The Guide: The events to see, the shows to book, and the ones to catch before they end

Event of the week

Forbidden Fruit

Saturday, June 3rd-Sunday, June 4th, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin; 1pm; €139/€129; ticketmaster.ie

The 11th edition of this fine city-based two-day event contains all the ingredients needed to shake off the working week and slide you into the bank holiday weekend. It’s a hip and impressive list, with the likes of Rina Sawayama, Annie Mac, Eric Prydz, Olivia Dean, Honey Dijon, Rachel Chinouriri and Channel Tres making the hours pass by. There is also a rake of impressive Irish acts appearing over the weekend, including Abi Coulibaly, 49th and Main, Malaki, Negro Impacto, Ketemma, KhakiKid, and Jazzy (the Co Meath singer who is the first Irish female act in 14 years to grab the number one spot on the Irish singles chart, as well as the first Irish female artist to get to No 1 on the Spotify Top 50 Chart).

Gigs

Soft Cell

Saturday, June 3rd St Anne’s Park, Dublin; 5pm; €49.90; ticketmaster.ie

“Standing in the door of the Pink Flamingo, crying in the rain ... ” After 41 years there are surely not many people who don’t know the title of this song – it’s a synth-pop classic from one of the most revered pop duos of the past 45 years. In that time there have been solo career options for both Marc Almond and Dave Ball, but it seems all roads lead back to what made them the toppermost of the poppermost in the first place. Special guests include fellow synth-pop contemporaries OMD and Heaven 17, and kitchen-dancing, plate-spinning queen Sophie Ellis-Bextor.

Lionel Richie

Sunday, June 4th, St Anne’s Park, Dublin; 5pm; €69.90; ticketmaster.ie

Look, it’s an open-air venue so there’ll be no dancing on the ceiling here. Instead we’ll be having a sizeable sequence of dance floor hit songs from Lionel Richie’s time with The Commodores (including Easy, Sail On, Three Times a Lady) and as a solo artist (including My Love; Truly; Hello; All Night Long; Say You, Say Me). Special guests are the resilient Sheffield electropop trio the Human League (who have a long line of timeless hit songs), and 1980s Dublin band In Tua Nua, who have reformed for why-the-hell-not reasons.

Pulp

Friday, June 9th, St Anne’s Park, Dublin; 5pm; €49.90; ticketmaster.ie

The wide-ranging solo work of Jarvis Cocker continues and, while it rings several bells for him, there is little doubt that in his solo guise he wouldn’t be performing in a section of a very large park on the outer fringes of Dublin city centre. If Cocker’s solo work could be said to be interesting (which it is, and in a very good way), then his work with Pulp is nigh-on irresistible. Special guests include Cocker’s long-term Sheffield mate Richard Hawley and – keeping it close to home – Yorkshire band The Orielles.

Matt Cooper: I’m an only child. I’ve always been conscious of not having brothers or sisters

A Dublin scam: After more than 10 years in New York, nothing like this had ever happened to me

Patrick Freyne: I am becoming a demotivational speaker – let’s all have an averagely productive December

Stage

Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial

Monday, June 5th-Wednesday, June 7th, Gaiety Theatre, Dublin; 7.30pm; €40/€35/€21; ticketmaster.ie

It’s a game of two halves, and we know who scores the winning goal thanks to this play being based on transcripts of last year’s court case between Coleen Rooney (wife of Wayne Rooney) and her one-time friend Rebekah Vardy (who was accused of selling stories of Coleen’s private life to the Sun newspaper, the latter responding by launching a libel action). One might think that seven days of high court testimony compacted into a verbatim play of 100 or so minutes would be dry and anticlimactic but not so. Lucy May Barker and Laura Dos Santos costar.

Every Brilliant Thing

Friday, June 9th-Saturday, July 1st, Abbey Theatre (Peacock), Dublin; 7.30pm; €25/€20; ticketmaster.ie

Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahue’s exploratory play about mental ill health and its associated despair returns to the Peacock stage – as does actor Amy Conroy, who asks the very reasonable question (that some people find difficult to answer): what’s the big problem about highlighting mental health issues? Every Brilliant Thing is part interactive (audience members are gently persuaded to join Conroy on stage), part extemporisation (the real-life dialogue between Conroy and the participants). Joyfully life-affirming and superbly performed.

Film

Paul Newman: American Icon Season

Saturday, June 3rd-Thursday, June 8th; Irish Film Institute, Dublin; various times/showings/prices; Ifi.ie

An American icon is right: from early work in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and The Long, Hot Summer (1958), throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, up to his final feature film, Road to Perdition (2002), Paul Newman was regarded as one the US’s great screen actors. Suitably referencing this, the IFI’s season of 12 of his films draws a red circle around many of his best roles (including the three 1950s films previously mentioned, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Verdict, and The Color of Money).

Arts festival

Carlow Arts Festival

Wednesday, June 7th-Sunday, June 11th, Carlow College venues; various times/events/prices; carlowartsfestival.ie

Between interactive arts events, Irish premieres, family-friendly items, music, visual art, literature/poetry and community collaborations, there is a comprehensive programme here that many arts curators would be envious of. Highlights include music (AE Mak, Jafaris, John Francis Flynn), performance pieces (Sorry, But I Feel Slightly Disidentified), family-friendly (indoor theatre and outdoor cinema) and interactive events (Without Sin, a piece that encourages conversations). Full details on the festival website.

Still running

The Price

Until June 10th, Gate Theatre, Dublin; €31.50/€26.50/€21.50/€16.50; ticketmaster.ie

After a couple of extensions, the time has finally run out for this superb production of Arthur Miller’s 1968 play about aspiration, ancestral responsibility, ego and poor judgment. Simon Delaney, Sean Campion, Abigail McGibbon and Nicholas Woodeson star. Conleth Hill directs.

Book it this week

Fall Right Into Place, Claregalway Castle, Co Galway, September 16th/17th; fallrightintoplace.ie

Anne-Marie, 3Arena, Dublin; November 23rd; ticketmaster.ie

Lucy Beaumont, Vicar Street, Dublin; November 30th; ticketmaster.ie

Lambchop/Kurt Wagner, NCH, Dublin; January 31st; nch.ie