Ireland
Romeo and Juliet, Royal BalletSunday, 11 March 2012
Better late than never. It took till Act 3 for a new Juliet to fledge her wings and shed the nervous caution, but Melissa Hamilton, debuting yesterday afternoon in probably the Royal Ballet’s most coveted ballerina role, suddenly did what we all... Read more... |
Sinéad O'Connor, Queen Elizabeth HallSunday, 11 March 2012
Some people – a very few – just have it. Never mind whether her songs appeal, or the style in which she performs them, but Sinéad O’Connor’s presence is extraordinary - as, of course, is her voice. She sings “I Am Stretched on Your Grave” a capella... Read more... |
CD: Wallis Bird - Wallis BirdThursday, 08 March 2012
Do you remember a couple of summers ago, when it seemed like you couldn’t turn on the radio without catching a clip of yet another quirky young female songwriter with a clever hook and a regional accent? The artwork to Wallis Bird’s new album... Read more... |
CD: Sinead O'Connor - How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?Monday, 27 February 2012
Over the years, Sinead O’Connor has put her fan base though the mill but, with her ninth album, may have redeemed herself. Quite apart from her many well-publicized personal eccentricities, those who have been waiting for her to make an album that’s... Read more... |
From Foot to Foot, How Rhythm Travelled the WorldSunday, 05 February 2012
Two hundred years ago in Durham taverns you could find men in wooden clogs clattering on the tables, with their mates pressing their ears to the underside of the surface. Meanwhile, at the other end of the world, African slaves with bare feet were... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Michael FassbenderSaturday, 04 February 2012
The first time I saw Michael Fassbender (b 1977) in the flesh, it was in Venice, in 2011. I was heading home on the last day of the film festival, where Steve McQueen’s Shame – starring the Irishman as a New York sex addict – had enjoyed an... Read more... |
Dublin Carol, Trafalgar StudiosThursday, 15 December 2011
Conor McPherson's 2000 play is one of the Irish writer's most memorable works, and this revival comes soon after his less acclaimed latest play, The Veil, over which we shall draw, er, a discreet veil, debuted at the National. It reminds us that... Read more... |
Juno and the Paycock, National TheatreThursday, 17 November 2011
“The whole world's in a terrible state of chassis,” says Captain Jack Boyle more than once during Sean O'Casey's great play, set in 1922 and the second of his Dublin trilogy, bookended by The Shadow of a Gunman (1923) and The Plough and the... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Wexford: Wexford Festival Opera's 60th Anniversary SeasonSunday, 13 November 2011
I’m within 20 yards of Wexford Opera House when I stop a couple for directions, convinced that my map is some sort of Irish practical joke. Approached down a narrow and frankly rather unpromising side street, from the exterior Wexford Opera House... Read more... |
Halloween Special: Patrick McGrath on Sheridan Le Fanu's horror storiesMonday, 31 October 2011
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, son of a Protestant clergyman and grand-nephew of the playwright Sheridan, was born in Dublin in 1814. He spent part of his boyhood in County Limerick, where from local storytellers he heard legends of fairies and demons.... Read more... |
Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, Rian, Sadler's WellsTuesday, 25 October 2011
Wallets have been emptied by the proliferation of outstanding dance evenings in the past month - Akram Khan’s Desh, Lucinda Childs, the Merce Cunningham farewell - but increase your overdraft, for here is a heart-lifting and ingeniously ingenuous... Read more... |
The Veil, National TheatreWednesday, 05 October 2011
Conor McPherson has set his latest play at an interesting point in Irish – and European – history. It is 1822, post-Napoleonic wars, and Ireland is in an economic mess, with impoverished peasants facing the failure of their crops for the second year... Read more... |
