Reviews

Ride On!

Ride On! by Seamus O'Rourke

“Thanks God for local radio,” says Marie with pointed irony, as the weekly death notices are read out over the airwaves. “It’ll give us all our moment of fame.” The same might be said of Seamus O’Rourke’s play Ride On!, which brings life to a particular Irish...

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Ulysses

Ulysses by James Joyce, in an adaptation by Dermot Bolger

How do you solve a problem like Ulysses? Dermot Bolger must have asked himself the question a thousand times in the two decades which have elapsed since he made his first tilt at producing a stage version of Joyce’s great novel, to the Tron Theatre production of his revised adaptation which had...

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Stoker

Stoker by Paul Walker

As Bram Stoker declares in Stoker, "people yearn to glimpse the dark side". This play by Paul Walker responds to that yearning, not only to show the dark side, but also the private side of one of Ireland’s most famous writers. And what this production, under Karl Shiels’ direction,...

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Port Authority

Port Authority by Conor McPherson

“The past is over,” Dermot (Phelim Drew) informs the audience towards the end of his monologue in Decadent’s new production of Conor McPherson’s Port Authority. It’s a bold and seemingly foolhardy riposte to that old William Faulkner chestnut – “the past is never...

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Paisley & Me

Paisley & Me by Ron Hutchinson

The second play in the Ulster Trilogy, Green Shoot’s audit of the current state of play in Northern Ireland, heads deep into the heart of the Protestant community – or, at least, into the heart of one of its constituencies, for the very name of Ian Paisley is as divisive a force within that...

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Ghosts of Drumglass

Ghosts of Drumglass by Rosemary Jenkinson

It's ten o'clock on a cold, dark Saturday night in Belfast. It's raining lightly, and I'm standing outside the public conveniences in Drumglass Park, which normally shut at 5.30pm. I am not alone: huddled around me is a doughty coterie of individuals, pulling mackintoshes tighter against the elements,...

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Macbeth

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Macbeth is one of the most commonly staged Shakespeare plays on this island: over the past five years there have been at least five significant productions, including one this spring by Second Age Theatre, the Abbey Theatre production in 2010, a production by Selina Cartmell in 2008, and Replay’s...

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Death (on a shoestring)

Death (on a shoestring) by Dave Kinghan

Heaven, pace Talking Heads’ songwriter David Byrne, is far from being a place where nothing ever happens. In Death (on a shoestring), staged by the Accidental Theatre company for this year’s Belfast Festival at Queen’s, it’s a veritable hot-bed of activity, mostly of a politically...

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Huzzies

Huzzies by Stacey Gregg

Huzzies is simultaneously a relative rarity for theatre-making in Northern Ireland and a revisiting of some well-worn formulae. Its novelty is in the creation of a performance style in which live rock music is both a key focus of the action and a delightful experience in itself. The cast are talented...

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Chimaera

Chimaera by Enda Grennan and Angie Smalis

The Kinect for X-Box 360 has changed gaming by replacing dexterous thumbs with all-body movement. Its motion-sensing technology can also be increasingly found in theatres. And for good reason: for little more than €100, it can do a job that used to cost thousands. Dancer Angie Smalis and composer...

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