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Fri, Dec 4, 2020
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Dolly Parton created the Covid vaccine and Jolene, for God’s sake. What can’t she do?
  • Culture
  • Patrick Freyne
  • December 4, 2020, 05:00

Patrick Freyne: Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square just has to be authentic. Surely

Seventeen Irish panto productions for all the family to watch this season Seventeen Irish panto productions for all the family to watch this season
  • Stage
  • Sara Keating
  • December 3, 2020, 10:00

Pantomimes and family shows have gone online – or even switched to a drive-in format

It’s hard to watch Shane MacGowan in this wheezing, hissing state It’s hard to watch Shane MacGowan in this wheezing, hissing state
  • Film
  • Tara Brady
  • December 3, 2020, 06:00

Review: Crock of Gold – A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan is an endurance test for all

Mank review: It’s counterfactual nonsense but it’s spectacular Mank review: It’s counterfactual nonsense but it’s spectacular
  • Film
  • Tara Brady
  • December 4, 2020, 05:30

There’s much to admire in David Fincher’s new Netflix film about Hollywood’s heyday

A Girl from Mogadishu: Ifrah Ahmed is very impressive. This film about her life is not A Girl from Mogadishu: Ifrah Ahmed is very impressive. This film about her life is not
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • December 4, 2020, 05:00

Review: Ahmed is a credit to her nation. It’s a shame Mary McGuckian’s biopic is so pallid

Four new films to see this weekend Four new films to see this weekend
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • December 4, 2020, 06:00

Wolfwalkers, Girl from Mogadishu on release, Mank on demand, Crock of Gold on both

The Movie Quiz: Identify the Grammy-nominated movie star The Movie Quiz: Identify the Grammy-nominated movie star
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • December 4, 2020, 06:00

Plus: Peter Parker’s alter-ego, best picture biopics, Harry Potter titles, Pixar’s species

Wolfwalkers: Cartoon Saloon has made its best film yet Wolfwalkers: Cartoon Saloon has made its best film yet
  • Film
  • Donald Clarke
  • December 3, 2020, 05:00

Review: A family entertainment set among the Cromwellian atrocities? Sounds risky

Marion Davies was as big as Valentino. Then she had a scandalous affair Marion Davies was as big as Valentino. Then she had a scandalous affair
  • Film
  • Tara Brady
  • December 3, 2020, 05:00

Mank, David Fincher’s new film, goes some way to rehabilitating the film star's reputation

Hannah Arendt and the meaning of evil Hannah Arendt and the meaning of evil
  • Culture
  • Joe Humphreys
  • December 3, 2020, 05:00

Unthinkable: Calling something evil is not a licence to shut down debate

Latest Film

Mary Poppins: Julie Andrews in the 1964 film. Photograph: Mondadori via Getty Spoonful of Sugar: How Mary Poppins contributed to the Covid vaccine story
Wolfwalkers Four new films to see this weekend
The Movie Quiz: Identify the Grammy-nominated movie star
  • Marion Davies was as big as Valentino. Then she had a scandalous affair
  • Juno star Elliot Page announces he is transgender

TV & Radio

Claire Byrne. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Shopping and fussing: Retail reopening brings out Claire Byrne’s stern side

Her RTÉ show can stray towards sounding a bit judgy, no matter how sensible its advice  

‘Larry Gogan was the only way you heard pop music,’ according to his fellow RTÉ presenter Ronan Collins The TV equivalent of Larry Gogan’s own Golden Hour
Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant in The Undoing. Photograph: Niko Tavernise/HBO Hugh Grant on the Undoing finale: ‘People are telling me how old I look’
  • Netflix: 10 of the best new shows and films to watch in December
  • ‘Bodies left for weeks. People eaten by dogs’: What the Famine did to Ireland

Latest Books

Carlo Gébler: fired up by the idea of presenting the Decameron to today’s readers Tales we tell ourselves: how a sleepless night led to a lockdown commission

