasses and a magnifying glass, she can’t quite decipher the words on the handle of her toothbrush – but keeps on trying, enlisting Willie’s help when she gets as far as she is ever likely to with the deciphering. Endurance. Making the best of a bad job. Finding joy – a happy day – in the smallest of happenings. All of these might be the messages we can take from Happy Days. On a darker note, perhaps Beckett is asking ‘What is the point?’

Generally, Winnie goes deeper down into her mound of sand in the second part of the play – right up to her neck – signifying the inevitability of death and decay, but this production leaves her still showing off her beautiful emerald green ball gown, from bust level up at least. Mrs Bucket (pronounced ‘Bouquet’) and ‘keeping up appearances’ came to mind, equally futile, but in this case a defence against Winnie’s own potential descent into depression and despair, rather than any sort of snobbery.

Cast and Staging: Siobhan Redmond’s Defiant Winnie at Pitlochry

Redmond is perfectly cast and un-knockdownable in every sense of the word. She will not be defeated, even whilst acknowledging that everything will be the same tomorrow – even the self-combusting parasol will be renewed the next day, as will everything in her black bag. She is the epitome of stiff upper lip defiance in the face of almost complete nihilism. She will not give up or give in.

Forbes Masson’s role is pivotal even though we see and hear very little of him. He mainly grunts and snorts and doesn’t seem to see what all Winnie’s fuss and prattle is about. Without Willie, though, this would not be half the existential parody it really is.

Staging is fabulous – designer Emma Bailey’s sand dunes could be the real thing, and when the sand starts to move a little, you might fear that they are. Above the dunes is an opening through which the sun shines hot and bright and relentlessly: another metaphor for the stasis Winnie is trying to battle against.

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A friend of mine once said she felt that motherhood was like having a pile of sand dumped on your doorstep every day – you might have dug your way out before collapsing exhausted into bed at night, but there it was back again in the morning. ‘Happy Days’ always reminds me of that. Thankfully, my friend got through the worst of the ceaseless sleepless nights, nappies and a crying baby (who, I’m pleased to say, she loved with all her heart) and emerged into the real joy of motherhood unscathed.

No such luck for Winnie.

Featured Image: Siobhan Redmond and Forbes Masson in Happy Days image by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

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Happy Days will play the Pitlochry Festival Theatre until Saturday 10 October 2026. For tickets or more information, click here: https://www.pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com/whats-on/happy-days/