Tanx a tousand, is it Buffy or Fluffy?

ARTSCAPE:IS IT A PANTO war? Has Buffy defected? (No, she's behind you). It's barely September, but panto productions are gearing up, and the ads offer a hint of what might lie below the surface. The long-running Liberty Hall panto (relocated since last year to the Tivoli Theatre, Dublin 8) is always great, irreverent fun. It is written by Karl Broderick and has hinged – no matter what the storyline – on the double act of Sammy Sausages (Alan Hughes) and Buffy (Joe Conlon).

This year it is doing Cinderellaand while it boasts "Alan Hughes as Sammy Sausages" his co-star isn't credited. He is just referred to as "Buffy, Tanx a Tousand!" with no mention of Conlon, who usually plays the outrageous drag queen – an over-the-top confection for kids with harmlessly smutty double entendresfor adults.

But what's this? The Christmas show at the Mill Theatre in Dundrum has a take on the X-Factorby Shay Healy. It is called Fluffy's Xmas Factor, and stars Joe Conlon (looking quite Buffy-like, to be fair), who is also producing the show, with Lane Productions.

So Buffy’s gone. Oh no she hasn’t, says Sammy Sausages. Sammy (aka Ireland AM weatherman Alan Hughes). “Joe had been doing it for years and, as an actor, he just wanted to try something different.”

Hughes, who's been producing the popular pantos for eight or nine years with writer Karl Broderick as Anthem Productions, stresses that "the character of Buffy which we created is still in the show, with the same look and the same catchphrases". But this year Buffy, now an ugly sister, will be played by John Lovett – who, intriguingly, was an ugly sister in last year's Gaiety panto. He's "just like Joe", says Hughes, and is "very much stepping into a character". Anthem's last Cinderellawas just four years ago (with a memorably nasty Linda Martin as the Wicked Stepmother), but Cinders is a draw that panto producers can't resist. (Oh no they can't).

From Fluffy's point of view, Joe Conlon wanted to produce his own work, and his been planning the Fluffy character for years (maybe she's a cousin of Buffy?) and teamed up with Lane for the Shay Healy show. Breda Cashe and Arts Council chairwoman Pat Moylan's Lane Productions looks to be on a roll at the moment. It is fresh from its Shawshank Redemptionsuccess at the Gaiety (despite some controversies) and the production opens this month in Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End.

- Macbeth on a motorbike, engulfed in fire, street violence and torture; guitar-poets from the Sahara; the world skipping champion performing in DV8 Dance Theatre's sexually frank To Be Straight With You; Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, played by the Mariinsky orchestra of St Petersburg, conducted by maestro Valery Gergiev; the Ulster Orchestra providing the music to Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley's poetry in celebration of their 70th birthdays ... all of this will be happening in Belfast from October 16th to 31st, writes Jane Coyle.

There was a buzz at the launch of the 47th Belfast Festival at Queens that had not been felt for years. And nobody appeared more excited about the programme than director Graeme Farrow, who seemed justifiably bowled over by his impressive international line-up. "I feel quite emotional about it," he says. "I guarantee that anyone who sees Teatr Biuro Podrózy's Macbeth, Who Is That Bloodied Man? will never think of Shakespeare in quite the same way again; hearing the Mariinsky will make your hair stand on end; the Abbey's Terminuswill take your breath away; and the poignant moment at the core of DV8's performance will bring tears to your eyes."

DV8's piece explores issues of tolerance, religion and sexuality through a script drawn from 85 interviewees, including Stephen Scott, a gay man from Northern Ireland who was beaten very badly last year. The Mariinsky orchestra is making a sentimental return to the North, 10 years after its first visit. In 1999, Gergiev took its chorus on an impromptu trip to Omagh to sing Rachmaninov's Vespersin memory of the bomb victims. "I am especially pleased to open the festival with Shostakovich's great 7th Symphony, the Leningrad," he says. "It was written in response to the suffering endured by our own city of St Petersburg and celebrates the universal power of the human spirit, not only to survive adversity but to rise above it and strive for a better world."

Minority communities have their place too, with a generous sprinkling of Polish work in the line-up. There will be 1,000 tickets for community groups and strong support for the Unite Against Hate initiative, launched last week to address intolerance in Northern society.

“In Belfast, we have turned cynicism into an art form,” says Farrow. “This programme is designed to make you feel alive, scared, sad, elated; it should have you punching the air with delight. If I can’t get excited about it, I can hardly expect others to do likewise.”

Because it is semi-homeless, the Lyric Theatre has a somewhat diminished contribution, but it includes A Time to Speak, which is Sam and Joan's McCready's tribute to dancer and Holocaust survivor Helen Lewis; and a reading of David Johnston's new adaptation of Moliere's The Miser, prior to its 2010 tour. The Lyric recently unveiled its new season, starting with artistic director Richard Croxford's revival of The Beauty Queen of Leenaneat the theatre's imposing new temporary home, the Elmwood Hall, before touring. The Christmas double bill is Howl, a new comedy by Grimes and McKee, and T he Tale of the Beauty and the Tail of the Beast, Paul Boyd's musical take on the French fairytale.

It's encouraging to see the Lyric upping its output of new writing with the February production of The Absence of Womenby Owen McCafferty, directed by Rachel O'Riordan. See belfastfestival.com and lyrictheatre.co.uk

- Musicians Honor Heffernan and Brian Dunning, actors Mick Lally, Susan Slott, Susie Kennedy, Garret Keogh, Eamonn Hunt and more pay tribute to the late Irish actor Peter Caffrey tomorrow in Where's the Party?Caffrey died from cancer in January 2008 at 58. The evening of music, poetry and prose at Dublin's Sugar Club was organised by his family and friends. The show is at 8pm and tickets cost €35, with money going tothe Irish Hospice Foundation. Caffrey was known for his work in theatre, including Children of a Lesser God, and on TV in Bracken, Father Ted, Coronation Streetand Ballykissangel.

For tickets call 01-679 31 88 or email info@hospice-foundation.ie.