Small Things Like These – Cillian Murphy casts light onto the dark legacy of Irish mother and baby homes (cinemas from Friday 1 November)

Bill runs a local company delivering coal and peat briquettes to homes and businesses. The Good Shepherd Convent is a regular customer. Over successive visits he begins to witness things that alarm him, particularly around the treatment of a young girl Sarah (played by Zara Devlin). It provokes him to reflect on his own upbringing, bullied in school, and growing up with his mother’s surname. Putting two and two together, he is faced with opportunities to intervene.

Much of Small Things Like These plays out in the run up to Christmas 1985. (In case you forget, snow blows around in several scenes to remind you, it’s frosty presence also increasing the feeling of bleakness.) This is a time when the Catholic school children sing carols from a platform in the town square before Mother Superior (Emily Watson) hits the button to turn on the Christmas tree lights. Bill is both bribed and threatened. The folk in Wexford know all too well that the nuns can apply pressure through rumours never mind their control of the local school. So many people are seen to be complicit by their deliberate lack of curiosity: “… if you want to get on in this life, there are things you got to ignore”.

Cillian Murphy is wonderfully watchable playing Bill, a man of many thoughts and few words. At least a third of the film is spent watching him process life. The vigour with which he scrubs his fingers at the end of the day to remove the coal dust indicates his sense of wellbeing. The concern shown in his brow before stopping his lorry to chat to a young lad far from home collecting sticks along the road. Aside from the elephant in the room of how human beings in religious orders could misinterpret or ignore Jesus’ parable around “whatever you did for one of the least of these”, the pivotal questions of the film are whether a man steeped with compassion can intercede, and will it make any difference?

I walked into a screening of Small Things Like These wary of a film centred around a man but telling the story of mother and baby homes in Ireland. There is tremendous power in the words of mothers who were victims of the abuse scandal finally being heard, no longer silenced or shamed. Check out The Sunflower Project Exhibition in The Linen Hall’s vertical gallery from 4–29 November with art, poetry and personal items telling the story of people impacted by mother and baby institutions, coordinated by Sole Purpose Productions.

By the end of 98 minutes, the quality of the storytelling and the portrayal won me over. Murphy’s involvement will bring the scandal to a wider audience. Moreover, the story proffers a challenge to citizens in contemporary Ireland and beyond about whether when faced with evidence of wrongdoing they will speak out and intervene. Sinéad O’Shea’s documentary Pray For Our Sinners (available on Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Sky streaming services) is an interesting companion piece, the real life story of two doctors who intervened to help young mothers.

Claire Keegan’s novel won the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Enda Walsh’s screenplay stays true to her narrative, and Tim Mielants’ unrushed direction creates a spellbinding portrait. Crucial scenes set in a coal bunker create a visual metaphor for the dark acts of inhuman behaviour. The lives of tens of thousands of woman and children were affected by the Magdalene Laundries. This film only begins to scratch the surface of what had been happening for centuries.

Small Things Like These is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre as well as Omniplex and Movie House cinemas and Belfast Cineworld from Friday 1 November.

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Aurora: A Modern Myth – trippy story of one woman’s rage against the mining machine (Prime Cut in The MAC as part of Belfast International Arts Festival) #BIAF24

Cass has a strong connection to the land, and one tree in particular that gives her strength. A mining company want to exploit the gold that’s been discovered in the area. They lack the rights to the land on which her tree stands. Cass has planned a one-woman live-streamed protest, chaining herself to the trunk. Her catastrophising friend Drew offers support. Then her brother Conn turns up running PR for the aptly named mining company (say ‘Golden Shire’ in a thick country accent and you’ll get the sense of domination at play).

Aurora: A Modern Myth is a story about valuing nature over profit, about one person taking a stand to make a difference, and about the powerful institutions that can crush rebellion.

The cast’s performances are very strong. Meghan Tyler narrates the story, talking into the invisible live-streaming camera that sits with the audience. While the first few minutes of the performance are physically very static, Cass’s commitment to the venture shines through Tyler’s gifted and intense storytelling. Less is more, and director Emma Jordan uses every gesture, every laugh, every eyeroll to enchant and draw the audience in.

Dominic Montague’s play flits between two timelines: the site of Cass’s ongoing protest, and her detention after her protest and an ensuing riot has been broken up by ‘authorities’. Maria Connolly appears on screen as the brilliantly stern and callous interrogator trying to prove Cass’s role in the melee and the subsequent disappearance of a large amount of gold. The black and white capture and tight facial shot of her off-stage delivery is very effective.

