Event of the week
An Evening with Roy Keane
Thursday, May 7th, SSE Arena, Belfast, 6.30pm, £78/£62.50, ticketmaster.co.uk; Friday, May 8th, and Saturday, May 9th, 3Arena, Dublin, 6.30pm, €90.80/€75.25, ticketmaster.ie
Take the former Ireland and Manchester United captain Roy Keane, widely considered one of the best soccer players in Premier League history, and, asking the questions, Roddy Doyle, the celebrated, soccer-loving author, whose career has included novels (for both adults and children), short stories, screenplays, plays and nonfiction, and you have a conversation worth listening to. It aids the flow, of course, that the pair have met many times before, not only as they worked together on Keane’s biography The Second Half, in the early 2010s, but also at lots of public events such as these ever since. Yes, the size of the venues means you’ll have to rely on the big screens to see their facial expressions – including, perhaps, the odd grimace in relation to some topics – but we’d still bet on some pretty entertaining conversations on all three evenings.
Gigs
Ham Sandwich
Saturday, May 2nd, Connollys of Leap, Co Cork, 7.30pm, €27.50, connollysofleap.com; Friday, May 8th, Monroe’s, Galway, 8pm, €27.50, monroes.ie
This Irish band are smartly reconfiguring their back catalogue of charming songs for an acoustic-trio treatment. Special guests on selected dates are the husband-and-wife duo of Driven Snow. Also, Saturday, May 9th, Cornerstone, Gorteeny, Co Galway, 8pm, €33.15, eventbrite.ie; Friday, May 15th, Cleere’s, Kilkenny, 8.30pm, €30 (sold out), cleeres.com; Saturday, May 16th, Whale Theatre, Greystones, Co Wicklow, 8pm, €30 (sold out), whaletheatre.ie; Friday, May 22nd, Caffrey’s, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, 8pm, €30; Sunday, May 24th, Sea Church, Ballycotton, Co Cork, 7.30pm, €25, seachurch.ie
Momentum Festival
From Friday, May 1st, until Monday, May 4th, Ard na Mara, Oranmore, Co Galway, various times and prices, momentumfestival.ie
This inaugural independent festival champions established and emerging Irish music talent, according to its organisers. That means, among other things, headline shows by The Stunning (Friday, May 1st, with support from The Riptide Movement), B*Witched (Saturday, May 2nd, with support from D:Ream) and The Coronas (Sunday, May 3rd). Emerging acts performing over the weekend include Tracy Bruen, Oscar Blue, Calum Agnew and Groev. The festival closes on Monday, May 4th, with a hat trick of superb Irish bands: The Scratch, Cliffords and Madra Salach.
Ludovico Einaudi
Wednesday, May 6th, NCH, Dublin, 7.30pm, €110/€65, nch.ie
The Italian pianist Ludovico Einaudi began his career as a classical composer, but over the past three decades he has incorporated soundtracks (for films such as The Black Swan and This Is England) and electronic, minimalist and ambient music. This concert promotes his latest album, Solo Piano, and includes several of his most elegant pieces, including Elegy for the Arctic and a new track, Memory One.
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Laura Elizabeth Hughes
Thursday, May 7th, Unitarian Church, Dublin, 7pm, €23.65, ticketmaster.ie
There is a hint of the Scarlet Pimpernel about Laura Elizabeth Hughes: music fans seek her here, there and everywhere, but she can be an elusive performer. This headline show is prompted by the warm reception last year of her long-delayed debut album, Knots and Echoes, which earned a rare five-star review in this newspaper. Expect your heartstrings to be plucked and then plundered across a sequence of tender, highly emotive songs. Also, Saturday, February 14th, Sea Church, Ballycotton, Co Cork, 8pm, €22.50, seachurch.ie
Stage
An Ideal Husband
From Friday, May 8th, until Saturday, July 11th, Gate Theatre, Dublin, 7.30pm, €53/€48/€43, gatetheatre.ie
Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband has rarely been out of circulation since it was first billed in 1895 as “a new and original play of modern life”. The politics are hardly outdated, with blackmail, exploitation, scandals, secrets and moral quandaries driving what many critics regard as the most autobiographical of Wilde’s plays. Sprinkled throughout, of course, are strings of stinging bon mots, including “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance” and “Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike”. Marc Atkinson Borrull directs. Ingrid Craigie, Ayoola Smart and Richard Flood feature.
Comedy
John Kearns
Wednesday, May 6th, Mac, Belfast, 7.30pm, £26.50, themaclive.com; Thursday, May 7th, Sugar Club, Dublin, 7.30pm, €28.15 (sold out), ticketmaster.ie
The London stand-up and television panel-show regular John Kearns (“the new king of comedy” according to London’s Standard newspaper) brings his new show, Tilting at Windmills, to Irish audiences. Alongside observations of encroaching middle age and impostor syndrome comes a healthy reputation for laugh-out-loud audience interaction. It’s the latter, Kearns says, “that keeps you in the room. The audience makes each night different, not your material”.
Visual art
Kathy Prendergast: Stasis Field
Until Saturday, May 30th, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, kerlingallery.com
Using a range of found objects, textiles, fabric, stone and chalk, some of which have personal associations, Stasis Field features a mixture of sculpture, hand-painted works and installations. In keeping with Kathy Prendergast’s core practice of maintaining human links to borders, the exhibition also includes a collection of hand-painted volcanic maps that colourfully reinterpret mountaintops from South America (Chimbarazo, Ecuador) to Africa (Mount Kenya).
Still running
Marble City Music Festival
Friday, May 8th, St Canice’s Church, Kilkenny, 7.30pm, €35/€17.50 marblecitymusicfestival.com
The violinist and conductor Patrick Rafter teams up with the Luminosa Orchestra for a programme that includes Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Camille Saint-Saëns’ Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso and Edward Elgar’s Serenade for Strings. Also, RTÉ Concert Orchestra and Patrick Rafter, Friday, May 15th, St Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny, 7.30pm, €35/€17.50.
Book it this week
- Maroon 5, Malahide Castle, Dublin, June 30th, ticketmaster.ie
- Johnny Marr, Iveagh Gardens, Dublin, July 10th, ticketmaster.ie
- Jack White, 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin, September 1st/2nd, ticketmaster.ie
- Shawn Colvin, Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, October 21st-22nd, ticketmaster.ie
