Going out: The best of what’s on this week

Monday

The Swing of the Sixties
Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Co Louth Until Apr 9
highlanesgallery.ie

At Trinity College in the 1960s, the remarkabla genetics professor George Dawson established The College Gallery Picture Hire Scheme, by which staff and students could hire amazing art to hang on their walls. This show, initiated by Lismore Castle Arts, features highlights from the collection, including works by Josef Albers, Barrie Cooke, John Hoyland, Robert Indiana, Cecil King, Roy Lichtenstein, Nano Reid, Patrick Scott, William Scott, Peter Sedgley, Camille Souter, Victor Vasarely and more. Richar Wood, a student volunteer back when, curates.

Adele
SSE Arena, Belfast 8pm £100/ £80/£70/£60/£38
ssearenabelfast.com

Adele has performed in Ireland only a few times, and since her last appearance here (Dublin’s Olympia in April, 2011) her profile has rocketed. At least this time she will have enough material for a full gig and the songs to fill these huge rooms. But will she have the personality as well as the tunes? Don’t bet against it. This week Belfast, next week Dublin.

Tuesday

Breda Lynch
New work. Linenhall Arts Centre, Linenhall St, Castlebar, Co Mayo
thelinenhall.com

Breda Lynch is an artist of limitless curiosity, tremendous energy and great warmth, fascinated by the way people actually live their lives as opposed to the neat conventional patterns to which we are supposed to conform. In her recent multimedia work, she delves into ideas relating to identity, the copy and the double, and the alternative cultures that thrive at the edges of the dominant historical narratives. Left is a detail from her cyanotype print Gay Girl.

Wednesday

They Called Her Vivaldi
Droichead Arts Centre. Mar 2 6.30pm €7/€6
droichead.com

Theatre Lovett, one of the most imaginative and indispensible companies at work today, begin touring their latest show, an upbeat comedy adventure for young audiences, which follows a fascinating spell of darkening material. Louis Lovett’s work with his company has involved depicting whole worlds in commanding solo performances, or collaborating with wider musical ensembles. Here, he partners with ever-rising star Genevieve Hulme Beaman to play a father and daughter who live in a haberdasher shop. Edward M Haberdasher has crafted a pair of peculiar earmuffs for his daughter, a sensitive musical prodigy. When Cecilia Maria’s musical gift is revealed, she quietly begins making a name for herself in a cacophonous world.

Anne Wenzel: Night Falls, Day Breaks
VOID, Patrick St, Derry-Londonderry
derryvoid.com

German-born Anne Wenzel is based in the Netherlands and this is her first solo show in the United Kingdom and Ireland. She is known for ceramic sculptures and installations that are monumental while eschewing the traditional iconography of the heroic monument, not least in opting for a malleable, flexible, fragile material – clay – rather than stone or bronze. Rather than reinforcing the certainties of nationalist architecture and sculpture, she aims to open up the sculptural language to current, communal challenges.

Thursday

Choice Music Prize
Vicar St Dublin 7.30pm €25.50
ticketmaster.ie

If it’s early March, then it has to be the Choice Music Prize. Declaration of interest: I am chairman of the judging panel, but what the hell – this is always a great night that celebrates the health and wealth of Irish music. Live sets from Album of the Year nominees HamsandwicH, Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Villagers, Soak, Le Galaxie, Gavin James, and Song of the Year nominees The Academic, All Tvvins, Fight Like Apes, Pleasure Beach, Otherkin and Daithi.

Joanna Newsom
Olympia theatre Dublin 8pm €40.05
ticketmaster.ie

It isn’t often that harpists/pianists/sopranos veer into the netherworld of avant-pop, but Joanna Newsom isn’t your run-of-the-mill artist. Delivering songs that range from circular to sprawling, from dainty to dramatic, this is surely gig of the week. (And what a pity it clashes with Choice.)

Wild Sky
Bewley's Café Theatre @ Powerscourt, Dublin 
bewleyscafetheatre.com

There are many ways to look at the 1916 Rising, and the more vital acts of commemoration have sought out perspectives from beyond the official narrative; the voices unheard or concealed. History often parses tangled events too neatly, but drama appreciates the chaos and contradiction we tend to call truth. Deirdre Kinahan’s new play finds a specifically rural angle from which to consider this most urban of rebellions, following the tragic love story of two young friends from Meath, Tom Farrell and Josie Dunne, who are divided in affection (Josie loves his poet friend, Mike Lowrey, based on the war poet Francis Ledwidge). When Mike joins the British Army to go to war, Josie turns to nationalism and suffrage at home, while Tom, the least political of the group, joins the rebels of Easter 1916. Directed by Jo Mangan, the performance is underscored by songs, from Mary Murray, drawn from the period.