Brother Conn (Conor O Donnell) is the character who must switch sides. Corporate lackey making excuses for the mining company at the start (replete with golden yellow tie); fervent supporter of Cass by the end. Drew (Thomas Finnegan) is a steady influence, until the lad loses his cool in a later scene and unexpectedly turns into a raving shaman.

Connolly’s second role steals scenes as a talking anarcho-communist badger. Prime Cut have worked with Ulster University to explore how animation can integrate with theatre. The results are mixed, and the production is somewhat compromised to support the experiment.

The use of gaming technology like Unreal Engine to drive video backdrops in real-time is becoming commonplace in UK touring productions. The Belfast Ensemble used other techniques to brilliantly flood The MAC’s main theatre with projection in their recent restaging of The Doppler Effect.

Ciaran Bagnall’s set consists of a stylised tree and a white box atop a neutral carpet, a canvas onto which projections are mapped. The precision is remarkable, but the graphics don’t consistently excite the imagination. While I was expecting to see squirrels darting about the branches or crows ominously staring down at the humans below, instead any movement was less flashily focussed on the tree sap and the underground gold.

The sweary and spiky badger lip-syncs with Connolly’s live speech – a good technology demonstration – but between the rendering and the projection, the appearance of the animal is quite blurry. With the important surfaces of the set needing to face the front-mounted projectors, the overall effect is to flatten the stage and the blocking, remove the opportunity for more dynamic angles.

The next generation of video and theatre technology will take some time to bed in. Experiments like Aurora are important steps in isolating what works, and in which situations. The actor-linked elements are strong (the remote interrogator and the cute badger) and can be built upon. Perhaps more can be done to mature the tree into a full character rather than a prop.

Katie Richardson’s richly layered soundtrack endures throughout the performance and helps delineate the mood-swings between scenes. Ditching the interval and running straight through for 90 minutes is a good decision that prevents audiences needing to overcome inertia to re-enter the imaginary world after a bar break. Rosie McClelland’s costume choices are sympathetic to the constant projection and are boldly tweaked for the final scenes.

Favourite lines from the sparky dialogue include “Strong password, my hole!”, “Lakes don’t have rights / Hhave you seen the state of Lough Neagh?”, and the catchphrase “Badger, out”.

There’s a strong sense (sadly unseen) of young people uniting to share their wealth and their stories to encourage Cass and help her secure the title to the land over the heads of older capitalist adults. There’s a desire to protect the future, and play a small part in a larger, eternal story. And there’s much (re)connecting with nature.

As ‘modern myths’ go, it’s quite trippy. But the lack of sufficient dramatic tension or sustained peril makes Aurora feel like a play that in its current form is designed to be a conversation starter rather than the full destination. Aurora: A Modern Myth continues at The MAC until 2 November as part of Belfast International Arts Festival.

Photo credits: Ciaran Bagnall

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Losing It and In Between – trauma informed dance that makes physical the anguish of conflict (Belfast International Arts Festival at the MAC until Saturday 26 October) #BIAF24

The trauma of our circumstances and situation, not to mention the inherited trauma from previous generations, can affect our bodies, our movement, our minds. Losing It sees Palestinian choreographer and dancer Samaa Wakim move along, around, under and over a long stretch of tape. Her manner veers from being tentative, to being almost giddy with exuberant joy, to being physically fearful.

The soundtrack blends the noise of traffic, emergency sirens, military vehicles and fireworks, all played over a disconcerting bed of pink noise. Intended to be played live by Samar Haddad King, at this evening’s performance the DJ decks and microphone to one side of the stage remained unmanned to remind audiences that it was impossible for Samar to travel to Belfast.

Samaa Wakim’s sense of balance, both at ground level and later in the air – the tape feels like ‘Chekhov’s tightrope’ right from the start – is impressive. Losing It was devised long before the 7 October attacks last year and the subsequent conflict. Some of the sounds were recorded a decade ago, but Samar has continued to remix more contemporary noises into the soundtrack. The symbolism of the movement, and the poignancy of the physical tape representing borders, balance/equilibrium and barriers is heightened by the recent events.

