Love conquers all in How to Keep an Alien

Thu, Sep 24, 2015

HOW TO Keep An Alien, written and performed by Sonya Kelly, and which comes to the Town Hall Theatre next week in a staging by Rough Magic, is a hilarious, yet tender, autobiographical tale, recounting how Sonya and her Australian partner Kate had to prove to the Department of Immigration they had the right to live together in Ireland.

'Words are more supple, they are quicker to respond to things'

Thu, Sep 17, 2015

Bill Bailey breezes into the Black Box Theatre later this month with his new show, Limboland, which has been getting rave reviews and is sure to be a real treat for audiences here. Ahead of his Galway visit the affable and popular comic, a familiar screen presence from numerous hit TV shows, took some time to chew the fat about youth, comedy, politics, music, and middle age.

The Whistling Girl - evoking the world of Dorothy Parker

Thu, Sep 17, 2015

THE CAUSTIC wit, high times, eventful life, and inner shadows of writer Dorothy Parker are all evoked in The Whistling Girl, a new musical show featuring the combined talents of composer Trevor Knight and actor/singer Honor Heffernan.

Style, decadence, glamour, opulence

Thu, Sep 03, 2015

STOCKINGS, SUSPENDERS, lavish lingerie, suggestive dances, and lashings of sauce, burlesque is no longer about women performing for men, today it is about women performing for women, and artists and audience celebrating the diversity of female forms.

'I wanted to go back to that raw, acoustic, element'

Thu, Aug 13, 2015

RYAN SHERIDAN releases his new album, Here and Now, on Friday August 28. Recorded in Ireland and Germany, it is the follow-up to his Irish platinum selling debut The Day You Live Forever, and as part of his upcoming tour he plays Tuam’s Sugarbeat Festival next weekend and the Róisín Dubh in September.

Fregoli's Pleasure Ground at Town Hall

Thu, Aug 13, 2015

GALWAY THEATRE company Fregoli makes it debut on the Town Hall Theatre mainstage with Pleasure Ground, written by Jarlath Tivnan, who also features in the cast, and directed by Maria Tivnan.

'Music has a way of getting into the soul'

Thu, Aug 06, 2015

CLASSICAL MUSIC trio The Priests will perform in the Galway Cathedral on Sunday August 16 at 8pm. The platinum-selling group, featuring three Roman Catholic priests from Northern Ireland - Fr Eugene O’Hagan and his younger brother Fr Martin O’Hagan, from the Derry village of Claudy, and Fr David Largy from Ballymena - perform as part of the Cathedral’s jubilee celebrations.

'It’s a doorway, not a crutch'

Thu, Jul 30, 2015

CREATIVE ASPERGER'S is the title of a fascinating art exhibition currently running in the Galway City Library comprising portraits of famous individuals who display signs of Asperger syndrome. The work is by Jody Mullarkey who himself has Asperger syndrome and thus brings a keen personal appreciation and insight into his portrayals of the featured personalities.

Strange Brew Summer Shindig 11

Thu, Jul 23, 2015

THE STRANGE Brew Summer Shindig 11, the long running clubnight's annual summer get-together at the Róisín Dubh, celebrating the very best of Irish indie music, with gigs in the Dominick Street venue's live area and upstairs bar, takes place on Thursday July 30 from 8pm.

Damien Dempsey - to the waters and the wild

Thu, Jul 16, 2015

THE FIRST time most people heard Damien Dempsey was in 1997, when the late Gerry Ryan played the songwriter's debut single 'Dublin Town' almost continuously on 2FM. It was catchy, but there was nothing to indicate this was the opening salvo from a man poised to become one of Ireland's most gifted songwriters.

Forty years on, Kiwi Tim Finn loves writing more than ever

Thu, Jul 09, 2015

Forty years in the music business, one of New Zealand's most celebrated singer-songwriters, Tim Finn will perform at the Galway International Arts festival for the first time.

'People have a very profound, deep, response to it'

Thu, Jul 09, 2015

SOUTH AFRICAN artist Brett Bailey’s theatre/installation work Exhibit B is sure to be one of the most talked-about shows at this year’s Galway International Arts Festival.

The life affirming power of music

Tue, Jul 07, 2015

CLASSICAL MUSIC concerts have always formed part of the Galway International Arts Festival, but this year, classical music has a notably larger, more prominent, placing. Indeed it is almost a mini-festival within the GIAF itself. "The festival is really pushing out the classic side of things this year," notes the distinguished Irish pianist Finghin Collins approvingly. "It's a wonderful thing."

‘Beckett was the first who spoke to my interior landscape’

Thu, Jun 25, 2015

OLWEN FOUÉRÉ returns to the Galway International Arts Festival with Samuel Beckett’s evocative short prose work, Lessness, fresh from a sold out run at the Barbican’s International Beckett Season.

Deirdre O'Kane - coming back to stand-up comedy

Thu, Jun 18, 2015

DEIRDRE O'KANE is back doing stand-up comedy. After years away from the circuit, during which she returned to her original calling of acting, winning acclaim for her roles in the film Nobel and the comedy series Moone Boy, she entered 2015 with time on her hands, and an itch to put pen to paper.

Eddie Moloney - the 'gentleman of Irish trad'

Thu, Jun 18, 2015

FRANKIE GAVIN'S first taste of performing in front of an audience was in Corrandulla Town Hall, playing tin whistle, and standing beside him was the man who saw the potential in the youngster - the fiddler and flautist Eddie Moloney.

'Somebody is enjoying putting obstacles in my way'

Thu, Jun 11, 2015

"Man plans, God laughs" is an old Yiddish proverb, the equivalent of "the best laid plans can come undone", but who undoes them? Does the fault lie with the person making the plans or does God, fate, or some predetermined outcome decide that sometimes, things just will not go your way.

Galway 'was the start of the Lúnasa story'

Thu, Jun 11, 2015

LÚNASA MAKE a welcome return to Galway and the Galway Sessions festival when the trad supergroup play Monroe's Live on Thursday June 18. A hectic and busy international touring schedule has afforded the band little opportunity to play in Ireland in recent times so this Galway gig is all the more to be welcomed.

Charolais: murderous female rivalry with a bovine twist

Thu, Jun 04, 2015

CHAROLAIS IS an age-old tale of female rivalry with a new twist: the other ‘woman’ is a purebred Charolais heifer. A farmer devotes considerable attention to his prize heifer at the expense of his very pregnant girlfriend Siobhan, who in turn has developed a homicidal jealousy for this Charolais and is feeling equally murderous towards her snobbish soon-to-be mother-in-law.

Arthur’s Dig – a play for our times

Thu, Jun 04, 2015

WHEN THE house you are building is falling down around your ears, when all you have worked for is taken away, what will run out first: your money or your wife? Arthur’s Dig is a 21st century drama, exploring the blurred lines that define what it is to be a man in contemporary Ireland.

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