Reviews

Irish Times writers review Jack and the Beanstalk in Belfast and

Jack and the Beanstalk
Waterfront Hall, Belfast

Welcome to the mad, mad world of Dame Too Hot to Trot, her happy-go-lucky son Jack, their generously endowed cow Scooby Moo and a motley collection of additional small offspring. The first move by Sean Kearns's wonderful Dame is to sign up the young audience to be her pantomime helpers, charged with making the magic happen.

And happen it most certainly does, though in the hands of a lesser cast, the whole thing could be little more than the usual run-of-the-mill retelling of the story of a dim-witted boy, who thinks that by selling a cow for a bag of beans he will alleviate the family's financial problems. But starting with Kearns, whose statuesque Dame has become something of a permanent fixture in a Belfast Christmas, director Simon Magill has assembled some of the best actors in the North - Tara Lynne O'Neill as the black-clad dominatrix money-lender Miss Snout, Marty Rea as a bounding, puppyish Jack and Dan Gordon, in his element as a succession of larger-than-life comic figures, as well as a glowering nine-foot Giant.

The pace set by Liz Keller's original score is fast and furious, skilfully moving the mood between anarchic panic and sweet romance. The musical tour de force is Chris Robinson's Beanstalk rap, which Eminem would be proud to put his name to.

Robinson doubles as an appealing Scooby Moo and a chicken-licking rooster, while Niamh McGrady has the voice of an angel as Jack's love interest, Princess Jill.

There are plenty of verbal and visual jokes to keep adult audiences on side, Stuart Marshall's set has a jolly Yellow Brick Road quality and the whole thing offers the perfect antidote to the winter blues.

It should be on prescription.

• Runs until Jan 14

Jane Coyle

The Thrills
Spirit Store, Dundalk

Three years ago to the week, The Thrills played this venue as part of their debut Irish tour. From then, they have ventured into the relative big time (or, as vocalist and lyricist Conor Deasy succinctly puts it "the rollercoaster ride of nonsense") of acclaimed albums (2003 debut So Much for the City, 2004's Let's Bottle Bohemia), sell-out tours, guest slots with U2, and participation in the series of Live 8 gigs. Why, then, come back to one of the places where (or before) it all started? Because The Thrills are smart, that's why.

For a number of reasons, this gig formed part of a whistle-stop tour of the nation's intimate venues. Unlike many that have struggled, risen and floundered before them, it seems The Thrills still hold in high regard the value of eyeball-to-eyeball contact with an audience that lives and breathes on an individual basis rather than as a collective, homogenous mass (cf, the band supporting U2 at Croke Park during the summer).

Another reason for embracing the sweat was to road-test a batch of new songs.

Always a potentially damaging move - what if the new material stinks? - it shows that the band still feel they have something to prove. And so they spliced favourites such as Big Sur, Whatever Happened to Cory Haim?, The Irish Keep Gate-Crashing, One Horse Town, Found My Rosebud and Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far) with new songs End of the Innocence, Nothing Changes Round Here, Music Won't Change the World, Suzanne, and Someone In Your Life.

Although works in progress, the immediacy of the songs hits like a hammer; in place of the band's favoured, often pilloried West Coast cooler sounds are stronger tunes with more of a dynamic thrust, more texture and far more durable appeal. It was also a fun gig - audience banter, Deasy quips, obvious mistakes and blatant good times.

Unbeatable proof, as if any were needed, that the best gigs take place in the heat of the moment in venues where sleight of hand reclines in the dressing room alongside smoke and mirrors.

Is it a waste of effort to say that other bands really should take note?

Tony Clayton-Lea