Esam Sultan from the Palestinian Circus School opened the evening with another performance – In Between – that uses a tape. This time it was thicker, tied onto his ankle and secured to a fixed point off stage, limiting the performers locus of free movement. While his freedom was frustrated and curtailed, there was still room for creative expression, cartwheels and headstands. A cry for help and an audience member’s intervention changed the dynamic, yet the very presence of the tape still created a sense of struggle and legacy.

Dance offers a universal language – albeit it one subject to much interpretation and even misunderstanding and head-scratching by reviewers! – that can transcend place, and people and time. Your mind can freewheel as you draw together the visual and auditory elements to construct the story. (Though the post-show chat with the performers – including Samar who joined remotely – reminded the audience that conflict can also crush the urge to create and play.)

There’s another chance to enjoy Losing It and In Between in the MAC on Saturday 26 October as part of Belfast International Arts Festival which continues until 26 November.

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The Apprentice – a frightening film to get you in the mood for Halloween (in cinemas from Friday 18 October)

A fictionalised but highly believable study of how fast and loose lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) schooled a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) in the rules of winning – even when you’re clearly losing – before Cohn was consumed by the monster he had created.

Obsessed with image, size and opulent glamour, Trump becomes a master of hyperbole, bluff, nicknames, sexualised language, reshaping the truth, and a violent sexual assault (based on a divorce deposition by his first wife Ivana, played brilliantly by Maria Bakalova).

Yet Ali Abbasi’s movie never comes across as a character assassination.

Overall, a frightening film to get you in the mood for Halloween. 

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Dahomey – a rewarding documentary about the return of plundered loot (QFT from Friday 25 October)

Documentaries only make rare appearances in local cinemas outside of curated film festivals. But they often surprise and linger in the imagination longer than higher-budget flights of fantasy, fictional movies.

Dahomey is unhurried, yet barely over an hour in duration. At times it is almost mindful with a black screen, occasional ghostly narration from ancestral voices, and a great soundtrack. It tells the story of 26 artefacts that were returned from France to Benin.

The West African kingdom of Dahomey existed between the 17th and 20th centuries. Its treasures were plundered. Some ended up in the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris, an entire museum devoted to art from outside Europe.

The film, written and directed by Mati Diop, watches as French and Beninese museum curators box up statues of kings and trinkets to securely transport them four thousand kilometres south to their new home. Joséphine Drouin-Viallard’s cinematography offers a mix of CCTV footage, arty static shots looking though layers of objects at COVID-masked museum staff and members of the public.

There are jubilant scenes as people line the streets to greet the vehicles carrying the wooden crates from the airport to Benin’s Presidential Palaces. What were mere museum exhibits in Paris take on the mantle of being treasures in Benin. The moody narration speaks of the objects moving from darkness to light. An animated discussion amongst university students offers differing perspectives. One person’s celebration is another’s cause for continued regret. Some describe a sense of pride and enhanced identity as they celebrate the restitution of the 26 artefacts; others say they are witnessing a negotiated failure with France wrongly praised for their generous return of just 26 out of around 7,000 objects that remain abroad.

Justice is disputed. Is the coloniser benevolent or still holding power over the colonised? Students remark that they are discussing the return using the coloniser’s French, rather than a local language like Fon. The great and the good attend the official opening. Students call for funding to be made available to schools from across Benin can afford to visit and allow children to connect with their culture and history. What use is it simply moving these objects from being locked away in Paris to being inaccessible in Benin?

Dahomey is a simple yet beautifully crafted film that mixes together spiritual, cultural and history. The film offers an insight into unfamiliar history and an unfamiliar culture. Yet the notion of colonising powers looting treasure is sadly universal: the fate of the Elgin Marbles would be just one example closer to home. Dahomey is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 25 October.

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The Tragedy of Richard III – the rise and fall of a king who loses his grip (Lyric Theatre until Sunday 10 November as part of Belfast International Arts Festival) #biaf24

Richard, the Duke of Gloucester has recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Rather than feeling depressed, the prognosis fires up his ambition to seize the crown from his brother Edward and place himself on the throne. As Richard hatches plans and his henchman Tyrrel silently dispatches all who stand in his way, the wannabe monarch’s health deteriorates. Ultimately, the wheelchair-using ruler runs out of room to manoeuvre, and the sword Richard has wielded turns against him.

