Author: The Reviews Hub - Ireland

Musical Director: David McGauran Song Writer: Leonard Cohen Ireland’s prestigious National Concert Hall on Earlsfort Terrace is a worthy venue to host West-End singer Amy Creighton’s sold-out tribute to Leonard Cohen on the 90th anniversary of his birth.    We assemble in The John Field Room, just past the foyer entrance. While there is a significant multi generational fanbase for Cohen’s music, we are definitely of the long-standing variety tonight. The space, named for Dublin’s Romantic era composer and pianist, is perfectly suited to the intimate performance.  Creighton, beautiful in a red evening dress, is joined on the small stage by…

Words & Illustrator: Mary Murphy Composer: Tom Lane Director: Marc Mac Lochlainn Story of a Day – Scéal Lae brings storytelling and music together in a joyful collaboration between Galway’s children’s theatre company Branar and Galway Music Residency for the Galway International Arts Festival. As ConTempo Quartet along with their conductor set up on one side of the small Cube stage, on the other side a small boy is dreaming in his vertical bed and magically his dreams are all depicted on a large screen behind him. His day is just beginning and we travel with him as he delights…

Writers: Samuel Beckett & Eavan Boland Director: Sarah Jane Scaife A woman stands on stage performing a reading of Samuel Beckett’s Fizzle 4, a short prose piece, while around her images of waves encroaching on a rocky grey shore align with the themes of Beckett’s piece: death, decay, drowning … constant and repetitive as the waves. The reading is ‘as Gaeilge’ (in Irish), as are all of the plays presented here by An Taibhdhearc with Company SJ, while the surrounding sea sounds and landscape are evocative of the West of Ireland and the islands where the Irish language is still…

Writer & Director: Colm O’Grady We are first introduced to Colm O’Grady as Buttons when he strides out onto the stage to give the pre show announcements. Delivered comically and interactively, this brief introduction gives us a clue of what is to come. Buttons, a disgraced politician, is sailing the high seas in his bathtub after a devastating flood. His only companion is a rubber ducky named ‘Lucky’ who he frequently talks to, sings to, and tries to entertain on their journey. O’Grady is very endearing to watch, he has a multitude of talents: singing, acting, playing some unusual instruments,…

Writer: Shomit Dutta Directors: Báirbre Ní Chaoimh This engaging two hander about an imaginary series of conversations between Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, both acclaimed playwrights and lovers of cricket, could well have been titled, Waiting for Doggo. The waiting motif which informs a large part of the theme is a cricket term as well as a play on Beckett’s Godot, and all the interactions are underscored by the act of waiting. This includes waiting for a train that never arrives and for a lift home by someone with the moniker Doggo, who never comes. The plot encompasses an encounter…

Writer: Caryl Churchill Director: Annabelle Comyn This is a play that reverberates. Seeing Escaped Alone by Caryl Churchill generates disquiet and then provokes secondary reactions. A bleak prologue and epilogue bookend the cosy opening and closing scenes of three ladies, Vi (Ruth McCabe), Sally (Sorcha Cusack) and Lena (Deirdre Monaghan) sharing recollections. Their chat is interrupted when a neighbour, Mrs Jarret (Anna Healy) joins them. She is separated by position and costume and introduces a disparate tone to the cosy scene.  The stellar cast expertly convey the different characters from seated positions, distanced from each other and progressively convey an…

Writer: John Morton Directors: Dylan Kennedy & Shane Dempsey Everyone has to scooch down to make room in The Boys School at Smock Alley Theatre for today’s matinee of John Morton’s black comedy TABOO. The venue is full to bursting.  In the opening scene, ‘Lily’ sprays copious amounts of air freshener as she dances around to the rich baritone of Lou Rawls singing You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine. The dining room is spick and span with a table laid for two. She goes over her checklist as she anticipates the arrival of ‘Tom’ – “Open the door, invite…

Writer: James Joyce Directors: Jim Riche and Liam Hourican This evocative lunch time play is a rare theatrical delight that is captivating throughout. The work as part of the Bloomsday festival, is a dramatization of two short stories from James Joyce’s debut collection, Dubliners first published in 1914, when he was only in his twenties. Through literary realism in the interconnecting stories in Dubliners, Joyce presents an insight into early twentieth century Dublin society, its struggles, mundanity and the ‘quiet desperation’ of everyday lives. Dubliners remains to this day, a masterpiece of modernist literature.   Liam Hourican and Jim Roche are…