Reviewed: Swallow and James Brown

Swallow Everyman, Cork

The assurance with which Michael Harding stamps his authorial identification on his monologue Swallow at the Everyman Studio 2 guarantees its success in an intimate space.

This close to his audience, either actor or spectators might themselves have become intimidated, but Harding's control, expressed fluently through his vocal modulation, and through cramped but economically expressive movements restricted to a narrow plinth, never falters.

Cyril McAloon is presented as a representative - perhaps even the embodiment - of the frightened townlands of the Irish Border counties.

The story of his immediate experiences is coloured by inhibitions inherited through race, geography and disposition, but the man constrained within these violent boundaries has a lurking, if baffled, humanity, a vulnerability kept alive by a single incidence of self-doubt and shame.

That Harding can bring life, and likelihood, to this personality within a hour's presence in an acting space filled with sunlight and other people, almost without any theatrical shielding at all, is a tribute to the lyricism of the written piece, the authority of the speaker and the deft management of director Judy Hegarty Lovett. (Ends tonight) - Mary Leland

James Brown Vicar Street, Dublin

Soul survivor James Brown was in town and the excitement was palpable, but the big question lingering was "Godfather" or "Grandfather". His arrival onstage was preceded by a rousing warm-up from his band of three back-up singers, three-piece brass section, two guitarists, two bass players, drums, percussionist and keyboard, all jamming with wizened brilliance and working up the crowd with hoots and hollers of "give it up for James Brown", "soul brother number-one", "are you ready for the Godfather of Soul?"

Then the circus master entered the ring, and though the waistband was pulled a little higher, Brown looked and sounded as strong as ever.

To make up for the inevitable slowing down of his legendary shimmy, Brown employed a pair of female dancers, who took to the stage with frantic abandon - their hyperactive dancing resembled two cheerleaders trying to put out a fire. Gyrating madly on either side of the "Godfather", they proved more of a distraction than an addition to the proceedings.

Brown's songs are well established in the lexicon of modern music, he doesn't need the visual gimmicks nearly as much as he feels he does.

Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, Payback, This is a Man's World, I Feel Good, Sex Machine - the tunes are instantly recognisable, were delivered with slickness and professionalism, and though Brown's energy levels are not what they used to be, the passion was still in the performance.

With an onstage persona that mingles bandleader theatrics (conducting the music frantically with his hips and fists and implausibly black head of hair) with the charisma of a gospel preacher, James Brown showed a blissed-out Vicar Street crowd just why he still deserves the title "hardest working man in showbusiness".

He may be septuagenarian, but the "Godfather of Soul" still has a few tricks left. - John Lane