Event of the week
Andy Irvine & Paul Brady
Sunday, November 20th, Waterfront Hall, Belfast; 7pm (sold out); Monday, November 21st, and Tuesday, November 22nd, Vicar Street, Dublin; 7pm (sold out); ticketmaster.ie
What began in 2017 as a 40th-anniversary sequence of gigs is now – thanks to a certain global pandemic knocking tour dates back, back and back – a 45th (and counting) anniversary tour. Released in 1976, Andy Irvine/Paul Brady is rightly regarded as a folk/trad classic album and these shows feature many if not all of its songs. A bonus for these sold-out shows is the inclusion of multi-instrumentalist Dónal Lunny (who, along with Irvine, was an original member of Planxty) and fiddle player extraordinaire Kevin Burke, both of whom also featured on the original album. A must-see/hear for trad/folk fans (if you have a ticket).
Gigs
Sigrid
Sunday, November 20th, Walsh’s, Mitchelstown, Co Cork (sold out); Monday, November 21st, The Chasing Bull, Bundoran, Co Donegal (sold out); Tuesday, November 22nd, Limelight 2, Belfast (sold out); Thursday, November 24th, 3Arena, Dublin; 6.30pm; €43.90; ticketmaster.ie
It’s instructive to know that a performer who can easily headline Dublin’s 3Arena may, if they really want to, play gigs at much smaller venues. Due to various circumstances, Norway’s life-affirming pop singer Sigrid missed out on playing Co Cork’s Indiependence, Co Donegal’s Sea Sessions and a major gig in Belfast, so to make amends she is preceding her 3Arena gig with visits to the venues listed. Can other major music acts please take note?
Columbia Mills
Friday, November 25th, The Academy, Dublin; 7pm; €20; ticketmaster.ie
With their third album, Heart of a Nation, Dublin band Columbia Mills have hit several topical nails on the head. The song narratives aren’t exactly cheery (bleak pandemic-related themes touched upon include living within the current social and political scenarios) but the rhythmically insistent post-punk music (which also features elements of dance/electronic) is so powerful that you are swept along regardless. This gig is the final one of a brief tour and, as they rarely play hometown shows, you are advised to start your weekend in the company of an hour or two of finely honed, vibrant shock-to-the-system tunes.
Quiet Lights
Thursday, November 24th to Sunday, November 27th, Cork city; various venues/times/prices; quietlights.net
Along with Dingle’s Other Voices, Quiet Lights is the country’s premier “winter” festival, sequestered in a compact hub of venues and featuring mostly folk/trad and alternative variations of the same. Now in its fifth iteration (and with no social distancing restrictions), this year’s line-up includes Martin Hayes, John Francis Flynn, Poor Creature, Aoife Nessa Frances, Myles O’Reilly’s Ambient Pharmacy and Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin (whose new album, The Deepest Breath, noted this paper’s traditional music critic, Siobhán Long, is “full of muscle, melancholy and mellow reflection”).
Spoken word/music
Bono
Monday, November 21st, 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin; 8pm (sold out); ticketmaster.ie
Subtitled Stories of Surrender, Bono’s book tour arrives in his hometown following stops across the US, Canada and the UK. Advance reports of the shows are mostly very positive: Bono is on stage with sparse theatrical props (table, chairs) and musicians that aren’t Edge, Adam and Larry (including Crash Ensemble’s Kate Ellis, cello; and Saint Sister’s Gemma Doherty, harp/keyboard/backing vocals). Readings from his book are interspersed with songs (many of which are not fully performed) and underpinned by instrumental and vocal passages. In other words, it is neither a usual gig nor a banal book reading. Tickets? Don’t be silly – they are like the finest, shiniest gold dust, and if you have one consider yourself very lucky indeed.
Stage
Beauty and the Beast – The Musical
Thursday, November 24th to January 8th, Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin; 7.30pm; €26; bordgaisenergytheatre.ie
It’s certainly a big difference from the panto mantra of “Look out behind you”, but with a seasonal show as good as this, who cares? Arriving at BGET redesigned as an entirely new production (and presented by the original creative unit), the Olivier Award-winning stage musical maintains its twinkling Disney touches courtesy of a superb cast and highly memorable tunes. NB: children under the age of three will not be admitted into the theatre.
Comedy
Hannah Gadsby
Tuesday, November 22nd and Wednesday, November 23rd, National Concert Hall, Dublin; 8pm; €45/€35; nch.ie
Before she discovered her comedic groove (in her late 20s), Tasmanian-born Hannah Gadsby worked on farms and as a cinema projectionist, but since then there has been no stopping her. Success follows her around, it seems, and will surely continue as earlier this year she signed a multi-title deal with Netflix, the results of which we shall see next year. In the meantime, with these two shows, Gadsby is promoting the recently published Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation. Expect weighted topics served with acutely self-aware observational comedy.
Exhibition
Grand Stuff
Until early January, National Print Museum, Dublin; free; nationalprintmuseum.ie
Earlier this year, Dublin graphic designer Niall McCormack published (through Hi Tone Books) Grand Stuff, an out-and-out treasure trove of more than 600 examples of Irish label art from the late 1800s to the 1990s. Easy to dismiss, considered unimportant and commonly discounted as visual art, McCormack’s superb work counteracts such views. In the book’s introduction, he says that labels are “markers and drivers of modernity in their own right”, and proof of such a statement can be found in the Grand Stuff exhibition, which features many examples. Question: when are the T-shirts going on sale?
Still running
Haunted/If These Wigs Could Talk
Peacock stage at Abbey Theatre, Dublin, until Saturday, December 3rd; 7pm, 9.15pm; €40 (double bill), €25 (single show); abbeytheatre.ie
Back to back and side by side, Tara Flynn and Panti Bliss present a double bill that is equal parts personal, funny, confessional (Haunted), and gossipy, self-aware, heartfelt (If These Wigs Could Talk). As All About Eve’s Margo Channing said, fasten your seatbelts.
