Deryk Mendel (1920 – 28 May 2013) was a British ballet dancer, choreographer, actor and director. He was a friend of

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

, who wrote the one-act mime '' Act Without Words I'' for him in 1956. Music was by his cousin John S. Beckett. Mendel performed the premiere on 3 April 1957 at the

Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a West End theatre#London's non-commercial theatres, non-commercial theatre in Sloane Square, London, England, opene ...

in London. On 14 June 1963, Mendel directed the premiere of Becket's ''

Play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

'' (as ''Spiel'') at the Ulmer Theatre in Ulm-Donau, Germany. On 13 April 1966, Beckett’s sixtieth birthday, Mendel appeared as Joe in the premiere of ''

Eh Joe ''Eh Joe'' is a piece for television, written in English by Samuel Beckett, his first work for the medium. It was begun on the author's fifty-ninth birthday, 13 April 1965, and completed by 1 May. "It asfollowed by six undated typescripts (numb ...

'' by Süddeutscher Rundfunk,

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, the first time that Beckett himself had directed. In 1968, Mendel directed one of the first English performances of Beckett's '' Come and Go'' at the Royal Festival Hall, with

Adrienne Corri Adrienne Corri (born Adrienne Riccoboni; 13 November 1931 – 13 March 2016) was a Scottish actress. Early life She was born Adrienne Riccoboni in Glasgow in November 1931, the daughter of an English mother (Olive Smethurst) and an Italian fa ...

Marie Kean Marie Kean (27 June 1918 – 29 December 1993) was an Irish stage and screen actress, with a career spanning over 40 years, ''The Stage'' called her one of Ireland's most impressive actresses, and "an artist of considerable emotional depth and ...

and

Billie Whitelaw Billie Honor Whitelaw (6 June 1932 – 21 December 2014) was an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and was regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works. She was als ...

in the roles of Flo, Vi, and Ru. He died in Saint-Ouen, France on 28 May 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mendel, Deryk 1920 births 2013 deaths British male actors British male ballet dancers British theatre directors