Act Without Words I is a short play by Samuel Beckett. It is Beckett's first. Like many of Beckett's works, the play was written in French, being translated into English by Beckett himself, it was written in 1956 following a request from the dancer Deryk Mendel and first performed on 3 April 1957 at the Royal Court Theatre in London. On that occasion it followed a performance of Endgame; the original music to accompany the performance was written by composer John S. Beckett, Samuel's cousin, who would collaborate with him on the radio play Words and Music; the action takes place in a desert illuminated by a "dazzling light". The cast consists of just one man, who, at the start of the play, is “flung backwards” onto the stage. After he lands he hears a whistle from the right wing, he “takes the sound for some kind of call, after a bit of reflection, proceeds in that direction only to find himself hurled back again. Next the sound issues from the left; the scene is repeated in reverse.” There is no exit.

He looks at his hands. A number of objects are lowered into this set beginning with a palm tree with “a single bough some three yards from the ground,” “a caricature of the Tree of Life.” Its arrival is announced, with the same sharp whistle. On being made aware of its existence the man moves into its shade and continues looking at his hands. “A pair of tailor’s scissors descends from the flies” but again the man doesn’t notice them until he hears the whistle. He starts to trim his nails. Over the course of the play other items are lowered from above: three cubes of varying sizes, a length of knotted rope and – always just out of reach – a “tiny carafe, to, attached a huge label inscribed WATER.”The rest of the sketch is a study in frustrated efforts. “Armed with two natural tools and hands, those tools, which separate him from lower orders of animals, he tries to survive, to secure some water in the desert. The mind works, at least in part: he learns – small cube on large, but when he learns to use his tools they are confiscated: the scissors, when he reasons that in addition to cutting his fingernails, he might cut his throat.

Beckett is here drawing on his viewing of the silent screen comedies of the like of Buster Keaton, Ben Turpin and Harry Langdon all of whom would have encountered objects on-screen with minds of their own. It looks as if he's given up and he sits on the big cube. After a while, this is pulled up from beneath him, he is left on the ground. From this point on he refuses to ‘play the game’ any further; the palms for the tree open, providing shade once more. He sits there in the dazzling light looking at his hands. On one level Act Without Words I “seems a behaviourist experiment within a classical myth”, that of Tantalus, who stood in a pool of water which receded every time he bent to drink it, stood under a fruit tree which raised its branches every time he reached for food. In the 1930s Beckett read Wolfgang Köhler’s book, The Mentality of Apes about the colony of apes in Tenerife, where experiments were conducted in which the apes placed cubes on top of another in order to reach a banana” and is referenced in this piece.

Tantalus was punished for stealing nectar. It is not certain that the man is being punished for a crime other than that of existing in the first place; the situation is similar to that of the narrator in Beckett's 1955 The Expelled, whose story begins with him being jettisoned from the place he was living “into an environment where he cannot exist but cannot escape … Whereas Godot’s existence remains uncertain, here an external force exists” “represented by a sharp, disembodied whistle” which will not permit him to leave. In simplistic terms the man's actual fall could be seen to represent the Fall of man; the fact that the man is as far as the audience is concerned, thrown into existence brings to mind the Heideggerian concept of Geworfenheit.” Heidegger is using the expression metaphorically as is Beckett. This is not the first time Beckett has used light to symbolise existence: “They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant it’s night once more.” The protagonist is nameless, he is Everyman.

“As Beckett told Barney Rosset, his longtime U. S. publisher, in 1957: he is just ‘human meat or bones.’”When he first looks at his hands it is “”as though noticing his own body for the first time … Having become cognisant of his Dasein … accept the presence of various Seiendes”, as Heidegger calls existing objects, that start to appear beginning with the tree. When the scissors arrive the man begins to trim his nails “for no other reason than the sudden availability of the correct object; the scissors of course could stand for any other useful object of daily living such as a house or car, objects whose "thereness" is most taken for granted.”The play is a parable of resignation. The man has l

The 1970 North Carolina Tar Heels football team represented the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during the 1970 NCAA University Division football season. The Tar Heels were led by fourth-year head coach Bill Dooley and played their home games at Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, they competed as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The team's star player was running back Don McCauley, who broke O. J. Simpson's NCAA record for single season rushing yards with 1,720 yards, he was named ACC Player of the Year, was a consensus first-team All-American, finished ninth in voting for the Heisman Trophy

Jamaica Inn is a British drama television series, first broadcast on BBC One for three consecutive nights from 21 to 23 April 2014. The three-part series, written by Emma Frost, is an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's gothic novel Jamaica Inn. Jamaica Inn is set in 1821, it tells the story of Mary Yellan, uprooted to live with her Aunt Patience after her mother dies. Mary finds Aunt Patience under the spell of her husband, Joss Merlyn after she arrives at Jamaica Inn, a coaching inn he owns in Cornwall. Mary soon realizes that the inn is being used as the hub of Joss "free' trade. Mary becomes attracted to Jem Merlyn, Joss' younger brother, a petty thief. Mary meets Francis Davey, the parish vicar, his sister Hannah. Jessica Brown Findlay as Mary Yellan Matthew McNulty as Jem Merlyn Sean Harris as Joss Merlyn Joanne Whalley as Patience Merlyn Shirley Henderson as Hannah Davey Ben Daniels as Francis Davey Andrew Scarborough as Magistrate Bassat Danny Miller as William Scarlett Archer as Beth Andy Gillies as Cakey David Beck as Twin 1 Daniel Beck as Twin 2 Charlie Wade as Flashy Dealer Filming began in September 2013 in Cornwall and Cumbria.

It was decided that the series would be filmed in Northern Ireland. An investment from Screen Yorkshire was provided for the series; the three-part series was commissioned by Ben Stephenson and Danny Cohen, both from the BBC. The transmission of the first episode brought about a major debate on social media sites about the sound quality and inaudible dialogue, culminating in over 2,000 complaints being received by the end of the series. Reviews were mixed to negative. Terry Ramsey of The Daily Telegraph claimed "Daphne du Maurier's story is a classic, but this hard-to-watch version is unlikely to have had people gripped." David Stephenson of Daily Express agreed: "disappointing BBC drama with mumbling dialogue and absent plot." Sean Harris addressed his reaction to the mumbling controversy in an interview after his BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series for Southcliffe. Jamaica Inn at BBC Programmes Jamaica Inn on IMDb Radio Times, Jamaica Inn