The Tragedy of Richard III is a whip-smart adaptation of William Shakespeare’s second longest play. Oisín Kearney and Michael Patrick have cut down to size the original panoply of characters, with some non-speaking roles even replaced with dress dummies wheeled around the stage by the nine cast members. The essence of the story remains intact, and the humorous tone – at times camp – of the first half perhaps more closely resembles the original performances in London’s rowdy Globe Theatre than worthy productions that exude self-importance.

Michael Patrick plays Richard, returning to the stage in ever more elaborate and elevating wheelchairs as his power grows. Remaining seated in no way limits the portrayal. Scooting about the stage, being trapped by scenery, Richard has a growing understanding of how his illness affects some aspects of his independence. (At some performances, the role of Richard will be played by Zak Ford-Williams.) The speeches and dialogue have the heft of a man on a mission, while the side eye and gesticulations give a sense of the impatience and impertinence of Richard. His older brother Clarence prances around in his Y-fronts with an accent that resembles Daniel O’Donnell. Hardly king material. Loyal servant Tyrrel is played by Deaf actor Paula Clarke. Tyrrel’s use of sign language never seems unnatural, and while the characters take as many liberties with their gestures as they do the spoken word, Tyrrel’s deafness is integral to the role and adds depth to the character. (Though I wish at least one character had been allowed to sign properly with BSL rather than the communication being one-way.)

Patrick McBrearty play’s Richard’s strong ally and strategic thinker. There’s a warmth in their relationship and a playfulness to the way his Buckingham lobs comments and asides into other people’s conversations. A king-to-me apparently needs a wife, and Lady Anne (Ghaliah Conroy) is coerced into marrying Richard, a further abuse from the man who killed her father (King Henry VI) and her previous husband. Pleasingly, Conroy later returns in the role of Richmond to challenge Richard for the crown.

King Edward’s pregnant wife, Queen Elizabeth, senses that she has much to lose as Richard sweeps to power. Charlotte McCurry channels a don’t -mess-with-me spirit as she fills Elizabeth with passion and – at least – attempts to stand up to the bully

Katie Richardson’s score features live percussion: Allison Harding (playing the Duchess of York, Richard’s mother) sounds like she had a misspent youth in a rock band or an orchestra as she beats the kettle drums. The timpani and side drums feed into the military aspect of monarchy and assist the build-up to the epic final battle scene. While the sparse stage with blocky set are almost reminiscent of the story playing out in Minecraft, the method of disposing of bodies, the paramilitary mobs, and the riot police summon up shadows of contemporary society and power struggles.

The first half places Richard centre stage and wittily depicts his bloody rise to the top. After the interval, it is all about him losing control. Richard is struggling to catch his breath and can no longer operate his own wheelchair and is unable to dress himself. He’s losing his grip. The black drapes that created cosy locations in the first half have been removed and the audience can see behind the scenes of Niall McKeever’s set. The levity is gone, and the audience appreciate that Richard has lost his smoke and mirrors. The end is nigh.

A costume change in the final scene signals that Michael Patrick is delivering Richard’s words as an actor rather than the character. It’s a moment that acknowledges that the actor was diagnosed last year with Motor Neuron Disease. His qualification for the role is sobering and heart-breaking. It’s clearly a poignant speech to deliver, and a very emotional moment for the audience to witness. Long may Michael Patrick continue to ply his acting trade on stage. His anchoring of this version of Richard III is a career-defining performance, a remarkable living celebration of his talent and resilience. And long may his award-winning writing partnership with Oisín Kearney continue to bear rich fruit.

The Tragedy of Richard III is a bold production with which to open the Belfast International Arts Festival. It’s very accessible to audiences unfamiliar with Shakespeare: a handy family tree at the back of the programme explains who everyone is, and I kept that page open on my lap throughout the first act. It’s also a testament to how disability can be very naturally and inclusively incorporated into theatre. It can be designed in and nothing is lost. Quite the opposite. There’s a richness to the wider representation and it expands the potential for storytelling.

Shakespeare might not be your thing, but 24 hours after standing to applaud the opening night cast, the story and the performances and the atmosphere is still whizzing around my head. The Tragedy of Richard III is seriously good theatre, and continues its run at the Lyric Theatre until Sunday 10 November.

Photo credit: Johnny Frazer, Melissa Gordon.

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An Inspector Calls – come to be bamboozled, prepare to be challenged (Grand Opera House until Saturday 19 October)

Before An Inspector Calls begins, the red curtains stretching across the stage are sitting at a jaunty angle. A hint about the out of kilter nature of the lives that are about to unravel on stage. It’s 1912, and an air raid siren wails while rain falls. But those irritations don’t interfere with the postprandial chat of the Birlings as they celebrate daughter Sheila’s betrothal to Gerald Croft.

