Ireland
The Cripple of Inishmaan, Noël Coward TheatreWednesday, 19 June 2013
Martin McDonagh's play, which premiered in 1997, here receives its first major revival as part of Michael Grandage's star-studded first season at the Noël Coward Theatre. It's a minor modern classic, full of the London Irish writer's trademark dark... Read more... |
The Fall, BBC TwoTuesday, 14 May 2013
You have to wonder if there any alternative themes permitted in TV drama apart from murder (preferably multiple, committed by a serial killer) or paedophilia. New five-parter The Fall plonks itself down squarely in category A, with its story of DS... Read more... |
The Match Box, Tricycle TheatreMonday, 13 May 2013
What must it be like to lose a child to random violence? The great Irish dramatist Frank McGuinness, who has tackled mythic violence on a number of occasions in previous work, has now delivered a devastating portrait of modern-day loss and revenge... Read more... |
Sinéad O’Connor, The Dome, BrightonThursday, 09 May 2013
“Uncensored” is the word that best describes Sinéad O’Connor onstage. Even when she’s singing a less-than-great number she remains fascinating. Where most perform, she just is, in the most naked and mesmeric fashion. There’s stage-craft involved, of... Read more... |
Jimeoin, Queen's Hall, EdinburghMonday, 22 April 2013
No theme, no message, no set, no title. Northern Irish comedian Jimeoin is a beguilingly old-fashioned kind of standup. “Just jokes,” he told us at the beginning of his new show, and he was true to his word. His gift lies in mining the quirks of... Read more... |
The Rite of Spring/Petrushka, Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, Sadler's WellsSunday, 14 April 2013
In String of Rites, Sadler’s Wells has commissioned three works as a tribute to Vaslav Nijinsky’s 1913 Le sacre du printemps. It opened with the Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre’s double bill, The Rite of Spring and Petrushka. Both scores are... Read more... |
Once, Phoenix TheatreThursday, 11 April 2013
People sneer at musicals for endless reasons: they hate Broadway brashness, non-naturalistic lurches in and out of song, the sentimentality. One of the least acknowledged reasons, however, is because their plots – predictability plus songs – have... Read more... |
Molly Sweeney, The Print RoomWednesday, 03 April 2013
Molly Sweeney has been blind since early childhood. Supported by her understanding father, she has grown into a confident, independent woman. Then her new husband Frank and an ambitious ophthalmologist, Mr Rice, suggest that it might be possible to... Read more... |
Sinéad O'Connor, LSO St Lukes, LondonFriday, 18 January 2013
The manner and the speed with which Sinéad O’Connor veers between impishly poking fun at herself and her material, and delivering it with scorching force, is bewildering. For instance, with the “The Healing Room”, a tender song about a spiritual... Read more... |
DVD: Shadow DancerFriday, 11 January 2013
The director James Marsh has made his name as a documentarian who brilliantly blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction. Both Man on Wire and Project Nim seamlessly wove together archive and reconstruction. Although Shadow Dancer, an IRA... Read more... |
What Richard DidTuesday, 08 January 2013
A dark night of the soul gets mined for maximum effect in Irish director Lenny Abrahamson's third film, a subdued yet infinitely disturbing portrait of a teenager, and by extension his community, undone by a sudden act of violence. Set among Dublin'... Read more... |
GrabbersFriday, 28 December 2012
“It’s always the quiet places where the mad shit happens,” observes Garda Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley) in Northern Irish director Jon Wright’s creature feature. And, credit where it’s due, the mirthfully monikered Grabbers presents us with some... Read more... |