Publisher Edwin Higel explains what inspired Carlo Gébler to retell the Decameron

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin: “I don’t know what to do with the bottle, I want to do something to suggest that the relationship between poetry and alcohol does not need to be a destructive one. It seems it isn’t in China. Suggestions from the poets of Ireland would be welcome.” Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin wins major Chinese poetry prize and €10,000 bottle of Baijiu
A pipistrelle bat Sammy Weaver wins The Moth Nature Writing Prize for bat detecting diary
  • Banville criticised by fellow Booker winner for saying he despises ‘woke’ movement
  • Best new crime fiction: Ian Rankin’s brilliant John Rebus returns

Film Reviews

Meryl Steep in The Prom The Prom

 
Gary Oldman plays screenwriter Herman J Mankiewicz in Mank, directed by David Fincher. Mank

 
A Girl from Mogadishu

 
The Pogues frontman reputedly refused to give an interview for Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan. Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan

 

Latest Music

Robbie Williams at Croke Park in June 2006. Photograph: Cyril Byrne The Music Quiz: Who’s that duetting with Robbie Williams on Somethin’ Stupid?

Plus: Depp’s Tom Petty video, supergroup LSD, covering the entire Sgt Pepper

Thumper. Photograph: Ruth Medjber ‘It’s great to end the year on the right note’: Online festivals replace live gigs this Christmas
Shane MacGowan and Nick Cave duet on What a Wonderful World’ in 1992 Nick Cave: BBC’s censoring ‘destroys’ Fairytale of New York
  • The xx’s Romy: ‘I can now write about loving a woman and not feel afraid’
  • Spotify reveals Ireland’s most-streamed artists in 2020

Book Reviews

You Exist Too Much: A provocative and insightful debut
Little Red and Other Stories: Rooted in human feeling and authenticity
Saving the State: intimate if flattering inside story of Fine Gael
Winter Papers 6: There’s nothing here that doesn’t earn its keep

Stage

Nanny Nellie’s Panto Telly: Peter Pan, at Cork Opera House last Christmas. Photograph: John Allen/COH Seventeen Irish panto productions for all the family to watch this season

Pantomimes and family shows have gone online – or even switched to a drive-in format

Abbey Theatre directors Graham McLaren and Neil Murray: Calling on the Government to “look again at the reopening of theatres both in light of our readiness and for the mental health and wellbeing of theatre-goers”. File photograph: Cyril Byrne Anger grows as theatre sector asks why it’s not allowed to open
A new play seeks to challenge Samuel Beckett’s instructions that only men may appear in Waiting for Godot. Photograph: Ali Wright Waiting for Gobnait? Beckett’s ban on women challenged
  • Embargo review: Deirdre Kinahan’s new play is unashamedly humanistic
  • Director Niall Henry takes on the lockdown challenge

Art & Design

The Long Room at Trinity College Dublin. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien / THE IRISH TIMES Four new statues to end Trinity Long Room’s ‘men only’ image

Sculptures of Rosalind Franklin, Augusta Gregory, Ada Lovelace and Mary Wollstonecraft to join 40 busts of men

The object was spotted in Utah by state officials who were helping to count sheep from a helicopter. Photograph: Utah Department of Public Safety/PA New wave art or Kubrick homage? Pilot spots ‘strange’ monolith
Christmas displays in the Belgian city of Oudenburg. Photograph: Anthony Dumarey A Belgian city’s unintentionally phallic Christmas lights
  • Henri Matisse: A jolt of happiness from a humanist painter
  • Why I hate the Mary Wollstonecraft statue: would a man be ‘honoured’ with his schlong out?

