Kate Nash at Olympia in Dublin and The Bus at Civic Theatre, Tallaght are reviewed.

Kate Nash

Olympia, Dublin

LAURENCE MACKIN

You can hear a Kate Nash audience before you see them. Largely female, with a few disgruntled boyfriends (dragged along as penance for previous sins, one assumes), the crowd intermittently screams and shrieks at pitches that mostly only dogs can hear. Arms jostle for airspace among glowsticks, mobile phones and an occasional tide of personal items on its merry way to the stage (Mars bars, tea bags and, bizarrely, bras proving particularly popular).

Nash appears to be used to this sort of treatment, and this sort of reaction. She looks fresh as a bunch of cut roses, with all the ebullient confidence of a slightly precocious if charming and witty teenager, and wearing a dress that most women would kill for, which was no doubt bought second-hand in Camden Market. Bouncing around the stage with acoustic guitar or squirming on her piano stool, she soaks up the giddy atmosphere and responds in kind - Mariella is particularly off kilter, a song about a spoiled brat, sung like a spoiled brat to a bunch of . . . delightful teenagers.

Most pop music is polished to within an inch of its life. Solo acts such as Duffy can rely on their own talent and, often just as importantly, a crack professional band behind them to drive the set on.

Here, though, the accompaniment is fractured and sloppy. The backing band members appear to be all playing different gigs; the drummer is determined to make this one his own, the guitarists are uninvolved and one band member strolls about stage like a lost child, trying out a range of different instruments without proving effective on any.

Meanwhile, Nash is up front, blithely churning out the songs and keeping the hysterical crowd stoked to fever pitch. The track

of the night is inevitably Foundations, and the band make a decent stab at filling it out, but it's not nearly enough to make a substantial set. If only the band were as good as Nash, or at least as stylish as her dress.

The Bus

Civic Theatre, Tallaght

SYLVIA THOMPSON

The inside of one of Dublin's city buses doubles as a school bus for the purpose of this hilarious touring production from Barnstorm Theatre Company. Aptly named The Bus, the show is about how a new boy strives to fit in with his classmates on the daily journey to and from school.

The action is full-on right from the start as the pupils bound onto the bus, jumping over seats and pushing each other until they find their places. In fact, the entire show, aimed at six- to 12-year-olds, is dominated by this playful jostling for positions in the pecking order.

Unsurprisingly, the dossers at the back of the bus - Billy (John Morton), Karl (Gus McDonagh) and Triona (Samantha Heaney) - call the shots as new boy Stephen (Gareth O'Connor) struggles to be accepted as one of the gang. But the so-called swots - Lily (Jenny Fennessy), Sally (Phoebe Toal) and shy Tommy (Dylan Kennedy) are also fully engrossed by the slagging and practical jokes that are such a natural part of bus journeys for children.

The playful squabbles come to an abrupt halt as all the children cower when the school bus bully, Bulldog (also played by Gus McDonagh) gets on the bus. The show reaches its denouement when they successfully join forces to devise a plot to challenge the bully.

The acting is superb throughout and the script, written by Maeve Ingoldsby and Philip Hardy, gives the actors well-developed characters that children can easily identify with. But by far the most impressive aspects of The Bus are the physical agility (including full -scale tumbles, snaking under and climbing over seats) and cohesive performances that seamlessly link the cast together. You will be hard pressed to find a more energised and boisterously funny show for children this year.

Touring until April 22