Ian MacNeil’s set plays with scale and perspective, putting the oversized family in a cramped birdcage of a shrunken dolls house that has been elevated six feet above contradiction. The Birlings’ initial conversation is heard but not seen: it’s important that we get an honest measure of their characters and motivations before judging their posh dress and upper middle class deportment. The maid Edna remains on the ground, technically outside the house, never ascending to the Birling’s level, her mostly silent presence a constant reminder of the us and them classism writ large in J. B. Priestly’s script.

Edna announces the arrival of Police Inspector Goole. His impertinent questioning in connection with the death of a young woman, Eva Smith, gradually reveals the prosperous family’s communal complicity in the circumstances leading up to the tragedy. As the household literally and figuratively collapses, can the Birling family come to terms with their behaviour and take the rap for their unpleasant actions?

Son Eric (George Rowlands) comes across at first as unfiltered and an original thinker before we find out about his much darker, coercive side. Older sister Sheila (a bravura performance from Leona Allen) has a sharp temper in public but is eager to please in private at home, her dialogue at times used to unsubtly reinforce Priestly’s summation of each scene in case the audience were in any doubt. Father Arthur (Jeffrey Harmer) is a bully who has become too big for his britches and craves civic recognition, while his well-to-do wife Sybil (Jackie Morrison) assumes moral superiority over everyone. Fiancé Gerald (Tom Chapman) is a cad, though an honest one right up until the point he constructs a giant Get Out of Jail Free Card for his future in-laws. Inspector Goole (Tim Treloar) drops in like a bomb on a short fuse, bringing the family down to his level, needling each member into admissions of guilt and culpability until they are left lying on the floor, shadows of their former glorious selves.

Priestly – through Goole – lectures the audience about power imbalances, classism, and the danger of letting the capitalists walk over the workers. Premiered in 1945 – in Russia of all places – An Inspector Call predates George Orwell’s Nineteen Eight-Four but deals with the management and manipulation of truth (albeit more mildly mannered). Director Stephen Daldry makes Treloar deliver an almost Messiah-like sermon straight out to the stalls, with Rick Fisher’s atmospheric lighting removed for fullest effect. Despite all this effort, I’m not sure the feeling of personal shame and responsibility quite landed on the Grand Opera House audience.

The sleight of hand at play throughout most of the play is good fodder for reviewers who are also fact checkers. Who do we believe? How do we come to make judgements?

“I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it.” sounds like the rantings of an impetuous child … or a modern political candidate. But it’s the part of the modern arsenal of denying uncomfortable facts, doubling down on lies, diverting attention, and manufacturing elaborate explanations to prove why what seems intuitively obvious might not be demonstrably reliable.

And while Priestly’s critique of capitalism has no room for a critique of socialism (or communism), he asks good questions. Who do we protect? Ourselves or others? Do the rich inevitably build their version of morality around not getting caught doing the bad things they’ve done? Do the working class look on like sinless witnesses of the rich people’s depravity without any means of intervention? (That last question might not be one that Priestly intended to pose.)

The twist in the final minute is almost undermined by the sheer amount of doubt that has been spread in the preceding 45 minutes. It’s a slightly disappointing ending to an otherwise tightly written and engagingly staged play that thankfully doesn’t solely rely on a big reveal like other touring mystery plays.

An Inspector Calls continues its run at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 19 October. There’s no interval so empty your bladder. And please silence your mobiles. They didn’t exist in 1912. And a shout out to the community cast who loiter in later scenes and remain upright for the bows at the end.

Photo credit: Mark Douet

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Belfast Film Festival – ten days of homegrown and international cinema (Thursday 31 October–Saturday 9 November)

Belfast Film Festival is back with a ten-day programme that celebrates films and filmmaking, from shorts to medium duration and feature-length cinema. While there’s nothing from Iceland being screened this year (that alone qualifies a film to jump to the top of a must-see list), there are lots of local and international screenings to choose from.

Thursday 31 October

Fréwaka | 19:00 at Cineworld (103 minutes) | Aislinn Clarke’s second feature opens the festival. It tells the story of care assistant Shoo, who rather than confront the death of her mother, takes a job looking after an elderly woman in a large and remote country house. As the two women slowly come to trust each other, events take a turn that mean they are forced to face up to the truth about each other’s lives. This Irish language horror was shot in Carlingford and Ravensdale, capturing an atmospheric Ireland steeped in history, folklore, secrets and religious iconography.

