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How original hipster Jack Kerouac tried to craft his own book cover design for ‘On the Road’

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Writer and actor Fionn Foley. Photo: Shane O'Connor

Introducing writer, composer and actor Fionn Foley: ‘I like work that is funny, bizarre and clever’

Age: 29.

Celine Byrne (Marschallin) and Paula Murrihy (Octavian) in Der Rosenkavalier. Photo: Pat Redmond

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Der Rosenkavalier shows the dizzying heights Irish opera is now hitting

It’s a co-production with two other leading companies, Garsington and Santa Fe, but Irish National Opera (INO) has more than hit the jackpot with its latest offering at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier – the monumental work that in a modern interpretation is a sadly gentle reflection on the trials of ageing in a youth-obsessed culture.

Aislín McGuckin, Frank McCusker and Emma Rose Creaner in Tartuffe. Photo by Ros Kavanagh

Tartuffe at the Abbey Theatre review: Ball gowns, techno and a TikTok twist to a 17th-century classic

This new version of Molière’s Tartuffe is an experiment in tone that pays off nicely in a madcap production full of surprises.

Rosa Bowden as Niamh O’Reilly in Frigid. Photo by Hazel Coonagh

Frigid at Bewley’s Café Theatre review: Hilarious show captures the awfulness of adolescence

Writer-performer Rosa Bowden aims to score laughs, and this she does big-time with a sharp picture of Dublin teen life. Set in 2007, this is a look back at the “girl-power” generation, the pop-culture period that promoted the intrinsic value of girls and girls’ friendships but lacked any proper feminist bite: the power to be sexy but without any sense.

Celine Byrne (Marschallin) and Paula Murrihy (Octavian) in Der Rosenkavalier. Photo by Pat Redmond

Der Rosenkavalier review: Toy boys, gender-switching and convent girls in brilliant satirical opera

Richard Strauss’s complex opera combines romance with satire. It punctures the pomposity of European petty nobility and the upwardly mobile bourgeoisie, themes which would have been topical at its 1911 Dresden premiere. It is also a sex comedy, where a mature princess entertains a toy boy and a lusty old roué seeks to marry an innocent fresh-from-the convent girl. This all happens in a world where brandy-fuelled henchmen chase housemaids around. It is so politically incorrect it turns itself hilariously inside out.

Actress Barbara Brennan photographed for People and Culture. Photo: Gerry Mooney

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Barbara Brennan: ‘It’s very unnatural to lose a child. After he died, my daughter pulled me through because I had to be there for her’

Barbara Brennan (72) hails from one of Ireland’s biggest theatrical dynasties. Her parents were the renowned actors Denis Brennan and Daphne Carroll and some of her siblings – Stephen, Jane and Cathryn – became actors. She has one daughter Eva from her marriage to Jim Bartley and two daughters, Jessica and Amy from her marriage to Don Irwin. She’s currently performing in The New Electric Ballroom by Enda Walsh at the Gate Theatre.

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Dana Winder: Time and tide awash with colour in coastal Kerry paintings

Dana Winder Cottage at Lamb’s Head

Barbara Brennan, Jane Brennan and Orla Fitzgerald in The New Electric Ballroom. Photo: Ros Kavanagh

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The Brennan sisters crackle with intensity in Enda Walsh’s The New Electric Ballroom

Enda Walsh directed the premiere of his own play The New Electric Ballroom himself, at Druid in Galway in 2008. Now, Emma Jordan has stepped into his shoes at The Gate. And the development, if my memory of the original serves me faithfully, has served to add to the melancholy while rendering the underlying surrealism of the action even more of a quiet nightmare.

Ryan Donaldson is on stage at The Abbey. Photo: Ste Murray

Actor Ryan Donaldson: ‘I’m not usually a laugh out loud person but I do all the time with Motherland’

Ryan Donaldson stars as the eponymous Tartuffe in the Abbey’s production of Molière’s play adapted by Frank McGuinness. Until April 8, and then on a national tour from April 12 until May 13.

"I take my own photos. I put photos on top of paint. Some of them are collages, other times I use markers.” Carolyn Walsh. Photo: Aimee Monroe

Introducing artist Carolyn Walsh: ‘I don’t wear pink but I can’t seem to not use pink in paintings’

Age: 38.

Orla Fitzgerald and Jane Brennan star as sisters Ada and Clara in The New Electric Ballroom. Photo by Ros Kavanagh

The New Electric Ballroom at Gate Theatre review: Absurdist drama’s revival is big on theatrics but short on wisdom

Enda Walsh’s absurdist drama about fear of the outside gets an elegant revival in director Emma Jordan’s sensitive hands.

