Martin Hayes, Mary McNamara, Helen Hayes, Patrick Marsh

Plays until Saturday September(booking at 01-6082461) prior to tour

Plays until Saturday September(booking at 01-6082461) prior to tour

East Clare is renowned for its relaxed style of playing, and its resistance to the more general collective mania for breaking sound speed records provides a welcome hiatus these days. At Dublin Castle, Martin Hayes et al wasted little time in proving the worth of a slow-turning cog.

Whether it was the unclad set of reels, The Girl That Broke My Heart/The Boys of Ballisodare (Hayes's fiddle partnered by Patrick Marsh's tiptoeing bouzouki) or Mary McNamara's richly-toned concertina navigating The Shandon Bells/Tom Friel's Jig, or indeed Helen Hayes's richly coloured reading of A Fond Kiss, the demure disposition of the music echoed round the hallowed hall.

Hayes's trademark loping bow trod softly as ever through local tunes, his delicate touch infusing them with new life. His sister Helen's voice was a revelation of fresh-minted finesse, particularly resonant on Kilnamartyra, and the bouzouki and concertina of Marsh and MacNamara wove silk threads through fiddle and voice.

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The gorgeously funereal pace allowed aficionado and novice alike to get inside the syntax of East Clare's music. Masterful performances from start to finish.

Tours to Dingle tonight, Cork tomorrow, Wexford on Thursday, Waterford on Friday, Tinahely on Saturday, and on to a further nine venues. Phone 01-671 9429 for information.

Camera Echo

Samuel Beckett Theatre

The final performance in last week's Dublin International Theatre Symposium, hosted by Pan Pan Theatre, was staged on Saturday by the Roman company, Il Pudore Bene in Vista.

Based on a brief text by the Austrian, Andreas Staudinger, it is concerned with sound and light. Directed by Fabrizio Crisafulli (who also designed the sound and light), it is performed by Irene Coticchio and Barbara de Luzenberger, two remarkably look-alike actors who speak with remarkably sound-alike muffled voices.

It tells no cogent or coherent story. It offers no insights into the human condition and engages neither emotions nor intellect. Surprisingly, it also fails to provide any striking images, and on those occasions when the muffled voices are audible, they strike no coherent chords. It amounts to a demonstration of some uses of light and sound with no attempt at dramatic engagement.

It is, by definition, experimental theatre, and it is in the nature of experiments that they do not always work. What this experiment proves, if anything, is that sound and light, of themselves, for their own sake, do not provide a meaningful or fully engaging theatrical experience.

By David Nowlan