Samuel &

Two of the 20th century’s greatest playwrights walk into a Paris flat. One is drunk. Both are lying. And the stagehand has no idea what's going on.

Samuel & is a darkly comic, fiercely original memory play from local playwright Thomas Peach. It imagines a surreal, emotionally charged night in 1961 when Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter drink, argue, remember, and forget. Eggs are broken. Cricket is played. 

Blending lyrical absurdism with brutal realism, Samuel & explores art, complicity, cowardice, and courage—with a golden egg in its heart and a whisper of truth in every lie. Spanning decades and fractured timelines, it reassembles Beckett’s journey through Nazi-occupied France, his love for Suzanne, and the price of not writing some stories. Did we mention the eggs.

Written with wit, rage, tenderness, and invention, this is a bold new work for audiences who like their theatre intelligent, and just a little strange.

It is not a true story.

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Tom Peach is a local playwright who has had work performed in Sydney, Wollongong, and internationally including The Old Viaduct Hotel at the Blood Moon, Wonderwall at the Phoenix and Keep at the Tom Mann. He has directed productions from community outreach festivals to a sold out run of A Midsummer Night's Dream. He is the literary manager for Short and Sweet Illawarra. He convenes the playwrighting program for the South Coast Writers Centre and Merrigong Theatre Co. Tom's passion is for local stories with global relevance.

Samuel & is a performance from the SCWC & Merrigong Graduate Playwrights Program.

Runtime: 70 minutes, no interval.