How did our critics enjoy the year? There were ups and downs, as they confide in their personal hitlists
Visual Arts/Aidan Dunne
HIT
Drawing Thinking, RHA Gallagher Gallery, opened October 9th
Curated by gallery director Pat Murphy and education officer William Gallagher, Drawing Thinking was an exhibition with attitude. Nothing less than a wide-ranging exploration of the current state of drawing, it incorporated not only the myriad forms of the activity that flourish within the preserve of fine art, from academicism to post-modernity, but also demonstrated that it is fundamental to the way we address and mediate the world in a wide variety of contexts. That means everything from architects' visionary scribbles to film storyboards.
A consistently stimulating experience, its centrepiece was a stunning piece of animation by William Kentridge. It was notable that Irish artists, including Charles Cullen and Gary Coyle, looked extremely convincing in this mixed international company.
I ALSO ENJOYED . . .
300 Years of Irish Art, Ulster Museum Belfast, June 3rd
THE Ulster Museum has been criticised for not focusing enough on its holdings of Irish art. This show could be seen as a direct, even unimaginative response to the charge. After all, it's a pretty obvious idea: edit the collection to provide a continuous exemplary historical account of Irish art, and more specifically Irish painting, from its beginnings to the present day. In the event it worked incredibly well. It was strongest, naturally, where the collection is strongest, that is from the late 19th century on.
Other shows and events that stood out were Dorothy Cross's Ghost Ship at Dun Laoghaire throughout February, Callum Innes at IMMA (June 23rd), and Kilkenny Arts Festival's Ana Maria Pacheco exhibition was stunningly well designed and installed in a factory space.
MISS
Perspective 99, Ormeau Baths Gallery, August 15th
ALMOST a miss by design, this year's Perspective at the Ormeau Baths Gallery, selected by London ICA director Philip Dodd, had a curiously dispirited air - perhaps intentionally, since Dodd's guiding thesis seemed to be that we are witnessing a culture winding down. A commentator of considerable experience, he believes that the next century will belong to Asia. As you worked your way around the various gallery spaces it was hard not to be affected by a pervasive feeling of ennui.
Theatre/Gerry Colgan
HIT
The Village, Olympia Theatre, 5th October
There were several serious challengers for my top tribute of the year, but Israel's Gesher Theatre breasted the tape first. Joshua Sobol's script gently unfolded a picture of a village in Palestine in the 1940s, where Arab and Jew lived together as neighbours and friends, close to the soil.
But not far away a great battle was brewing at Alamein, and there were rumours of a massacre of Jews in Germany. While the villagers still lived their ordinary lives - the love affairs, weddings and celebrations in which a few lucky prisoners of war were included - history was taking a bitter turn. When the state of Israel was declared, old friends became enemies, and nothing would again be the same.
This blend of simplicity and tragedy in the Greek style, seen through the eyes of a young boy, was truly affecting. Director Yevgeny Arye achieved the perfect balance, in an evocative set design, of emotion and perspective.
I ALSO ENJOYED . . .
The Whisperers, Belltable, Limerick, April 12th
LET me offer Rough Magic some immediate consolation for their fall from grace in the disappointing Boomtown by adverting to an earlier winner of distinction. They collaborated with writer Liz Kuti to bring to the stage for the first time a dormant play by Frances Sheridan, mother of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In wit, colour and energetic fun, I thought that it rivalled - what else? - The Rivals; a serious accomplishment.
Cloudstreet, SFX Theatre, October 8th
FROM Australia to the Dublin Festival came this five-hour epic of two families brought by circumstance to share a large old house in Perth. The Lambs are righteous and thrifty, the Pickles likeable and shiftless, but they get along. There was an organic feel to it all as the families move through life, facing and surviving its obstacle courses. Suffused with theatricality as it was, it gripped and absorbed, a show one simply had to like.
MISS
Boomtown, Temple Bar, October 9th
I AM sure that the reputable Rough Magic company has put behind it the chaotic collapse of its Dublin Theatre Festival ambitions, in the shape of Boomtown, a play commissioned from a triumvirate of writers. It aspired to be a satirical, Rabelaisian comedy aimed at the venal top dogs of society. But they forgot that to reach that target, it had first to be a play of some merit, and not a diffuse, scatological farce.
Dance/Carolyn Swift
HIT
Fragile, Fabulous Beast Dance Company, Civic Theatre, Tallaght, opened September 29th
COMMISSIONED by the Dublin Fringe Festival, Michael Keegan-Dolan's remarkable dance/drama succeeded in delighting both because of the beauty of its dance and dancers and by providing an endless topic for discussion, with its symbolic treatment of life and death. Both funny and tragic, it managed to convey so much through movement alone about dependency in relationships, hope, fear and frustration that I consider it the Waiting for Godot of dance. This was Keegan-Dolan's best work to date, with an excellent score by Denis Roche.
I ALSO ENJOYED . . .
FRAGILE narrowly beat a trio - CoisCeim's delightful and witty Dish of the Day; Siamsa Tire's innovative Clann Lir, cleverly combining Irish folk and contemporary dance; and Ballet Ireland's excellent-value, small-budget Tchaikovsky Gala.
MISS
Le Savon, Compagnie Shmid-Pernette, Firkin Crane, Cork, opened April 15th
FIFTY-FIVE minutes of repetitive gyrations by four naked dancers with blue-painted bodies, who immersed themselves in four baths filled with water, this was pretentious, unattractive and a waste of funding that would have been better spent on Irish productions.
Comedy/Brian Boyd
HIT
Edinburgh Festival, August 19th-30th
EDINBURGH was as mad, bad and dangerous as ever (The Penny Black, never again). With the Irish not winning many awards, there was a welcome chance to check out two magnificent shows in Simon Munnery's The League Against Tedium and The Mighty Boosh in The Arctic Boosh. And well done to Dublin comic David O'Doherty for carrying off the So You Think You're Funny Award.
I ALSO ENJOYED . . .
Cat Laughs Festival, Kilkenny, June 3rd-9th
KILKENNY'S estimable Cat Laughs celebrated its fifth anniversary this year, and I can distinctly remember sweating like pig and laughing like a drain to Peter Kay and being mightily impressed by newcomer Mitch Hedburg (particularly his tolerance levels for absinthe). And the bus tour with Rich Hall, finding myself sitting beside a lethally hungover Johnny Vegas (Abrakebabra for breakfast? No, Johnny, no) was a hoot and a half. And who was it who had that line about "Ireland being the only third world country where it's safe to drink the water" - almost as good as Barry Murphy's line: "Ireland: the only country left where people still wave at trains."
Elsewhere, Dublin's Laughter Lounge went from strength to strength with some class acts appearing this year, and the Comedy Cellar remains as vibrant as ever.
Finally, a good, strong finish was provided by the Murphy's Ungagged festival in Dublin - particularly Steve Wright, and by Eddie Izzard's rocking set in the RDS. Darth Vader in the canteen - that was rather brilliant, Mr Izzard.
MISS
RTE's "Comedy" Department
AND since they've won this three years in a row, they can now have it in perpetuity.
