Front row

It is public knowledge that Declan McGonagle, the director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, has taken legal action to prevent the board of IMMA advertising his job. Now Gerard O'Toole, executive director of Nissan Ireland, the company which has, through IMMA, sponsored the Nissan Art Project from its foundation four years ago, says his company will withdraw its sponsorship if the difficulties are not satisfactorily resolved.

The Nissan Art Project, which funds temporary public art initiatives, was valued this year at £100,000. It has funded Frances Hegarty's and Andrew Stones's neon signs of texts of Joyce (1997), Dorothy Cross's Ghost Ship in Dun Laoghaire harbour (1999) and Dan Shipsides's Bamboo Support, which was clothing the Carlton Cinema on O'Connell Street until last weekend.

The new representative of the British Council, Ann Malamah-Thomas, has a simple answer when asked how she ended up in Dublin: she got sent. She doesn't think this is a bad way to end up somewhere, however, because preconceptions get challenged: for example, she found Bangladesh "fabulous" and Paris "disappointing". In her 30 years with the British Council, this Scottish woman has also lived in West Africa, Sierra Leone, Peru, Turkey and Lebanon, which was her most recent posting.

She has made only brief visits to Ireland so far, but says Dublin is "probably the most exciting city to be in Europe at the moment. It's a very, very young town and it's absolutely throbbing". She says she hopes to build on the work in arts and culture of her predecessor, Harold Fish. She also wants to explore British/Irish partnerships further to tackle human rights issues. She cites as an example of this work the British Council's involvement with the recent conference on "Women and the Law" at TCD, which was addressed by Cherie Booth.

Meanwhile, Harold Fish is preparing to spend Christmas in West Cork and then travel by boat and car - a bit of a risk, he says, given the state of the vehicle - to his new home in Germany. He thinks that this slow leave-taking will help him and his family make the transition. He arrived in Dublin with his political sensitivity in good shape, having reopened the council's office in Argentina after the Falklands War. In the last six years, he and his organisation have made a huge contribution to Irish cultural life, and have helped foster a new kind of relationship between the two countries.

The official story is that he is going to Germany, his wife's home, to retire, but no-one who knows him believes this for a moment. He agrees: "I have a laptop and a mobile phone and I will do anything moral and more or less legal."

Berlin's famous Schaubuhne Theatre is to bring a Brecht production to the Abbey in April. Mann ist Mann, directed by Thomas Ostermeier, the Schaubuhne's artistic director, will be performed in the "bio-mechanic" style pioneered by Meyerhold. This is, avows the Abbey's Madeline Boughton, "a very energetic, very visual style of physical theatre and the actors have to acquire special skills to perform in it". There are 14 actors, who double as musicians.

The show will be performed in German, but with surtitles, and Boughton insists it is a comedy.

This visit reflects Ben Barnes's aim of building relationships with other European theatres. It is hoped that the Abbey will later tour to the Schaubuhne. And, on Saturday, Domenec Reixach of the National Theatre of Catalonia will visit to discuss details of a European tour of Brian Friel's Translations. Ben Barnes's recent production will open in Barcelona next year.

Saturday's Rough Magic reading of a new play at the Project Arts Centre at 2 p.m. is of Shelagh Stephenson's The Memory of Water, directed by Mark Lambert (booking on 1850-260027). Tickets are already on sale for the famous French mime, Marcel Marceau, who comes to the Olympia Theatre in February, his first show in Ireland in almost 20 years (booking on 016777744).

We stated on this page last week that it was necessary to book for the Children's Art Holiday at the National Gallery - but the gallery points out that this is incorrect.

Anyone wishing to take part can turn up on December 27th, 28th or 29th at 3 p.m.