Tag Archives: theatre

Events

Culture Night 2009 – “see all sorts”!

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Culture Night 2009 is happening tonight and there’s a huge variety of free events on all around Dublin and around the country for it.

There’s so much on, I honestly don’t know where to begin and I simply haven’t had the time to write a proper post about it.

Darragh did however and if you want a quick guide to some of the special stuff that’s happening at Dublin Culture Night, check out his post on Culch.ie. Check out the full brochure and maps on the website at culturenight.ie.

There’s a record-breaking attempt happening in Tralee tonight as part of their Culture Night. They are trying to set the Guinness World Record for the longest Irish dancing line ever and need over 10,000 bodies to do so! There’s prizes for every 1,000th person who registers too so get registered and get involved if you can. Best of luck to them!

Don’t forget to throw a glance to Liberty Hall as it gets all lit up by Playhouse for the next few weeks. Be sure to upload your photos to the special Pix.ie group at http://pix.ie/group/playhouse.

Whatever you get up to this weekend, have a blast.

Events

Fancy a festival or few?

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Absolut Fringe wrapped up last night with the Absolut Fringe Awards but don’t think that because Fringe has passed for another year that you’re going to he short of things to do for the next few weeks. There’s heaps of stuff on around the country. Here’s a taster of what’s on out and about over the next while…

The National Ploughing Championships

This week the annual National Ploughing Championships hits Athy, Co.Kildare. Probably the last event of the year that you’ll need your wellies for and a sign that summer has sadly come to an end. The event is in its 78th year and as usual thousands are expected to visit the 600 acre site between Tuesday and Thursday of this week.  Check out www.npa.ie for all the info you need.

Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival

Kicking off this Thursday the 24th in spectacular style with Playhouse and running until October 11th, the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival will be offering up a range of performances, talks and special events all across Dublin. Check out the programme here, the blog here and DTF on Facebook and on Twitter.

Galway Oyster Festival

The 55th Galway Oyster Festival kicks off this Thursday (which is also Arthur’s Day) with the annual Irish Oyster Opening Championships. Aside from the the oyster tasting and Guinness to wash them down, it’s party central with the Magnificent Mardi Gras Party on Friday and the Oyster Festival Gala Ball on Saturday. The full programme is right here.

Culture Night

Culture Night is happening this coming Friday the 25th of September and there’s over 400 different events on around Dublin and around the country including Mayo, Cork, Galway, Belfast, Letterkenny, Limerick, Roscommon, Sligo, Tralee, Waterford and Wexford. There’s just so much happening I’ve been trying to write a blog post about it for days now! Check the website here for the programme, interactive maps and all the other info you could need. Check them out on Facebook and Twitter too.

Open House

The fourth annual Open House event takes place in Dublin from October 8th to 11th and in Galway from October 16th to 18th. Organised by the Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF), a range of free tours and talks are organised to some of the most architecturally renowned buildings of each city. Check out the programme here and be sure to book tickets in advance as these events fill up really quickly!

Cork Guinness Jazz Festival

The 31st Cork Guinness Jazz Festival hits the fair city of Cork on the October bank holiday weekend, kicking off on the 23rd and running through to the 26th with more live gigs and workshops than you can shake a stick at. Check out what’s on at www.guinnessjazzfestival.com.

Wexford Opera Festival

If opera is your thing then Wexford is the place to visit between October 21st and November 1st when the 58th Wexford Opera Festival takes place. There’s concerts, choirs, recitals of national and international fame on the bill. Have a peek at the full programme is online here.

Events

Playhouse: only days to go!

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In case you haven’t been anywhere within sight of Dublin’s Liberty Hall by night lately, you won’t have seen messages scrolling along its’ facade telling you to go to www.daft.ie/playhouse and animate Liberty Hall.

Playhouse is a project that’s running as part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival which takes place in Dublin from September 24th to October 11th, sponsored by Daft.ie.

