Ireland
Classical CDs Weekly: Roxanna Panufnik, Penderecki, eXSaturday, 01 February 2014
Roxanna Panufnik: Tallinn Mass - Dance of Life Patricia Rozario, Jaak Johanson, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra/Mihhail Gerts (Warner)Roxanna Panufnik's Tallinn Mass is an occasional piece, written to celebrate the city's spell as European Capital... Read more... |
Tommy Tiernan, Soho TheatreFriday, 24 January 2014
In Irish mythology, a stray sod is an enchanted piece of grass that, if stepped on, leaves a person feeling disorientated and lost, even in familiar surroundings. Although there's no reference to this in Tommy Tiernan's new show, Stray Sod,... Read more... |
The Resurrection of Conor McPhersonThursday, 23 January 2014
The transfer this week to the West End of The Weir has reminded theatre-goers of Conor McPherson’s hypnotic powers as a dramatist. In the Donmar's revival of the play you can palpably feel the playwright’s storytelling magic casting its spell all... Read more... |
CD: The Gloaming - The GloamingSunday, 12 January 2014
Musically, lyrically, dramatically, on every count this debut album from The Gloaming is exceptional. Four-fifths of the group - Clare fiddle player Martin Hayes, Chicago guitarist Dennis Cahill, the Cúil Aodha sean nós singer Iarla Ó Lionaird and... Read more... |
In FearMonday, 11 November 2013
Raw fear is horror’s ideal state. The vertiginous drop through a trapdoor into primordial, gasping helplessness usually only lasts for the split-second length of a cinema-seat jolt. Jeremy Lovering’s debut aims to scare us for much longer. Unusually... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Wexford: European opera feastSunday, 03 November 2013
At the Wexford Opera Festival this autumn you could see a bicentenary performance of Verdi’s La traviata. Likewise Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. But that’s not why Ireland’s operatic showpiece is one of the most famous, admired and respected events... Read more... |
PhilomenaFriday, 01 November 2013
In 1998, Judi Dench slayed audiences on the London stage in Filumena, playing a former prostitute who learns belatedly to cry. The tears come more quickly - both for Britain's best-loved acting Dame and her public - in the comparably titled... Read more... |
The Commitments, Palace TheatreWednesday, 09 October 2013
The setting is Dublin. We're talking modern-day and down-at-heel in this major new musical which has a deliberately scruffy look – with a launderette glowing in the dark and a concrete, four-storey housing block hulking upstage. The adaptation is by... Read more... |
Father Figure, BBC OneThursday, 19 September 2013
Coming to it fresh, it’s hard to imagine Father Figure as the Radio 2 serial it apparently began life as. The first episode of the six-part series is driven by what some would call "visual gags" or "physical comedy", as if writer and star Jason... Read more... |
Ardal O'Hanlon, TouringMonday, 16 September 2013
Ardal O'Hanlon is best known as Father Dougal in the much missed Father Ted (created by Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan), but he started life as a stand-up and he clearly brought many of his own qualities – although not the dimwittedness – to the... Read more... |
Liolà, National TheatreThursday, 08 August 2013
Sicilian location, Irish populace, Balkan Roma music: Richard Eyre’s production of a Pirandello bagatelle could easily have turned into the kind of Europudding more common in cinema. That it fairly dances over the pitfalls is due partly to a well-... Read more... |
SilenceTuesday, 06 August 2013
A taciturn, bearded Irishman leaves Berlin to return to his homeland. He’s travelling there to record silence. Arriving in Donegal, he wanders the countryside with a microphone trying to capture an environment where sounds made by humans do not... Read more... |
