Event of the week
Sugababes
Saturday, April 19th, SSE Arena, Belfast, 6.30pm, £53.35/£47.85; Sunday, April 20th, 3Arena, Dublin, 6.30pm, €62.20/€52.35, ticketmaster.ie
Best Friends Forever could be another name for Sugababes. Mutya Buena, Keisha Buchanan and Siobhán Donaghy – yes, there’s an obvious Irish connection – formed in 1998, but within a few years personal and management issues saw each of them replaced. In 2019 Buena, Buchanan and Donaghy won back the rights to the group’s name and haven’t stopped since. A new album, the first featuring the original members since their 2000 debut, One Touch, is in the offing, so expect a new tune or two amid smash hits such as Freak Like Me, Push the Button and About You Now, all of which they performed at a rapturously received Glastonbury set last year. Guests include the UK singer-songwriter Rose Gray.
Gigs
Gary Barlow
Sunday, April 20th, INEC Arena, Killarney, Co Kerry, 7pm, €61.35; Tuesday, April 22nd, and Wednesday, April 23rd, Waterfront Hall, Belfast, 7pm, £70; Friday, April 25th, and Saturday, April 26th, 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin, 7pm, €61.35 (sold out), ticketmaster.ie
With the pop juggernaut that is Take That temporarily on the sidelines, the group’s lead singer and primary songwriter brings his Songbook Tour to Ireland. Avid Gary Barlow fans will be treated to selections from his six solo albums, three of which nabbed the top spot on the UK album chart. The mainstay of the shows, however, will be Take That songs performed in relative intimacy, and minus the group’s usual arena-sized bells and whistles.
Anastacia
Tuesday, April 22nd, 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin, 7pm, €50.70 (sold out); Wednesday, April 23rd, Ulster Hall, Belfast, 7pm, £49 (sold out), ticketmaster.ie
How did 25 years pass so quickly? The Chicago singer and songwriter Anastacia Lyn Newkirk released her debut album, Not That Kind, in the summer of 2000. So began a music career that was hugely appreciated in Ireland, where her first three albums (and their associated singles) broke into the top 10. It may have helped that she is half-Irish on her mother’s side, but you don’t get two sold-out shows on parentage alone. What to expect? Hit songs, birthday cakes and 25 candles.
Chubby Cat
Wednesday, April 23rd, Whelan’s, Dublin, 8pm, €17.45, ticketmaster.ie
The Belfast-based Cork singer-songwriter Chubby Cat has been nominated for so many accolades (including RTÉ 2FM’s Rising Artists for 2024, Gay Times breakthrough act and RTÉ Choice Music Prize song of the year), it’s only a matter of time before her striking electropop earworms grip us all by the scruff of the neck. Appearances at Brighton Pride, the Great Escape, Primavera Pro, Forbidden Fruit and Other Voices Dingle/Cardigan have secured her a place in the ears of casual listeners and tastemakers alike. Also, check out the support act, the Dublin-based musician and producer F3iii (pronounced Femi).
Comedy
Rachel Galvo
Sunday, April 20th, Cyprus Avenue, Cork, 7pm, €27.50; Monday, April 21st, Róisín Dubh, Galway, 7pm, €27.50 (sold out); Tuesday, April 22nd, Limelight, Belfast, 7pm, £28.25; Wednesday, April 23rd, Dolan’s, Limerick, 7pm, €25, ticketmaster.ie
It’s a leap to go from studying global business at Trinity College Dublin to studying performing arts at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, one of London’s most prominent drama schools. (Its president is Judi Dench.) Rachel Galvo is fast emerging as one of Ireland’s leading comedians and someone whose career could easily take off elsewhere. So these dates might be the last time you’ll see her perform in such compact venues. Galvo also performs a sold-out show at the 3Olympia Theatre in Dublin on Thursday, May 8th.
Film
IberScreen 2025
Thursday-Sunday, April 24th-April 27th, IFI, Dublin, various times and prices, ifi.ie
Ireland’s only Ibero-American film festival features works Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Spain, among other countries. With socially significant ideas underpinning the selection of emerging and established film-makers, highlights include The Freshly Cut Grass (Friday, April 25th, 8.40pm), I Am Nevenka (Saturday, April 26th, 7.50pm) and Memories of a Burning Body (Sunday, April 27th, 6pm). The screening of I Am Nevenka will be followed by a Q&A with the director Icíar Bollaín.
Literature
Deep Pools of Nostalgia
Wednesday, April 23rd, National Library of Ireland, Dublin, 6.30pm, free (booking required), onedublinonebook.ie
The city as a keeper of ideas, a bunker of history, a memory map and a harbour for people? This One Dublin One Book event focuses on Intimate City, Peter Sirr’s 2021 essay collection (“as full of serendipitous moments as walking around an unfamiliar city,” according to Michael O’Loughlin’s Irish Times review) and on For Keeps, Belinda McKeon’s short story from 2015 (from One Dublin One Book’s anthology Dublin, Written in Our Hearts). The authors are joined by the neuroscientist Shane O’Mara, whose most recent book is Talking Heads: The New Science of How Conversation Shapes Our World. Garrett Fagan moderates the discussion.
Visual art
Bacon’s Portraits of Women: Moraes, Belcher and Rawsthorne
Until Wednesday, July 30th, Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, free, hughlane.ie
The artists’ model Henrietta Moraes, nightclub owner Muriel Belcher and artist and model Isabel Rawsthorne, who appear repeatedly in his paintings, inspired some of Francis Bacon’s finest portrait work. In the nonconformist circles of 1960s London, the three women were also among the artist’s closest friends, as was the photographer John Deakin, whose images of the women Bacon used as the basis for his paintings. This exhibition features Deakin’s photographs with Bacon’s associated portraiture.
Still running
Making History
Until Sunday, April 26th, Everyman Theatre, Cork, 7.30pm, €39/€20, everymancork.com
In 1591, Gaelic Ireland was on the verge of extinction under English rule. When Irish clans joined forces with the Spanish, it led to the Battle of Kinsale and shifted the direction of Irish history. Des Kennedy, Everyman Theatre’s new artistic director, revives Brian Friel’s 1988 play about the life and legacy of Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone.
Book it this week
Sparks, National Stadium, Dublin, July 15th-16th, ticketmaster.ie
Jason Manford, Vicar Street, Dublin, September 16th, ticketmaster.ie
Bill Whelan at 75, NCH, Dublin, November 21st, nch.ie
Amble, 3Arena, Dublin, December 4th, ticketmaster.ie
