Super-sized street theatre to get a comeback

While Ed Harris and Neil Labute at the Everyman Palace in November may be closing Cork 2005's theatrical programme with an international flourish, Corcadorca Theatre company's comprehensive "thank you" party last week was made all the more cheerful by director Pat Kiernan's announcement of a repeat in 2007 of the "Relocations" project.

This brought 17,000 people to a series of summer-time promenade performances in the city centre, including a huge production of The Merchant of Venice outside the Cork City Courthouse. The ambition now is to establish a biennial festival of site-specific theatre in Cork. If achieved, this would be a significant bequest from the Cork 2005 organisation, which Kiernan said had responded immediately to the original proposals with enthusiasm and support.

In the meantime, the news that the company will stage a large-scale promenade production of The Tempest next year must have made city manager Joe Gavin's heart sink: more closed-off streets, more traffic diversions, but much more fun.