Ireland
Baltimore review - the story of Rose Dugdale and the IRA art heistFriday, 22 March 2024
“Poor fox,” says Rose Dugdale. She is standing beside her very rich mama and papa in the grounds of their stately home, her face blooded after the killing of her first fox. She knows this vicious upper-class ritual is wrong. It’s 1951 and she is 10... Read more... |
John Francis Flynn, The Dome review - new trad and taped tin whistlesFriday, 02 February 2024
The Dome, as the opening act, Clara Mann noted, is a normally a heavy metal venue (black or dark purple tour bus parked outside, a long queue of piercings and mohawks). It was a lovely confounding of expectations, therefore, to stage Mann’s own... Read more... |
The Tourist, Series 2, BBC One review - an amnesiac Jamie Dornan explores his Irish rootsWednesday, 03 January 2024
It was barely a month ago that screenwriters Jack and Harry Williams astounded viewers with Boat Story. Now they’re back with a sequel (or maybe just a continuation) of The Tourist, which debuted a year ago with its mind-bending story of the... Read more... |
Ulster American, Riverside Studios review - knockabout comedy with an acid biteSaturday, 16 December 2023
David Ireland’s Edinburgh Fringe hit Ulster American is essentially a play about a play that a Hollywood big name has been cast in by a leading English theatre director. Appropriately, it stars two actual Hollywood “big names”, Woody Harrelson... Read more... |
Hozier, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - sublime voice and a super-sized soundWednesday, 13 December 2023
There was something misleading about the opening of this concert. As Andrew John Hozier-Byrne and his band stepped onstage, the stage was lit up by a single spotlight, focused around the microphone that the singer stepped up to. Yet the following... Read more... |
Christine Tobin, EFG London Jazz Festival, World Heart Beat review - an enchanting ode to homeSaturday, 18 November 2023
This UK premiere of the award-winning, Dublin-born vocalist and composer Christine Tobin’s latest project, Returning Weather, presented an otherworldly ode to finding home – casting multiple perspectives on our yearning for connection and human... Read more... |
theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - four operas and a recital in one crazy dayWednesday, 08 November 2023
Imagine a Glyndebourne season where all those promising young singers in the chorus get to be principals in a series of fringe operas. At Wexford, they already have their work cut out, though this year not so much in the three main rarities – hence... Read more... |
Dance First - the travails of Samuel BeckettSaturday, 04 November 2023
Dance First takes its title from a line in Samuel Beckett’s most famous work Waiting for Godot. “Perhaps he could dance first and think afterwards,” says the tramp Estragon of Pozzo’s slave Lucky, who then proceeds to do both in a typically absurd... Read more... |
Lies We Tell review - fear and gaslighting in 1860s IrelandSaturday, 14 October 2023
It is 1864 and the lush green lawns of Knowl, the stately home in Ireland that Maud Ruthyn (Agnes O’Casey) will inherit when she reaches the age of 21, are beautifully kept. Everything is in its place. Maud expects deference, especially from... Read more... |
The Miracle Club review - unchallenging but enjoyable Irish dramaFriday, 13 October 2023
If I had to condense the Catholic faith of my upbringing in one sentence, I would say that it essentially comes down to two things: we're all sinners, but we are all capable of redemption. (Theological experts may take a different view.) That boiled... Read more... |
The Woman in the Wall, BBC One review - deliciously dark murder mystery with a tragic hinterlandMonday, 04 September 2023
Ruth Wilson possibly hasn’t had as much to get her teeth into on-screen since she vamped it up in Luther. Her performance as Lorna Brady in The Woman in the Wall is an object lesson in the way a performer in demand for her engaging looks and edgy... Read more... |
Apocalypse Clown review - going out with a laughFriday, 01 September 2023
Here we are in rural Ireland and on the other side of bonkers. Apocalypse Clown is billed as an "end-of-the-world road movie with clowns". It’s hilarious, off the wall, beyond the cringe.The protagonists are three washed-up members of the circus... Read more... |
- 1 of 20
- ››