Universal Language | 20:30 at QFT (89 minutes) | If you can’t make it along to the opening screening, then Matthew Rankin’s offbeat absurdist comedy might be a good alternative. What if the Canadian city of Winnipeg, with its constant tussle between French and English speakers, instead adopted Farsi (Persian) as its official language! A satirical invitation to explore culture and community.

Sunday 3 November

Eephus | 12:45 at QFT (98 minutes) | With their pitch facing demolition, Carson Lund’s wistful movie depicts a small, shabby league of mostly middle-aged amateur players in a sleepy New England suburb, bantering and beercanning their way through the last game of the baseball season. A funny-sad-sweet tribute to the unifying power of community activity.

Dead Man’s Money | 18:00 at QFT (82 minutes) | A gala screening of writer-director Paul Kennedy’s latest production. Young Henry works in his uncle’s pub and when Old Henry begins a new relationship with The Widow, Young Henry hatches a plan to secure the inheritance. Matters spiral out his control when shady pub customer Gerry The Wheels gets involved.

Second Chance | 20:30 at QFT (104 minutes) | 25-year-old Nia retreats to her family’s Himalayan holiday home in the dead of winter, to recuperate following a traumatic breakup and a termination. Amidst the icy backdrop, Nia finds a warm and healing friendship with the housekeeper, an eight-year old, and a cute kitten. An intimately observed story from Indian writer-director Subhadra Mahajan.

Monday 4 November

Armand | 18:00 at Odeon (117 minutes) | A six-year-old boy accuses another of unthinkable abuse. The children are never seen. But the incident triggers grown-up bad behaviour from the boys’ parents and teachers, gathered for a classroom conference that spirals swiftly out of control. An unnerving, hot house, shape-shifting debut by Norwegian writer-director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel.

Tuesday 5 November

La Cocina | 18:00 at Odeon (139 minutes) | Based on Arnold Wesker’s 1957 play, The Kitchen, Rooney Mara and Raul Briones Carmona star in this dynamic and beautifully photographed adaptation that follows the inner-workings of a large and busy restaurant kitchen off Times Square in New York City. One by one we meet the restaurant staff, build up a picture of the hierarchical boundaries of class, gender, ethnicity, language and culture, and the camaraderie of teamwork in a pressurised environment. Sometimes operatic and stylistically bold film written and directed by Mexican filmmaker, Alonso Ruizpalacios.

Rumours | 20:45 at Odeon (103 minutes) | A raucously hilarious skewering of the well-meaning ineffectiveness and gestural rhetoric of the G7 forum, imagined in this film as an international confederacy of dunces, headed by a stiff-backed German chancellor wickedly played by Cate Blanchett. As she and six other world leaders gather in a custom-built gazebo to discuss sundials, the Olympic Games and an unspecified ‘global crisis’ that none of them knows how to solve, a heavy fog sets in, zombie-like beings rise from the earth, and the fun really begins. A corrective to so much political satire that tends towards being clever rather than amusing. An absurd collaboration between veteran Canadian experimentalist Guy Maddin and fraternal directing duo Evan and Galen Johnson on the day of the US Presidential election!

Wednesday 6 November

The Unholylands | 18:00 at Odeon (102 minutes) | Two students living in the Holylands area of Belfast plan for one last house party. Their father finds out and intervenes, forbidding any more parties. Will they risk the family’s reputation and the chance that they’ll be cut off for good. Can they keep control over the event when their father’s assistant is sent monitor proceedings, A homegrown comedy with cameos from Nathan Carter, Tyrone McKenna and James Nesbitt.

The Spin | 20:30 at Odeon (92 minutes) | Two down on their luck record store owners from Omagh take a cross-country road trip to Cork to acquire a priceless record that could save their failing business and save them from eviction from their evil landlord, Sadie. Weaving together the landscape, music and cultural touchpoints of Omagh in this film written by Colin Broderick, directed by Michael Head and starring Tara Lynne O’Neill, Owen Colgan, Brenock O’Connor, Leah O’Rourke, Maura Higgins and Kimberly Wyatt.

