All That Fall

All That Fall is a one-act radio play by Samuel Beckett produced following a request from the BBC. It was written in English and completed in September 1956. The autograph copy is titled Lovely Day for the Races. It was translated, by Robert Pinget, as Tous ceux qui tombent.

When the germ of All that Fall came to him, Beckett wrote to a friend, Nancy Cunard:

Although the play was written quickly and with few redrafts, the subject matter was deeply personal causing him to sink into what he called "a whirl of depression" when he wrote to his US publisher Barney Rosset in August. In fact in September "he cancelled all his appointments in Paris for a week simply because he felt wholly incapable of facing people" and worked on the script until its completion.

It was first broadcast on the BBC Third Programme, 13 January 1957 featuring Mary O'Farrell as Maddy Rooney with J. G. Devlin as her husband, Dan. Soon-to-be Beckett regulars, Patrick Magee and Jack MacGowran also had small parts. The producer was Donald McWhinnie.

This is the first work by Beckett where a woman is the central character. In this case it is a gritty, "overwhelmingly capacious", outspoken, Irish septuagenarian, Maddy Rooney, plagued by "rheumatism and childlessness". "Beckett emphasized to Billie Whitelaw that Maddy had an Irish accent:

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