Subscriber Only‘I have lived so long. Why am I still here?’ Simon Cowell’s beady little eyes seem to sayPatrick Freyne: Britain’s Got Talent is back, its name now less a triumphalist boast than a pleading sales pitch from a waning superpowerBy Patrick Freyne●Thu Apr 25 2024 - 06:33
MusicSay it quietly, but are we facing Taylor Swift fatigue?The Tortured Poets Department is latest offering in constant deluge of SwiftdomBy Matt Stevens and Shivani Gonzalez●Thu Apr 25 2024 - 05:00
Subscriber OnlyOld Romantics by Maggie Armstrong: An audacious debut collection with a personality all its ownA dozen short stories are linked by a protagonist called Margaret, who is hapless, often bewildered, at times mean. You will love her
TV & RadioThe Big Door Prize review: Chris O’Dowd could do a lot better than this snooze sessionTelevision: Irish actor works hard but this dystopia-lite show, now in its second series, is simply flawed
Subscriber OnlyHenry Shefflin and Rhys McClenaghan celebrated in sporting Poetry Day Ireland poemsSporting poems by Katie Donovan, Rosemary Jenkinson, Máirtín Coilféir, Patrick Moran and Enda Wyley
Politics is all about managing the present. What people need is a story of the futureUnthinkable: Individuals and society at large need a coherent storyline to give us hope for the futureBy Joe Humphreys
Say it quietly, but are we facing Taylor Swift fatigue?The Tortured Poets Department is latest offering in constant deluge of SwiftdomBy Matt Stevens and Shivani Gonzalez
Dave Douglas: ‘I wanted my music to be authentic and never the same twice. So there were a lot of years in the wilderness’Bray Jazz Festival 2024: Like his hero Miles Davis, the trumpeter, composer and bandleader is fascinated by the dynamics of changeBy Philip Watson
Picture This: Parked Car Conversations – Solid pop songs with a saccharine heartbeat By Lauren Murphy
Take That in Dublin review: ‘Whose idea was it to have stairs?’ puffs Gary Barlow as the band roll back the years with dazzling show Elaborate stage set-ups are par for course with Take That but bells and whistles would mean nothing if songs were not up to scratchBy Lauren Murphy
Taylor Swift: The Tortured Poets Department track by track review – A manifesto for all the believers who will try at love one more time By Finn McRedmond
Rebel Moon director Zack Snyder: ‘My obligation is to bring viewers the largest cinematic experience I can muster’Zack Snyder on his move to streaming, the critical panning of the first part of Rebel Moon and why he needs his family on boardBy Tara Brady
Making John McGahern’s That They May Face the Rising Sun into a movie: ‘I remember joking that it’s almost unfilmable’Director Pat Collins discusses his influences and his award-winning adaptation of McGahern’s final novelBy Donald Clarke
ISS review: Nuclear war breaks out on Earth. Up in space, can the Americans thwart the Russians? By Donald Clarke
Challengers review: Zendaya is at her gimlet-eyed best in this stonking tennis entertainment By Donald Clarke
Old Romantics by Maggie Armstrong: An audacious debut collection with a personality all its ownA dozen short stories are linked by a protagonist called Margaret, who is hapless, often bewildered, at times mean. You will love herBy Niamh Donnelly
Henry Shefflin and Rhys McClenaghan celebrated in sporting Poetry Day Ireland poemsSporting poems by Katie Donovan, Rosemary Jenkinson, Máirtín Coilféir, Patrick Moran and Enda WyleyBy Katie Donovan, Rosemary Jenkinson, Máirtín Coilféir, Patrick Moran and Enda Wyley
‘I have lived so long. Why am I still here?’ Simon Cowell’s beady little eyes seem to sayPatrick Freyne: Britain’s Got Talent is back, its name now less a triumphalist boast than a pleading sales pitch from a waning superpowerBy Patrick Freyne
The Big Door Prize review: Chris O’Dowd could do a lot better than this snooze sessionTelevision: Irish actor works hard but this dystopia-lite show, now in its second series, is simply flawedBy Ed Power
‘The tea was put on, and Dad didn’t come home’: Murder of a GAA ChairmanTelevision: Documentary conveys nightmare left in the wake of the murder of Bellaghy GAA chairman Seán Brown by a loyalist death squad 25 years agoBy Ed Power
Baby Reindeer’s Richard Gadd on the true story behind the show: ‘People are afraid to admit they made mistakes’The Netflix series tells the story of a man being stalked by an older woman and his life falling into disarrayBy Zoe Williams
L’Olimpiade review: Irish National Opera’s touring coproduction with the Royal Opera House feels surprisingly full-scaleTheatre: Meili Li, Rachel Redmond, Gemma Ní Bhriain, Alexandra Urquiola and Sarah Richmond star in Daisy Evans’s staging of Vivaldi’s operaBy Michael Dungan
The Hills of California star Laura Donnelly: ‘These days, being Northern Irish is seen for something in and of itself’The Belfast-born actor – half of ‘British theatre’s coolest power couple’ – puts her success down in part to her determination to avoid being typecastBy Shilpa Ganatra
Eilís O’Connell and Mona Hatoum at Visual, Carlow: mysterious yet simultaneously unequivocalAbstract art speaks of refuge and evacuation while recalling the engines of war that underpin such thingsBy Gemma Tipton
Deirdre O’Mahony’s The Quickening: the unlikely star of the show is a dung beetleOne of the most striking artists working in Ireland, O’Mahony has spent her career exploring our relationships with landBy Gemma Tipton