First in a two-part documentary biography of the Nobel Prize-winning author of Waiting for Godot, shown to mark the 90th anniversary of his birthday in Dublin on Good Friday 1906. The traumas of Beckett's formative years are covered in this opening segment: his ill-fated love affair with his first cousin, the death of his father, and his decorated service with the French Resistance. Beckett had settled in France before the Second World War, met fellow Irishman James Joyce, and began writing. Patrick Magee's classic television performance in Krapp's Last Tape is interwoven with key landscapes and personalities from Beckett's life.