Twelve of my favourite Irish books for childrenSara Keating recommends titles by Irish authors that offer home-grown alternatives to international worksMon Sept 11 2023 - 05:00
Laureate na nÓg Patricia Forde: ‘I get such a buzz from hearing these five-year-olds, totally fluent, even when there’s not a word of Irish at home’Growing up in Galway city, the author would look out of her bedroom window and imagine events that took place there in the past. ‘It was like a kind of time travel’ that shaped her imagination, she saysWed Aug 30 2023 - 05:00
Annie: Plenty of laughs as Craig Revel Horwood stars as Miss Hannigan, but this fairy tale needs grit as well as witTheatre: Sharangi Gnanavarathan’s spunky charm and fine singing voice in the leading role will reinforce the musical’s appeal to a younger audienceThu Aug 24 2023 - 14:28
A curry-eating penguin and an intrepid young viking feature in August’s best new children’s booksEnjoy works by Isabel Greenberg, Nishani Reed, Junissa Bianda, Zanig Mian, Gary Northfield, Joseph Coelho and moreThu Aug 17 2023 - 04:38
The Local: Debs night, 1992, and a community’s hopes, dreams and difficulties are unfolding before usKilkenny Arts Festival 2023: This ambitious community play, staged in the cabaret lounge of a working bar, is at its best in its heightened, stylised momentsSun Aug 13 2023 - 09:59
Titanic the Musical: Liveline listeners say it’s in bad taste. So we’ve been to see itMaury Yeston’s accomplished musical adds layers of understanding to injustices that sealed fate of passengersWed Aug 02 2023 - 12:55
DruidO’Casey: A brilliant ensemble cast brings Garry Hynes’ vision to life in back-to-back productionsGalway International Arts Festival: Seán O’Casey’s Plough and the Stars, Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock follow Druid’s Synge, Murphy and Shakespeare cyclesSun Jul 23 2023 - 11:03
Volcano review: Edge-of-your-seat entertainment – you won’t have seen anything like this beforeGalway International Arts Festival 2023: Luke Murphy’s dance-theatre piece about two men going slowly crazy in deep space is tense, troubling and touchingSun Jul 23 2023 - 10:08
Bedbound: Colm and Brenda Meaney shine as Father and Daughter in Enda Walsh’s most Beckettian playGalway International Arts Festival 2023: The acting is excellent, but this early play has moments that now strike a crude, adolescent noteWed Jul 19 2023 - 11:12
Ann Napolitano on the Oprah effect: ‘95 per cent of the credit goes to her, not my book’After hesitant beginnings, the author of Dear Edward and Hello Beautiful has become a bestselling novelistWed Jul 19 2023 - 05:23
Girl on an Altar: Eileen Walsh and David Walmsley bring a muscular energy to Marina Carr’s searing new playTheatre: War may be the backdrop, but the real territory at stake is the marriage bedThu Jul 13 2023 - 10:54
Marina Carr: ‘We are not sacrificing children on altars, but we are still sacrificing children, make no mistake’From works such as By the Bog of Cats to the playwright’s most recent work, Girl on an Altar, familiar intimate questions are played out on an epic scaleSat Jul 08 2023 - 05:00
Fun Home: A heartwarming and heartbreaking triumphTheatre: Adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir is bursting with five-star performancesFri Jul 07 2023 - 11:34
Children’s fiction round-up: A crackerjack fantasy adventureBrief reviews of new children's fictionThu Jun 22 2023 - 05:00
Brian Friel’s Translations: The Abbey’s Ukrainian production has an urgent, dangerous energyTheatre: In this Lesya Ukrainka staging, the narrative drive of the forthcoming Famine is replaced by tomorrow’s headlines of destruction and war crimesWed Jun 21 2023 - 11:42
West Side Story: An eye-opening production of a modern classicTheatre: If you know the musical only from the 1961 and 2021 film versions, you’ll find Lonny Price’s staging a surpriseWed Jun 14 2023 - 11:21
