Event of the week
Alison Moyet
Sunday, February 16th, 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin, 7pm, €56.35, ticketmaster.ie
If there is an embodiment of the word “resilience”, then Alison Moyet might well be it. The singer came to prominence in 1982 as a member of the short-lived English synth-pop duo Yazoo (with the former Depeche Mode keyboardist and songwriter Vince Clarke); since 1983 she has aimed to do things her way or not at all.
Music-industry issues – litigation and artistic direction and control – notwithstanding, Moyet has continued to produce notably stylish pop music. Her Dublin show is part of a world tour in support of her 2024 album Key, a collection of reworked solo career songs released to coincide with her 40th anniversary as a solo artist.
Gigs
Madeleine Peyroux
Wednesday, February 19th, National Concert Hall, Dublin, 8pm, €55/€50/€45, nch.ie
When Madeleine Peyroux was 13 her parents divorced, prompting a journey across the Atlantic from the United States to Paris. It was in the City of Light that Peyroux found her calling, performing vintage jazz and blues songs with street musicians in the city’s Latin Quarter and eventually being discovered by a talent spotter from a major record label.
Over the past 20 years she has released one classy late-night jazz and light-tinted blues album after another, so her fans will be flocking to this one for more mellow vibes.
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Regretting working outside the home: ‘We’re told to parent like we don’t work. And work like we don’t parent’
Three new Michelin stars for Galway, Laois and Kildare restaurants show trend for great food outside Dublin
Dancing with the Stars: dark and stormy end for Joanna Donnelly as meteorologist loses dance-off
Jazz Sabbath
Thursday, February 20th, Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, 8pm, €26, paviliontheatre.ie
In 2020, in what has to be one of the best cross-genre conceits in quite some time, the musician Adam Wakeman – son of veteran prog-rock keyboardist Rick – formed Jazz Sabbath.
The clue is in the name – Black Sabbath songs, such as Paranoid, War Pigs, Supernaut and Iron Man, played as if written by any combination of Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock – but there’s a kicker of a surprise: what started as a late-night-hotel-bar wheeze has turned into a true success. Magic, black or otherwise, awaits.
Borderline Festival 2.0
Friday, February 21st, and Saturday, February 22nd, Workman’s Club, Dublin, 7.30pm, €30/€20, ticketmaster.ie
More of the Class of 2025, from Ireland, the UK, the US, France and the Netherlands among other counties, showcase their talent on Friday and Saturday evening, when upwards of 30 bands will perform on three of the venue’s stages. (Saturday afternoon features a schedule of music-industry panel discussions.)
Excellent Irish acts to check out include Adore, Mount Palomar and Yard. Keep a beady eye, too, on Anglo-French electro-noiseniks Mandy, Indiana and on astonishing Louisiana powerhouse R&B singer, I Am Roze.
Literature
Limerick Literary Festival
From Friday, February 21st, until Sunday, February 23rd, Belltable, various times and prices, limerickliteraryfestival.com
Celebrating the legacy of the Limerick author Kate O’Brien, as well as progressing Limerick city and county as hubs of literary distinction, this year’s festival features the Irish writers Karen Fitzgibbon, Ciaran O’Driscoll and Christine Dwyer Hickey, plus the Franco-Iranian journalist and author Delphine Minoui.
A highlight of the weekend is the presentation of the 2025 Kate O’Brien Award for a debut novel or short story collection by a woman Irish author. Nominees include Maggie Armstrong, Christine Anne Foley, Orlaine McDonald and Roisin Maguire. The festival closes with an In Conversation event with the economist, Irish Times columnist and broadcaster David McWilliams.
Film
Dublin International Film Festival
From Thursday, February 20th, until Sunday, March 2nd, various venues, times and prices, diff.ie
Ireland’s most comprehensive film festival delivers an impressive line-up of world premieres, industry events, masterclasses and quite a few star-studded red-carpet moments.
Actors who are due to be at the screenings of their new films include Ralph Fiennes (The Return, for the festival’s opening-night gala) and Fiona Shaw (Park Avenue).
Highlights of the interview strand include the actor and director Sadie Frost and the style icon Twiggy (hosted by Amy Huberman) and the Pulitzer-winning film critic Justin Chang, while the prestigious Volta Awards will honour the US actors Ed Harris and Jessica Lange. The festival concludes, as has become its tradition, with its surprise film.
Stage
King Lear
From Friday, February 21st, until Sunday, April 27th, Gate Theatre, Dublin, 7.30pm, €38/€28/€18, gatetheatre.ie
The Gate is billing Shakespeare’s magnum opus – staged at the theatre for the first time in more than 80 years – as an “unparalleled portrait of power, hubris, greed and betrayal”, which sounds about right.
Olivier Award winner Conleth Hill takes the lead role, with Jolly Abraham, Eavan Gaffney and Emma Dargan-Reid as Lear’s daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. Roxana Silbert, a former associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, directs.
Comedy
Ania Magliano
Friday, February 21st, Sugar Club, Dublin, 8pm, €22, ticketmaster.ie
The rising English comedian Ania Magliano has collected more than a few plaudits over the past three years – “sharp, poised and deadpan hilarious”, Time Out noted of her 2022 debut Edinburgh Festival Fringe show, Absolutely No Worries If Not.
Magliano brings her 2024 Edinburgh show, Forgive Me, Father, to Ireland for the first time. Topics include female contraception, divorce, bisexuality and conversations with her three-year-old self – a show The Scotsman described as “fresh, surprising and playful”.
Still running
Richard Gorman: Japan
Until Saturday, February 22nd, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, kerlingallery.com
Living and working between Dublin and Milan, Richard Gorman excels at the playful interchange between colourful curvilinear shapes that seem equally to glide and bump into each other.
Influenced by his travels (notably to Milan and to Echizen, Japan), this exhibition focuses on the rhythmic motif of the circle, which Gorman has beautifully fashioned on handmade Echizen kozo washi paper.
Book it this week
Ballydehob Jazz Festival, Co Cork, May 2nd-5th, ballydehobjazzfestival.org
Leon Bridges, Iveagh Gardens, Dublin, July 20th, ticketmaster.ie
Michael McIntyre, Live at the Marquee, Cork, July 25th and 26th, ticketmaster.ie
Throwing Muses, Whelan’s, Dublin, August 22nd, foggynotions.ie
