Irish Times reviewers take in one of pop music's latest female singer-songwriter sensations in Dublin; view the art works of Sam Walsh in Cork; and see Joe Calarco's Shakespeare's R&J in Belfast. Some skate metal thrown in for good measure on today's list.
Katie Melua
Olympia Theatre, Dublin
As whole families, from children to grandparents, take their seats for tonight's concert, the landscape of pop seems to have changed profoundly. Whatever happened to the confrontation of generations, those empowering demands to turn down that racket? Pop music has blurred its boundaries, however, the charts pullulating with polite combinations of near-jazz and almost-blues. Few are enjoying this more than the Georgia-born, Belfast-raised, London-based 19-year-old Katie Melua.
Her jazz-tinged, soul-skirting sophisti-pop has permeated the airwaves this year the way fluoride enters the water supply: everyone seems vaguely aware of it but not conscious of a distinct flavour. As her manager, bandleader and all-round Svengali, Mike Batt, announces that they have reclaimed the top spot from Norah Jones, cynics may wonder if this is a case of the bland leading the bland.
An undeniably precocious talent, Melua has the potential to be more, though. Possessing a voice of pure velvet, an unfathomable beauty and an impossibly broad fan base, she should be guaranteed confidence.
Yet on stage she seems unprepared for this success, so hesitant with her audience patter that at one point she says, "Okay, I'd better talk," sounding like someone who has elected to squeeze a hot coal.
Faraway Voice, Call Off The Search and Lilac Wine are one part Eva Cassidy to two parts 1940s jazz, and Melua invests them with a sensuous lilt but sings with her eyes closed.
Her audience, possibly unused to a gig setting, applaud politely, reserving their most gushing affection for the single The Closest Thing To Crazy, while a few brave souls attempt an arrhythmic clap to her muffled version of The Cure's The Lovecats. It's all extremely tasteful, beautifully lit and studiously inoffensive entertainment, but now that Melua and her audience have inherited the mainstream nobody seems sure what to do with it.
Peter Crawley
Shakespeare's R&J
Grand Opera House, Belfast
In a repressive Catholic boarding school four boys are drilled, robotlike, through the regimentation of their daily routine. By day they recite their Latin verbs, make their confessions and mutter their acts of contrition. But in the dorm at night the suppressed testosterone goes wild as they rummage through forbidden books, picking on and acting out the raunchy bits. On this particular night they find a really dirty book, full of sex, gang warfare and betrayal: it's Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet. In Joe Calarco's original adaptation, the boys were American; for all the flaws and potential pitfalls of the basic conceit, that fact alone must have offered tremendous scope for the exploration of a great love story, told in salty but unfamiliar language.
Here the four actors are English and long past school-leaving age. Thus the cutting edge of their discovery is blunted, and with it the quality of emerging performance. So keen are the efforts to avoid presenting this as a gay interpretation that the result is a kind of sexual emasculation, devoid of the crackle of real passion. Although the designers Michael Fagin and Chris Lee have crafted a great-looking, beautifully lit minimal framework - polished floorboards, two straight-backed chairs, a wooden chest and a bolt of scarlet cloth - there is little else to fix the emotions or the attention. These are clumsy, larky lads who haven't a clue about Shakespearean verse or characterisation; they dip in and out of the text, throwing in random bits from other plays and sonnets.
This rite-of-passage interpretation is an interesting take on a familiar story, but their nocturnal pranks lack a sense of jeopardy or a heart-stopping fear of discovery. It is only when the play itself takes over, in the second act, that the actors' talents begin to break through and mature. But a production that fails to seize our imagination from the word go has scant chance of maintaining it to the end.
Runs until Saturday
Jane Coyle
Sam Walsh: Head
Vangard Gallery, Cork
Sam Walsh's art has garnered an iconic resonance over the years, due mainly to the recognisability of his abstract geometric imagery. Of course, for an artist to be able to get away with refining and subtly modifying a consistent artistic vision there has to be enough going on in the first place.
This series of drawings and paintings could be crudely described as resembling an architectural plan of the perimeter of an irregular building. The boundaries of this shape describe arcs, recesses and corners united into a single, subtly changing motif. This consistency is commendable as Walsh tackles all permutations, establishing artwork that pushes an idea to its limit.
The charcoal drawings, which often form the basis for the paintings, show further dramatic tension, as the tonal contrast is emphasised further through the interaction of black and white. The energy of the mark-making in these drawings is conveyed by the controlled use of smudges, which emanate from the central linear shape.
The paintings are characterised by their use of monochrome, which is discreetly modulated by texture or distressed to allow faint colours beneath to show through. The colours are as bold as the shapes themselves, including a dark turquoise, pale yellow, pink and red. Their impact is highlighted by the ordinarily domineering presence of black. The dialogue between the two provides a visual tension, but there is also a beguiling stillness at the heart of Walsh's work.
Runs until Saturday
Mark Ewart
CKY
Ambassador, Dublin
This skate metal band would have us believe that their mission to infiltrate, destroy and rebuild the music industry is a serious one. Why they go about it in such a half-cocked way as this, on a night when the rest of the Irish music
industry is celebrating itself at the Point, with the Meteor Awards, is a mystery. Here is a very capable rock-metal band, with some anthems in the making, pointing a gun at their head and pulling the trigger; the result is no small laughing matter.
Embraced by the skateboarding community as much as by Marilyn Manson fans, CKY like to decry The Darkness, Everclear and others as fads and fakes. And, yes, although the band valiantly fly the flag for mythically real rock 'n' roll attitude - guitarist and vocalist Chad Ginsburg swigs from a bottle of Jack Daniel's from the outset, almost causing an accident when his guitar veers off his slim frame into the crowd - the ultimate accolade one could reasonably bestow on them is that their display of credentials actually undermines rather than enhances their case.
The show starts well: the band's début Irish appearance after their skateboard video work and association with Bam Margera of Jackass - brother of drummer Jess - bears all the hallmarks of a mini-event. Songs from their Volume One album and their recent Infiltrate-Destroy-Rebuild record are cast out and lapped up.
Gradually, however, it becomes obvious that there is less to them than you might think. The dynamic comes across as anarchic and rebellious,
but the division between Ginsburg's lurches and the rather more sober and professional approach of Deron Miller, his fellow singer and guitarist, reaches a level where it becomes a problem.
The outcome of such a split-personality group is that the gig comes to a chaotic halt, the business of infiltrating, destroying and rebuilding the music industry only chipped at.
The band blame the curfew, saying they'll be fined if they play another song - but that if their fans buy some merchandise they'll be able to pay it. Silly, very silly. Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?
Tony Clayton-Lea