Unthinkable

Political theorist and author Hannah Arendt pictured in 1949. Photograph: Fred Stein Archive/Archive Photos/Getty Images Hannah Arendt and the meaning of evil

Unthinkable: Calling something evil is not a licence to shut down debate

People don’t have to be ‘going on the lash’ to celebrate Christmas meaningfully, the Taoiseach says. Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/PA Wire Micheál Martin wants us to have ‘a meaningful Christmas’ – but what does that mean?
Abeba Birhane: ‘You do find a lot of people adhering to this illusion of objectivity – this illusion that they are doing science from “the view from nowhere”.’ Who is more racist, sexist and biased: You or your computer?
  • Carrots with minds of their own? The weird theory of panpsychism
  • Five lessons of Stoicism: What I learned from living for a week as a Stoic

Heritage

Lieut Peter Ames Bloody Sunday 1920: The 32 killed at home, at Croke Park, in Dublin Castle or who died later of wounds received

Lieut-Colonel Hugh Montgomery was the highest ranked British agent to die, while Tipperary captain Michael Hogan was also captain of an IRA company

Lieut Peter Ames Bloody Sunday 1920: The 32 killed at home, at Croke Park, in Dublin Castle or who died later of their wounds
After Bloody Sunday November 21st 1920, the bodies of British officers assassinated in Dublin during the Irish War of Independence are taken back to England for burial. The men were members of British intelligence cell, the Cairo Gang. File photograph: Getty Diarmaid Ferriter: Bloody Sunday 1920 changed British attitudes to Ireland
  • Bloody Sunday 1920: The 32 killed at home, at Croke Park, in Dublin Castle
  • Bloody Sunday 1920: Michael Hogan’s family’s second tragedy

Michael Viney's Another Life

Gannet with fish: Anyone who has watched the birds plunging vertically from the sky to seize mackerel deep beneath the surface must marvel at their anatomy. Illustration: Michael Viney Gannet population continues to thrive despite human threat to its numbers

Michael Viney: Irish numbers have more than doubled since the counts of Operation Seafarer in 1970

Fox with prey: The urban adult is “thin and exhausted” from finding and ferrying food to its cubs. Illustration: Michael Viney Another Life: The fox as he dwells among us
Choughs. Illustration: Michael Viney The declining choughs of Dursey island need decision makers’ help
  • Super grass: the arching, architectural forms of wild meadows
  • Between cliff and sea: The curious trail of a puffin

Tuarascáil

Agus an Nollaig ag teannadh linn le luas, shocraigh Tuarascáil ar eolaire gnóthaí a fheidhmíonn nó a dhíolann earraí trí nó le Gaeilge, a chur le chéile Ar thóir féiríní? Seo liosta gnóthaí a fheidhmíonn nó a dhíolann earraí trí nó le Gaeilge

Agus an Nollaig ag teannadh linn, shocraigh Tuarascáil ar eolaire gnó a chur le chéile.

Dan Donnelly: Tharla an troid ba cháiliúla ar an 13 Nollaig 1815 nuair a chuaigh Donnelly i gcoimhlint leis an Sasanach George Cooper i gcoire nádúrtha beag in ‘Belcher’s Hollow’ sa Churrach. Dan Donnelly: Curadh Trodach na nGael in am an ghátair
Tá seans maith ann go mbeadh Alba níos fearr as ar fhágaint na Banríochta dóibh. Tá seans eile nach mbeadh... Grianghraif: Andy Buchanan/Getty Images An Ghaoth Anoir Aduaidh
  • ‘Níor chuimhnigh mé riamh ariamh sa saol go ndéanfainn aon chraoltóireacht’
  • Tost an tSlua

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Verdi's La Traviata arrives at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in December 2021 Verdi's La Traviata arrives at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in December 2021

Tickets available now for The Novaya Opera of Moscow’s La Traviata in Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, December 2021, featuring Irish star soprano Claudia Boyle

