THE BULL is one of two Irish productions in this year's Dublin Theatre Festival; the other, a production of Hamlet at the Peacock Theatre, will be directed by Conall Morrison, fresh from the lighter climes of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Abbey.
On the Abbey stage, meanwhile, there'll also be Shakespeare (The Winter's Tale, from all-male UK ensemble Propeller), as well as the acclaimed dramatic overview of the Saville Inquiry, Bloody Sunday, which will open the festival.
At the Gaiety, you'll find yet more of the Bard, with a young Lithuanian company's take on Romeo and Juliet - in a pizza parlour. That venue will also play host to the Tony-winning Broadway smash, I Am My Own Wife, a one-man show which explores the incredible life of a German transvestite caught up in both the Communist and the Nazi regimes.
The Olympia drapes itself in the iconography of rock and cinema, with the Morrisey-Marr inspired Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others and Laurel and Hardy, while the Project hosts some icons too - the visually stunning Russian group Akhe, with White Cabin.
More work of an experimental hue will be at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, with the Belgian production White Star and the Georgian marionette piece Battle of Stalingrad. There, too, the powerful South African drama Tshepang will run.
And speaking of powerful drama, all eyes will be on the Gate Theatre on October 10th. That's the 75th birthday of Harold Pinter, and the playwright will be in attendance at a party held in his honour. Productions of two of his plays, Old Times and Betrayal, will form part of a fortnight-long celebration.