Actor Marty Rea: ‘I think most actors have a lot of insecurities. People often have the idea we are all extroverts, but the opposite is more often true’

Belfast born, award-winning actor Marty Rea was educated at St Mary’s Christian Brothers School and won a scholarship to attend Rada in London. He lives in Dublin.

Paul Mescal nominated for Olivier theatre award for ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’

Paul Mescal has been nominated for an Olivier Award for his theatre work.

Tobi Balogun, Fionn Foley and Dara Clear in Manifest. Photo by Ste Murray

Manifest at Project Arts Centre review: Poking masculinity with a theatrical stick

A group of men are set the task of inventing a young boy and giving him the tools he needs to survive masculinity. They argue, for example, about whether he needs a father at all, or will a mother suffice. They cajole the youngest member of the cast, Ben, into being the boy.

Co Cork-born actor and playwright Pat Kinevane

Actor Pat Kinevane: ‘Classic American sitcoms are the furthest from the Land of Woke a middle-aged guy can get’

Co Cork-born actor and playwright Pat Kinevane has teamed up with long-term collaborator Fishamble for KING, a new play directed by Jim Culleton, on a national tour until June 1.

Damien Hirst transforms his Levi Strauss

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In honour of Levi Strauss Day: Damien Hirst’s not-so-blue jeans

Damien Hirst Levi Strauss 501

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The art of being a theatre critic: ‘I didn’t like it, but it was terrific’

The actor/director Alan Stanford, then a close associate of Michael Colgan in the Gate Theatre, once made what I considered a more than valid criticism of Irish theatre criticism.

Emergency at Bewley’s Café Theatre review: War in Europe, as seen from a coffee house

Sam Ford’s new solo promenade show is brimful of charm. This is utilitarian theatre, killing two birds with one stone: it offers visitors to Dublin a historical tour around Bewley’s Grafton Street premises; and it is also a drama about World War II.

Touching performances: Adam Gillian, Ray Sesay and Emma Dougan in Romeo and Juliet. Photo by Carrie Davenport

Romeo and Juliet review: Tribalist tragedy is refocused with an anti-suicide message

Director Philip Crawford is determined not to let his production of Shakespeare’s great play about individual tragic outcomes in a tribally divided society get bogged down in parallels with sectarianism in Northern Ireland. Crawford’s focus is on the tragedy of young adult suicide, perhaps more relevant to audiences in 2023. Anne Bailie has tightly edited the script, focusing more directly on the young couple; the gang warfare slips into the background.

Brendan Gleeson, Martin McDonagh and Colin Farrell at the Irish premiere of ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’. Picture by Stephen Collins

‘They rejected me’: Oscar-winner Martin McDonagh on why he bears a grudge against the Abbey Theatre

Oscar-winning writer and director Martin McDonagh has said he will never lose his “grudge” against the Abbey Theatre, after they rejected a string of his plays in the early stages of his career.

Angelica Kauffman's portrait of David Garrick

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The grandfather of modern theatre painted by a thoroughly modern young woman

The play’s the thing but, through the years, it’s the actors, many of them now unknown, that have kept the work alive on the boards. And some have become household names.

Callum Maxwell and Ruairí Lenaghan in 'Oh Brother'

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Oh, Brother at Bewley’s is terrific – touching, wise, funny and deeply moving

The angst and anguish of people “given away” at birth by their mothers has been well catalogued. And it exists even when the mother’s plight in the Ireland of the not-too-distant past is well understood and forgiven.

Actress Lauren Larkin. Picture by Mark Condren

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Actress Lauren Larkin: ‘Some rejections don’t bother me but when I get a hard no, it really hurts’

Lauren Larkin is an actress and writer. She started off in Dublin Youth Theatre, had a lead role in the film Deadly Cuts and was in The Snapper in the Gate Theatre. From Cabra, she lives in Dublin with her husband Peter Daly, also an actor, and their children Robin (6) and Judy (1).

Actor Emmanuel Okoye: ‘My biggest insecurity is that I’ll never truly be at home anywhere in the world. That I’ll never be fully Irish or fully Nigerian, whatever that means’

A graduate of Trinity College, where he first started out studying science but switched to film studies and English literature, Emmanuel Okoye went on to study at the Gaiety School of Acting. He has a strong tenor voice and has written and produced several short films. He lives in Dublin.

Callum Maxwell and Riairí Lenaghan in in Oh, Brother at Bewley's Café Theatre

Oh, Brother theatre review: Sharp, subtle and stylish take on siblings’ post-adoption meeting

Emerging writer Callum Maxwell has created a neat two-hander that plays well in this informal café space and delivers some sharp observations on the experience of being adopted.

