What’s on Wednesday: Darwin Deez and The Playboy of the Western World

INDIE

Darwin Deez

The Workman’s Club, Dublin 8pm, €15, theworkmansclub.com. Also Thurs, Belfast

We haven't seen this Brooklyn- based indie-pop band – fronted by songwriter Darwin Merwan Smith – since 2010, but they're back because of the moderate success of recent album, Double Down. Wes Anderson's idea of a perfect indie-pop songwriter? Sounds good to us.

THEATRE

The Playboy of the Western World

Ballina Arts Centre, Co Mayo. Oct 13-14 8pm €16/18 ballinaartscentre.com

Blue Raincoat’s fascinating production of JM Synge’s classic, now on a national tour, leaves everything blanched and exposed: a Mayo shebeen where nothing happens seems to crumble away, as though simply giving up the ghost, while a woman joylessly anticipates marriage to a pallid older man. Any visitor who has killed his father ought to make for some excitement, but even with Christy’s arrival, Niall Henry’s stark interpretation keeps everything cool, simultaneously making the play feel much sharper.

With the dialogue delivered in rapid, terse exchanges, it’s as though the play’s comedy has been forcibly smothered, the language flattened in performance and cut down to a mean, uninterrupted 90 minutes. It makes for a much darker, more jolting take on the tale, now elemental and strange. In this drama of surveillance and suspicion – everyone here is watched and distrusted – Christy becomes a social climber, advancing on self-belief, self-creation and borrowed credit: a hero for our times.