Subscriber Only

You Exist Too Much: A provocative and insightful debut
Little Red and Other Stories is Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s latest short-story collection. Photograph: Eric Luke/The Irish Times Little Red and Other Stories: Rooted in human feeling and authenticity
Ian Rankin has released A Song for the Dark Times, his 23rd Rebus novel. Photograph: Ulf Andersen/Getty Best new crime fiction: Ian Rankin’s brilliant John Rebus returns

Most Read in Culture

1 Claire Byrne. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Shopping and fussing: Retail reopening brings out Claire Byrne’s stern side

2 The Pogues frontman reputedly refused to give an interview for Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan. It’s hard to watch Shane MacGowan in this wheezing, hissing state

3 Mary Poppins: Julie Andrews in the 1964 film. Photograph: Mondadori via Getty Spoonful of Sugar: How Mary Poppins contributed to the Covid vaccine story

4 Dolly Parton created the Covid vaccine and Jolene, for God’s sake. What can’t she do?

5 Gary Oldman plays screenwriter Herman J Mankiewicz in Mank, directed by David Fincher. Mank review: It’s counterfactual nonsense but it’s spectacular

6 The Movie Quiz: Identify the Grammy-nominated movie star

7 Wolfwalkers, Cartoon Saloon’s latest film, opens on December 4th. Wolfwalkers: Cartoon Saloon has made its best film yet

8 Dark Mark Does Christmas 2020: Breathing new life into old material

9 Form plays a major part in Brian Bilston’s writing; poems appear as tweets, Scrabble clues, tree images, Excel spreadsheets and even Venn diagrams, as with his poem At the Intersection, which won the 2014 Great British Write Off. Brian Bilston: the Poet Laureate of Twitter

10 Covid-19: most of Global Language Monitor’s top 10 words of 2020 relate to coronavirus. Photograph: iStock/Getty What’s the top word of 2020? Oh, you guessed that one easily

Real news has value SUBSCRIBE

Music Quiz

The Music Quiz: Who’s that duetting with Robbie Williams on Somethin’ Stupid? The Music Quiz: Who’s that duetting with Robbie Williams on Somethin’ Stupid?

Plus: Depp’s Tom Petty video, supergroup LSD, covering the entire Sgt Pepper

Macnas, whose parades are a core part of their work, receive this year’s special tribute award. Photograph: Brian Arthur
Irish Theatre Awards Find out who won this year, plus all our other coverage
 

The Books Podcast

The Irish Times Books Podcast - Darran Anderson, author of Inventory The Irish Times Books Podcast - Darran Anderson, author of Inventory 33:48
The Irish Times Books Podcast The best crime fiction of 2019 The Irish Times Books Podcast The best crime fiction of 2019 40:49
The Irish Times Books Podcast Remembering Maeve Binchy The Irish Times Books Podcast Remembering Maeve Binchy 35:01
The Irish Times Books Podcast Danielle McLaughlin The Irish Times Books Podcast Danielle McLaughlin 33:47

Culture Videos

Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan - official trailer 1:54 Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan - official trailer
National Gallery reopens with stunning Mondrian exhibition 2:34 National Gallery reopens with stunning Mondrian exhibition
Mank - official trailer 2:33 Mank - official trailer
Delighted teen does Late Late Toy Show duet with musical hero 0:47 Delighted teen does Late Late Toy Show duet with musical hero

Food & Drink Club

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Shelved: a selection of books by Irish women writers. Might some of these names figure in the final 12?
Women writers Putting Irish women writers back in the picture
 

Galleries

Late Late Toy Show 2020: Children from Spotlight Stage School and little puddle jumpers from Miss Ali Stage School rehearse Singin' in the Rain with show host Ryan Tubridy. Dublin. Photograph: Andres Poveda The Late Late Toy Show 2020
Sean Connery will forever be associated with Ian Fleming's James Bond. The actor most closely associated with the suave 007 operative. File photograph: PA Sean Connery: A life
Great reads From crosswords to great wines and the best bits from The Irish Times - Buy an Irish Times Book today
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