Playhouse
Playhouse

“Powering the display are 100,000 low-energy LED lights, installed into 330 windows on the south and west faces of the building. These lights can illuminate each window as a solid colour turning it into a tiny pixel that’s part of a giant display.”

The most awesome thing about this project is that you and I can get the creative juices flowing and make an animation that will be brought to life on the face of Liberty Hall. You just need to grab yourself the lovely easy-to-use app from the (sexy) website, animate away to your hearts’ content and submit your creation. There’s even a video importer option and a processing app available if you’re feeling a bit more ambitious! Check them all out there.

I was lucky enough to be at the launch of Playhouse a few weeks ago when we got to see some sample animations brought to life on the building and it looked fabulous. I never thought I’d ever call Liberty Hall “beautiful” but I stand corrected. – for 2 weeks at least it will be a sparkling gem on the Dublin skyline. Simply can’t wait!

Here’s a wee video Darragh took on the night to give you a flavour of what to expect, questionable soundtrack aside :)

Reviews

Absolut Fringe – almost curtains time

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Absolut Fringe
Absolut Fringe

So the the fabulous Absolut Fringe festival is coming to a close this Sunday the 20th :(

I’ve been lucky enough to catch a variety of shows over the past 2 weeks and on a whole they’ve been fantastic, particularly La Clique, Group Therapy for One, Point Blank, Pregnant (review coming later) and Cirque de Legume.

If you’ve yet to sample the delights of the Fringe, here’s some suggestions for the weekend ahead:

See you out there :)

Reviews

Absolut Fringe reviews: Broken Croí – Heart Briste & Crash Test Cabaret

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Last night I caught 2 Absolut Fringe shows at Filmbase, one theatre and one variety. Here’s my thoughts on both:

Broken Croí – Heart Briste

“Manchán Magan is a disillusioned Gaeilge fanatic seeking revenge for the death of the language on his star pupil, a lonely 18 year old dancer. He offers the audience an opportunity to redeem the situation by answering some simple questions.”

well it went something like that :)
well it went something like that :)

Sitting before Gaeilgóir agus múinteor Manchán Maga while the cúpla focail were being thrown at the audience took me right back to my schooldays, back to the dreaded Gaeilge lessons in the seomra ranga. Manchán is fanatical and obsessed with the Irish language which proves to be both a little scary and funny at the same time, much like the teanga Gaeilge itself.

Enter “Cailín” – star pupil, moody teenager & troubled daughter all in one Max Factor-ed package. The Irish class descends into a series of arguments and exchanges between the two characters with Manchán desperately trying to understand the “trína chéile” mind of his teenage daughter.

Eva O’Connor who plays “Cailín” gave a superb performance in what was overall a good show but some aspects of it just didn’t appeal to me. While it posed interesting questions around language, communication and relationships I felt it suffered from what I call the “Tommy Tiernan effect” – just a bit too much unecessary swearing and vulgarity.

It’s at Filmbase every night at 7 until the 19th.

Crash Test Cabaret

“From the glitz of a glitterball to the grain of a security tape, comedy and zeitgeist culture collide in this shiny cabaret lucky-dip. Seasoned performers and virgin talents collaborate to create something you’ve never seen before.”

Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed with Crash Test Cabaret. The promise of random cabaret acts, audience participation and on-the-spot creativity somehow made me expect a lot more than I got for my few bucks last night.

The highlight of the show was the act “Red Wine” who came from the audience and provided some light relief in the form of a song set to some rather lovely guitar picking. Two of the lowest points for me included seeing an audience member being made topless and left on stage while a “feminist” treated us to some less than entertaining rap while one of the cast spent the entire show moving around the audience taking photos with his large, annoying and downright painful flash (we were sitting in darkness for crying out loud!!!).

Some seemed to love it, I sadly was not one of those. Crash Test Cabaret = crash and burn.

If you fancy a go, it’s at Filmbase at 9 until the 17th.