Sun & Sea: Under the glare of a hot sun, an opera unfoldsOn tour since it won the Golden Lion in Venice, the thought-provoking Sun & Sea is on its way to Cork Midsummer FestivalWed Jun 07 2023 - 05:30
Eoin Colfer: ‘It’s like the Trojan horse. You are wrapping true stories in a cracking adventure package’Global, the Artemis Fowl author’s new collaboration, is designed to empower and inform young readers about climate changeThu May 25 2023 - 05:15
The Rose Tattoo: Tennessee Williams’ vision slips away as comic hilarity replaces sexual seductionTheatre: The harder this drama works to make Williams’ play accessible, the more ridiculous it seemsFri May 12 2023 - 11:38
‘I couldn’t stand up or dance the way I used to, but I still wanted to express myself’Dublin Dance Festival 2023: Mark Brew, director of The Race, has set out to be a role model for young disabled people who want to be in the performing artsWed May 10 2023 - 05:15
‘It’s a good brassy broad of a part’: Maria Callas’s Juilliard masterclasses get an Irish stagingThe star’s New York classes inspired Terrence McNally to write his Tony-winning play. Caitríona Ní Mhurchú brings the soprano to life in a new Dublin stagingTue May 09 2023 - 05:15
Children’s fiction: Exploring the ups and downs of friendshipBrief reviews of Wally the World’s Greatest Piano-Playing Wombat; Bear and Bird; The Táin; Kevin’s in a Mood; Emerald and the Ocean Parade; and Ivy Newt and the Storm WitchThu Apr 27 2023 - 04:29
Ghosts: Emotional authenticity is the primary driver of this understated productionMark O’Rowe’s scrupulously naturalistic dialogue balances plot’s tendency towards melodramaThu Apr 20 2023 - 11:30
The Price: Simon Delaney balances restraint with rage in the Gate’s assured staging of Arthur Miller’s playTheatre: Abigail McGibbon, as Delaney’s wife, is also excellent under Conleth Hill’s direction – but the interval is a bad ideaWed Apr 19 2023 - 12:03
Conleth Hill: ‘It’s very liberating to play a person with no conscience’The one-time Game of Thrones star is loving not having to learn lines as director of Arthur Miller’s The Price at The GateSat Apr 15 2023 - 05:00
Ibsen’s Ghosts: ‘We are still stuffing our secrets back into the ground’Actor Cathy Belton and dramatist Mark O’Rowe’s fascination with the Norwegian’s 1881 play bears fruit in a new version coming to the AbbeySat Apr 01 2023 - 05:00
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Ingeniously immersive and often quite genuinely scaryTheatre: The staging of the supernatural work of Neil Gaiman is big-budget showbiz at its bestThu Mar 30 2023 - 08:48
Bosco Hogan: ‘On the stage I feel most alive’The actor, who is receiving a Special Tribute Award at the Irish Times Theatre Awards, on his early days at Radio Éireann and a ghostly encounter with WB YeatsSat Mar 25 2023 - 05:00
Mother Goose: Ian McKellen gets to strut his stuff with this modern flavoured storyTheatre: Verbal entendres matched with physical gestures suggest the demographic pitch is the adult audienceThu Mar 23 2023 - 17:07
Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen review: Deep psychological study of guilt and griefProduction reveals itself as a taut theatrical thriller that leaves aside the tired tropes of his early Oirish comediesThu Mar 16 2023 - 12:48
Gold in the Water review: Ridiculous fun and puns, plus deeper meaning, in this new family musicalTheatre: Clever writing keeps focus on character, action and spectacle even as this take on modern parenting raises sociopolitical issuesMon Mar 13 2023 - 10:47
Tartuffe: An effervescent production in which great actors have a brilliant timeTheatre: It is better to submit to the pleasure of this sumptuous production than to ask questions about its deeper meaningFri Mar 10 2023 - 11:50