Artists Alice Fitzgerald from Dublin and Kate Ormond O'Neill from Cork at the launch of the Mystery Tube Sale.

Turkey-Syria earthquake: Irish artists donate thousands of fine art prints in charity drive

More than 80 artists are donating thousands of fine art prints to relief efforts following the earthquakes which devastated parts of Turkey and Syria.

Shane O’Regan, Elizabeth Moynihan and Jed Murray in The Few

The Few at Glass Mask Theatre: lonely hearts drama by author of The Whale keeps on truckin’

Glass Mask have opted to revive a recent American play for the first time — an easier task in many ways than their speciality of developing new Irish writing,.

Actor Aislín McGuckin at Palmerston Park in Dartry. Photo: Frank McGrath

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Actress Aislín McGuckin: ‘He said oh my god, you’re that awful bitch from Normal People’

Aislín McGuckin (48) is an actress with a career on stage and screen. She has worked with the RSC, was in Heartbeat, Outlander, Death in Paradise and she played Marianne’s monstrous mother in Normal People. Born in Fermanagh, she lived in London for 20 years and moved back to Dublin in 2015. She has three children with her ex-husband, actor Aidan McArdle – Mireille (16), Lorcan (12) and Senan (10).

Fr Arthur Poulin: how a monk’s artistic vision links creation to nature

Born in San Francisco, Arthur Poulin grew up in Florida in a house where “painting, music, writing, dance, poetry, cooking were celebrated.”

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Theatre & Arts

March 2023

How original hipster Jack Kerouac tried to craft his own book cover design for ‘On the Road’

Introducing writer, composer and actor Fionn Foley: ‘I like work that is funny, bizarre and clever’

Der Rosenkavalier shows the dizzying heights Irish opera is now hitting

Tartuffe at the Abbey Theatre review: Ball gowns, techno and a TikTok twist to a 17th-century classic

Frigid at Bewley’s Café Theatre review: Hilarious show captures the awfulness of adolescence

Der Rosenkavalier review: Toy boys, gender-switching and convent girls in brilliant satirical opera

Barbara Brennan: ‘It’s very unnatural to lose a child. After he died, my daughter pulled me through because I had to be there for her’

Dana Winder: Time and tide awash with colour in coastal Kerry paintings

The Brennan sisters crackle with intensity in Enda Walsh’s The New Electric Ballroom

Actor Ryan Donaldson: ‘I’m not usually a laugh out loud person but I do all the time with Motherland’

Introducing artist Carolyn Walsh: ‘I don’t wear pink but I can’t seem to not use pink in paintings’

The New Electric Ballroom at Gate Theatre review: Absurdist drama’s revival is big on theatrics but short on wisdom

Actor Marty Rea: ‘I think most actors have a lot of insecurities. People often have the idea we are all extroverts, but the opposite is more often true’

February 2023

Paul Mescal nominated for Olivier theatre award for ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’

Manifest at Project Arts Centre review: Poking masculinity with a theatrical stick

Actor Pat Kinevane: ‘Classic American sitcoms are the furthest from the Land of Woke a middle-aged guy can get’

In honour of Levi Strauss Day: Damien Hirst’s not-so-blue jeans

The art of being a theatre critic: ‘I didn’t like it, but it was terrific’

Emergency at Bewley’s Café Theatre review: War in Europe, as seen from a coffee house

Romeo and Juliet review: Tribalist tragedy is refocused with an anti-suicide message

‘They rejected me’: Oscar-winner Martin McDonagh on why he bears a grudge against the Abbey Theatre

The grandfather of modern theatre painted by a thoroughly modern young woman

Oh, Brother at Bewley’s is terrific – touching, wise, funny and deeply moving

Actress Lauren Larkin: ‘Some rejections don’t bother me but when I get a hard no, it really hurts’

Actor Emmanuel Okoye: ‘My biggest insecurity is that I’ll never truly be at home anywhere in the world. That I’ll never be fully Irish or fully Nigerian, whatever that means’

Oh, Brother theatre review: Sharp, subtle and stylish take on siblings’ post-adoption meeting

Turkey-Syria earthquake: Irish artists donate thousands of fine art prints in charity drive

The Few at Glass Mask Theatre: lonely hearts drama by author of The Whale keeps on truckin’

Actress Aislín McGuckin: ‘He said oh my god, you’re that awful bitch from Normal People’

Fr Arthur Poulin: how a monk’s artistic vision links creation to nature

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