The Guide: Paul Heaton, St Patrick’s Festival, a Radiohead jazz symphony and other events to see, shows to book and ones to catch before they end

March 15th-21st: The best movies, music, art and more coming your way this week

Sat Mar 15 2025 - 05:03

Event of the week

Paul Heaton

Thursday, March 20th, 3Arena, Dublin, 7pm, €49.20; Friday, March 21st, SSE Arena. Belfast, 7pm, £43.95/£40, ticketmaster.ie

Paul Heaton, formerly of The Housemartins and The Beautiful South, has for more than 40 years been delivering perfectly bittersweet, unpreachy, socially aware pop songs that no one else seems to write any more. His solo albums, in particular, brim with songs forged in the warmth of pub fires, and he remains the only pop singer alive who has toured the UK (twice) by bike. Heaton’s arena shows will be followed by a five-date mini Irish tour, a continuation of his mission to eventually play all of Ireland’s 32 counties. The tour starts on Sunday, March 23rd, at the Market Place Theatre in Armagh, and concludes on Saturday, March 29th, at Kavanagh’s in Portlaoise, Co Laois.

Festivals

St Patrick’s Festival

Saturday-Monday, March 15th-17th, various venues, times and prices, Dublin, stpatricksfestival.ie

Delve into the programme for the bank-holiday weekend and you’ll discover gems that include late-night electronic music (at the Complex, Sound House, Wigwam and Pygmalion), dance (including the Lithuanian folk dance troupe Suktinis, at St Stephen’s Green bandstand) and Bedlam Bazaar circus/comedy (Jameson Distillery).

Gigs

J Smith & Ora Quartet

Wednesday, March 19th, Fumbally Studios, Dublin, 8pm, €20, eventbrite.ie

One-of-a-kind events are a rarity these days, so make a beeline for this gig featuring J Smith (formerly of Gypsies on the Autobahn), his brother Daniel Luke, and the Ora Quartet. After several months in France writing music for his forthcoming album, Smith has decided to showcase the new songs (one of which is his recently released folksy gem Tattoos for Fun) in one of his favourite Dublin venues. Along with the new material, Smith will perform selections from his acclaimed 2021 debut solo album, …And You Chose Not to Laugh. All profits to Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, to help the rebuilding of Palestine.

Radiohead, A Jazz Symphony

Thursday, March 20th, NCH, Dublin, 8pm, €42.50/€28.50, nch.ie/rte.ie

It’s a brave and adventurous move: the RTÉ Concert Orchestra reimagining/rearranging Radiohead songs for jazz soloists and ensemble. It raises the question of what an orchestra can do with Radiohead’s music that the band themselves haven’t. The answer lies in the doing, with the Noordpool Orchestra founder Reinout Douma conducting a programme that includes band classics such as Creep, No Surprises, Karma Police, Weird Fishes and Paranoid Android. Thom Yorke’s solo track The Eraser will also receive a rigorous re-examination, as does Radiohead’s rejected James Bond song, Spectre, one of their more obscure tracks.

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Spiritualized

Thursday, March 20th, National Stadium, Dublin, 8pm, €40.80, foggynotions.ie

Fronted by the UK musician, producer and songwriter Jason Pierce, Spiritualized released their second studio album, Pure Phase, in 1995. The passing of time has only added to its allure, with Louder Than War magazine recently describing it as a forgotten masterpiece. A performance of the album in its entirety (along with songs from Pierce’s back catalogue) is hugely anticipated by fans eager to hear what the man himself has described as sounding like “driving as fast as you can in torrential rain”.

Visual art

Paul Mosse: The Materialist

From Saturday, March 15th, until Saturday, April 12th, Grilse Gallery, Killorglin, Co Kerry, grilse.ie

The work of the Kilkenny artist Paul Mosse is inspired by the seemingly never-ending conflict and chaos of the natural world. While drawing is at the foundational heart of his work, he makes paintings and sculptures using a broad range of mixed media and layered found materials, such as nails, screws, plastic pellets, wood, sawdust and polystyrene foam. The outcome is both imaginative and distinctive, with bursts of form and colour.

Animation

Animation Dingle

Friday-Saturday, March 21st-22nd, various venues, times and prices, Dingle, Co Kerry, animationdingle.com

“A space where artistry meets opportunity” is part of the way Maurice Galway, the festival’s director and cofounder Maurice Galway, describes Animation Dingle, which since its inception, 13 years ago, has grown from meetings for enthusiasts in small rooms in Dingle to a global hub for animators. Alongside a range of shorts, there are panel discussions (including Ink to Animation: The Comic Book Artist’s Journey to the Screen), conversations (including Aardman’s Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham) and a showing of Memoir of a Snail, which was nominated for best-animated feature at this month’s Oscars.

Comedy

Pat and Faye Shortt: Knuckle Down

Thursday, March 20th, and Friday, March 21st, 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin, 7pm, €35.50/€31, ticketmaster.ie

Take one of Ireland’s best-loved physical comedy performers, add a daughter who has long been immersed in the family business, put on stand-up and character-driven sketches and you have a recipe for the kind of show you don’t see too much of any more. Shortt the elder draws on his extensive repertoire of readily identifiable figures, while Shortt the younger focuses on more contemporary but no less familiar people. The duo’s Irish tour continues until Friday, April 18th; then they’re off to New Zealand and Australia. Catch them while you can.

Still running

Christine Mackey: Seeking to Walk Beautifully on the Earth

Until Saturday, March 22nd, Model, Sligo, themodel.ie

Christine Mackey’s solo exhibition focuses on the negative issues of habitat devastation, energy crises, biodiversity harm and species extinction, and on the positive themes of rebirth and responsiveness. The works include experimental video and large-scale hybrid drawings of aquatic plants. Her approach, says Mackey, “attempts to activate new ideas related to site, agency and ecology”.