Front/row

Move over, Gilbert and George, and make way for Adrian and Shane from Drogheda. Their installation of slide projections will light up Wogan Interiors, Shop Street, Drogheda, tomorrow and Saturday, so that it can be viewed from the street. The event is taking place to coincide with the lads' launch of their website: www.adrianandshane.com Shane contends that their work isn't comparable to Gilbert and George's at all - it just "made sense" to make art together: "I might start a painting and Adrian might start a painting and then we'd swap half-way through. It's an experiment, really," he says. They met in a nightclub. Shane decided to take some time out from studying architecture (Adrian was already a full-time painter), and the two embarked on the creation of the Sensation (by deprivation) exhibition for the Droichead Arts Centre. They are planning to take this show on a nationwide tour.

The two are currently on the loose in Paris and London promoting their website and "getting our name known". Gilbert and George - who were they?

The Celtic Tiger has more than a blind spot or two, and one of them appears to be the Music Festival in Great Irish Houses. The festival has had its rocky moments in the past. The Arts Council stopped funding it in the early 1980s, but the festival survived and found what seemed to be the best of title sponsors in GPA.

That company's unsuccessful flotation led to its withdrawal, with AIB later filling the title spot. But things haven't been so easy since the withdrawal of AIB. Last year's festival was made possible only by a grant from the Arts Council. But this was a once-off gesture, and, in the absence of a new title sponsor, the 2000 festival has been cancelled. Chairperson Ann Blackwell is insistent that they'll be back bigger and better than ever next year and she expresses confidence that: "given the extra time, we'll raise the money".

The Irish Times/ESB award-winning show, Stones in His Pockets by Marie Jones, which finishes a long run at the Tivoli Theatre, Dublin, on Saturday, opens at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, London on Tuesday. It then transfers to the New Ambassadors Theatre in the West End, where it will play from May 22nd into August. Originally a Lyric Theatre, Belfast, production, the London run is produced by Pat Moylan with British companies E&B Productions and Adam Kenwright. The New Ambassadors is where Irish hits such as The Weir by Conor McPherson and Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape with John Hurt ran.

The director Conall Morrison, whose production of Tom Murphy's new play, The House, goes up at The Abbey on April 12th, has two projects with another national theatre lined up. Later this year, he will direct Ibsen's Peer Gynt with Trevor Nunn's Ensemble at the Royal National Theatre in London, and next year, he will be back there again directing Synge's The Playboy of the Western World.

Andrew Hinds's The Starving, performed by Conleth Hill, was one of the big hits of the Dublin Fringe Festival in 1998. It has puzzled many why it hasn't been back since, but its writer and director was working on other projects. Next week it finally returns, as an Open House Theatre production, this time in association with Andrews Lane Theatre rather than with Iomha Ildanach. The play is set during the siege of Derry and it is written in the voice of two Yorkshire men, one a humble cobbler, the other hoping to build a linen factory in the city.

It is an unusual "tragic love triangle" story in that only two characters ever come on stage and they are played by one person - this time, Scottish-born Graham McTavish. Although there is only one actor, Hinds stresses that he is not, as in Faith Healer, "kind of talking to the audience. I wanted to write a drama where there is a `fourth wall'. " What does he do - talk to himself? "There's only one way to find out and that's come along," says Hinds.

The play will be part of the prestigious new work season at the Drill Hall in London, which runs from April 26th to May 16th and includes plays from Iceland, Australia, Italy, and the Berliner Ensemble, who will perform an evening of Brecht cabaret.

Jose Cura, whose claim to the "world's number one tenor" slot appears to be uncontested these days, is to appear in two gala concerts in Dublin and Cork this September. Now regarded as the best Othello in the business, Cura's recording of Puccini's Manon Lescaut has just been released by Decca, and a CD of Verdi arias is due for release in the autumn. He will also sing the role of Alfredo in a live telecast of La Traviata which will be shown, by Channel 4 among others, in 100 countries around the world in early June. For his Irish galas, he will be joined by the classy Italian baritone Marzio Giossi, and the dates, for your diary, are: City Hall, Cork, September 20th; NCH, Dublin, September 23rd. Tickets go on sale on June 23rd, and are limited to four per person per venue.

The Drama League of Ireland's residential summer school takes place at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth from August 12th-19th. The list of tutors is impressive and includes Belfast-based director, David Grant and Fiona McGeown and Sandra O'Malley from Blue Raincoat Theatre Company. Phone 01-8090478/086-8524532 for information . . . Sean-Nos Cois Life, Dublin's very own seannos festival, which includes workshops and performances, takes place from today until Sunday. Phone 01-4538192/012804032 . . . The Dublin Youth Orchestra's concert on Sunday, April 9th in the National Basketball Arena, Tallaght will include the premiere of a new work by John Buckley, Quattuor (scored for four orchestras). Phone 01- 2954206 . . . The German-born, Irish-based sculptor, Imogen Stuart, presents an illustrated talk on her work on Friday, April 14th at the GoetheInstitut, Merrion Square at 8 p.m . . . Phone the Sligo Art Gallery on 071- 45847 or email sagal@iol.ie for details of a £2,000 travel award for artists working in the medium of print . . .