Theatre review: The Dead School (GYT & Galway Community Theatre)

Theatre Reviews Thu, Jul 23, 2015

ANYONE WHO has not yet booked a ticket for The Dead School, directed by Andrew Flynn and featuring a 23-strong cast drawn from Galway Youth Theatre and Galway Community Theatre, should remedy that post haste – this is one of the best shows in the Galway International Festival.

Theatre review: The Match Box

Theatre Reviews Wed, Jul 22, 2015

THE IRISH premiere of Frank McGuinness’s 2012 play, The Match Box, is one of the main attractions in this year’s Galway International Arts Festival, all the more so as it features Renmore's Cathy Belton, making her festival debut – and in a one-woman play to boot.

GIAF Theatre review: Luck Just Kissed You Hello

Theatre Reviews Thu, Jul 16, 2015

CO-PRODUCED by HotForTheatre and the Galway International Arts Festival, Amy Conroy’s new play, Luck Just Kissed You Hello, was one of the main events on the festival’s opening day.

GIAF Theatre review: Maum

Theatre Reviews Thu, Jul 16, 2015

AN TAIBHDHEARC has made some excellent contributions to the arts festival over recent years and this year’s production from the company is Sighle Ní Chonaill’s Maum, which recreates the events around the notorious Maumtrasna murders of 1882 where five members of one family were brutally slaughtered in their home.

Theatre review: DruidShakespeare

Theatre Reviews Wed, May 20, 2015

IN RECENT years Druid Theatre Company has shown itself the master of largescale theatrical projects with both DruidSynge and DruidMurphy. Yet in both cases it was dealing with playwrights in whose work it already had a deep grounding, writers and plays that could be said to be part of the company’s DNA.

Theatre review: No Show (Thereisbear! Mick Lally Theatre)

Theatre Reviews Wed, Nov 26, 2014

UP-AND-coming Galway ensemble Thereisbear! launched Druid’s emerging artists FUEL residency programme in fine style on Tuesday night at the Mick Lally Theatre with the premiere of No Show, written and directed by Peter Shine.

Theatre review: Trickster in the Black Box

Theatre Reviews Tue, Oct 14, 2014

THERE WAS a time, and not so long ago, when disability arts was regarded as little more than a kind of occupational therapy, like basket-weaving, and viewed with polite, yet condescending indulgence.

Theatre review: Defender Of The Faith

Theatre Reviews Wed, Oct 08, 2014

DECADENT THEATRE Company could hardly have timed its new staging of Stuart Carolan’s Defender Of The Faith any better, with its opening coming the night after the premiere of the latest series of Love/Hate, the TV show which Carolan created.

Review of Forgotten Me at the Town Hall

Theatre Reviews Thu, Aug 28, 2014

CURRENTLY RUNNING at the Town Hall studio is Cathal Leonard’s debut play Forgotten Me, a two-hander performed by himself and Gerry Howard and directed by Danielle Destephano.

Theatre review: Ballyturk

Theatre Reviews Tue, Jul 15, 2014

“BEAUTIFUL, HILARIOUS, dark as death.” So tweeted actress Olwen Fouéré after seeing the opening of Enda Walsh’s new play Ballyturk, which got the Galway International Arts Festival off to a flying start at the Black Box yesterday evening.

Theatre review: Nora Barnacle – Signora Joyce

Theatre Reviews Thu, Jun 19, 2014

WHILE DUBLINERS were observing Bloomsday by donning Edwardian costumes and retracing Leopold Bloom’s feted journey around the capital, in Galway the day saw the opening of Ann Marie Horan’s very enjoyable one-woman play Nora Barnacle – Signora Joyce.

Flying to the moon with Marie Jones

Theatre Reviews Thu, Sep 19, 2013

TOWN HALL Theatre audiences should be in for a treat next week when Marie Jones’s most recent play, Fly Me To The Moon, arrives for a four night run at the venue.

Belfast native Jones is one of Ireland’s most prolific and best-loved playwrights with more than 20 plays to her credit, including major hits like A Night in November, Women on the Verge of HRT, and, most famously, Stones In His Pockets.

Silent returns to Town Hall

Theatre Reviews Thu, Jun 13, 2013

WINNER OF the Fringe First and Herald Angel Awards at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe and the Argus Angel at the 2012 Brighton Festival, Silent is back in Galway.

Written and performed by Pat Kinevane, directed by Jim Culleton, and staged by Fishamble: The New Play Company, Silent is at the Town Hall Theatre on Thursday June 20 and Friday 21 at 8pm.

Decadent gets its dues

Theatre Reviews Thu, Jan 24, 2013

FOR DIRECTOR Andrew Flynn and Decadent Theatre Company, the early weeks of 2013 have brought a very happy New Year in the shape of three nominations in the coveted Irish Times/ESB Theatre Awards.

Looking back on theatre 2012

Theatre Reviews Thu, Dec 27, 2012

As the Renmore Panto prepares to see out 2012 in its usual colourful style, for the rest of Galway’s theatre community it’s time to pack away the greasepaint, well-thumbed scripts, and assorted props and costumes, and reflect upon another year of enterprising and imaginative dramatic activity. It has been a year with some indelible highlights, both from locally-based companies and visiting ensembles, and continuing displays of commitment, energy, and imagination from the city’s smaller and emergent troupes which itself merits a standing ovation given the straitened financial circumstances under which they operate.

Gun Metal Grey returns

Theatre Reviews Thu, Oct 18, 2012

NEXT WEEK in the Town Hall sees the welcome return of Mick Donnellan’s Gun Metal Grey from the tireless Truman Town Theatre.

Carthaginians’ ‘sense of hope and release’

Theatre Reviews Thu, Feb 23, 2012

FRANK MCGUINNESS’ powerful play Carthaginians, written as an elegy for the dead of Bloody Sunday, comes to the Town Hall Theatre next week in a new production from Derry’s Millennium Forum directed by one of Ireland’s best known actors, Adrian Dunbar.