The Table review: An exploration of the Civil War with fairy tale flavourTheatre: Production has lots to admire with a child-friendly context for Ireland’s Civil WarFri Mar 03 2023 - 13:47
The New Electric Ballroom: Enda Walsh’s play gets a brilliant staging at the Gate TheatreTheatre: Barbara and Jane Brennan star as the sisters who re-enact scenes from a night 40 years ago in Emma Jordan’s outstanding Dublin productionWed Mar 01 2023 - 12:08
Bunker Cabaret: Kyiv’s Hooligan Art Community brings tales from the combat zone to IrelandDispersed around Europe at the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the collective are bringing their exploration of life during wartime on tourTue Feb 28 2023 - 05:00
Manifest review: What does a young boy need to become a good man? Brokentalkers sketch out an answer Theatre: As the show’s facilitator asks, with chilling rhetorical resonance, would you rather ‘be a warrior in a garden or a gardener in a war?’Mon Feb 27 2023 - 15:00
Children’s fiction: Daisy Hirst’s inspirational tale, a slippery adventure and an Irish enchanted fantasyNew books by Paddy Donnelly, Marita Conlon-McKenna, Lynne Reid Bank and Sinéad O’HartThu Feb 23 2023 - 04:56
Romeo and Juliet review: Fair Verona with Aperol spritzLyric Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s doomed romance emphasises the contemporary at expense of the universalMon Feb 20 2023 - 11:51
Sisters on stage: ‘There’s an emotional shorthand between us’Barbara and Jane Brennan have come together to star in a new production of Enda Walsh’s The New Electric BallroomSat Feb 18 2023 - 00:01
Danti Dan review: An excoriating portrayal of teenage sexuality in repressed 1970s IrelandGina Moxley’s uncompromising portrait of smalltown anxieties remains as shocking as it was when it first premieredTue Feb 07 2023 - 09:14
Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards: This year’s nominations revealedIrish theatre in 2022 pushed the boundaries of theatrical production, with opera, in particular, reaching new heightsSat Feb 04 2023 - 10:32
Why the classical world still grips the contemporary imaginationThis year’s Classics Now festival recognises how the current classical cultural resurgence has been driven by prominent female writers and historiansWed Jan 18 2023 - 00:00
The stage is (almost) set: Theatre coming our way in 2023Including Frigid, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Twelfth Night, Reggie’s Guide to Social Climbing and HangmenSat Dec 31 2022 - 05:00
Sara Keating on the best new children’s booksFrom a stunning achievement involving time-travel and wonderful art to a sensitive story that will give emotional confirmation to sick kidsTue Dec 20 2022 - 04:14
Toy Show the Musical: We went to the opening night. The news isn’t goodTheatre: Plenty of talent is evident both on stage and behind it, but ultimately this comes across as a self-congratulatory, if spectacular, marketing ployThu Dec 15 2022 - 10:31
Polar Bear and Penguin review: A warm tale of melting iceTheatre: Audience treated to a celebration of difference and the power of friendshipTue Dec 13 2022 - 11:38
Theatre in 2022: A joyous, riotous returnBig casts, full houses and genre-busting shows made for a vibrant yearSat Dec 10 2022 - 05:00
The Weir: The Abbey stages an atmospheric revival of Conor McPherson’s 1990s play Theatre: Caitríona McLaughlin’s production runs for 100 minutes but holds your attention throughoutFri Dec 02 2022 - 11:22
The Jungle Book review: A brilliant first Panto for young families at the GaietyTheatre: Refreshingly, this production is pitched at children. A brilliant first pantomime for young familiesThu Dec 01 2022 - 12:46
Beauty and the Beast The Musical review: Visually spectacular productionTheatre: Be Our Guest routine will be seared into imagination of viewers young and old for years to comeWed Nov 30 2022 - 12:59