Thursday 7 November

Paul & Paulette Take a Bath | 18:00 at Odeon (109 minutes) | A young Parisian who obsessively visits the sites of gruesome historical events and reenacts them is inside the mind of Marie Antoinette before the guillotine blade falls when she catches the eye of a young American photographer. An offbeat love-story brimming with romantic optimism and dark-tinged disillusion. Directed by Jethro Massey, starring Marie Benati and Jeremie Galiana.

Nightbitch | 20:30 at QFT (98 minutes) | Forget childless cat ladies. The real danger to the future of humankind is posed by dog-loving women with kids with Amy Adams juggling her love for her child with her frustration with an absent husband (Scoot McNariy) and her resentment at them both for the way her prior identity as an artist has been subsumed into that of a stay-at-home mom. Darkly humorous.

Saturday 9 November

King Baby | 13:15 at QFT (88 minutes) | A wooden queen comes between a king and a servant in this surreal, dark comedy from English filmmaking duo Kit and Arran. Set in a fictitious kingdom where the sun always shines and the population of two – the king and his servant – live in the open air of a ruined castle until a dream prompts the monarch to command his servant to carve a queen, upsetting the delicate balance of what has gone before. An imaginative exploration of class, hierarchy, gender and power.

Ritz Day – live podcast recording | 14:00 at The Black Box (75 minutes) | Hosts of The Wonder Cinema podcast, filmmaker Brian Henry Martin and cinema historian Dr Sam Manning celebrate the anniversary of the Ritz cinema in Fisherwick Place (later the site of the ABC and Cannon screens, before the building was reconstituted as a Jurys Inn hotel). Bring your memories of the Ritz. Enjoy a slice of birthday cake and marvel at Stuart Marshall’s new model of the cinema.

Housewife of the Year | 18:30 at QFT (77 minutes) | Ciaran Cassidy’s documentary tells the story of a largely forgotten Irish beauty pageant. Weaves together participants’ perspectives on the social norms of the day, the lack of contraception and choice, the Magdalen laundries, and of course the women’s everyday lives and the opportunity to escape the quotidian boredom by being in a pageant.

The Other Way Around | 20:30 at QFT (114 minutes) | Madrid couple Ale and Elex have decided to call it quits on their 14-year relationship. A loopy tale of two people who’ve fallen out of love but not out of like, who are determined to harpoon the ultimate relationship white whale: the pleasant break-up. Neil Sedaka know that Breaking Up Is Hard To Do. But what is doomed can also be noble in Jonás Trueba’s film starring Itsaso Arana and Vito Sanz.

2024 Belfast International Arts Festival – some theatre, dance, circus and literature treats from the 39 day programme #biaf24

The Belfast International Arts Festival is upon us, with a bumper 39 days of events, artistic experiences and exhibitions. Here are just a few of the theatre, dance and literature events from the full festival programme

The Tragedy of Richard III // Wed 16 Oct–Sun 10 Nov // Lyric Theatre // The very hotly anticipated tragic adaption of Shakespeare’s history play opens the festival. Adapted by talented duo Oisín Kearney (who also directs) and Michael Patrick (who stars as Richard III in some shows), it explores the hunger for power of the disabled brother of the King even in the face of certain death. With a lead actor who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease last year playing the lead role and manoeuvring around the stage in a series of ever more elaborate wheelchairs, and Deaf actor Paula Clarke playing the chief villain Tyrell communicating with Richard through sign language and gesture, it’s an ambitious production that takes an old story and promises to give it purpose for modern times with a vivid staging. You can catch an interview with Oisín and Michael on last Friday’s The Ticket (starts 29’16) that will whet your appetite.

Yerma // Thu 17 Oct–Sun 3 Nov // Lyric Theatre // A few feet away from Richard III you can find Tinderbox Theatre Company’s adaptation of Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca’s Yerma in the Lyric’s studio space. The story about a childless woman living in rural Spain has been shifted to rural Ireland. The set is novel, the characterisaton is tight, This imaginative reset of the story is rich and intriguing. However, the runtime exceeds some audience members’ bladders, triggering disruptive coming and going in the stalls. (Maybe not an artistic priority, but still a practical one that is worth considering.) The set with its crazy entrances and exits is novel, the reset story is compelling, and the casting – particularly Caoimhe Farren in the titular role – is excellent. [reviewed]

The Piece with the Drums // Fri 18–Sat 19 Oct // The MAC // One of the festival’s annual gifts to the city is bringing over artists and concepts that wouldn’t normally have a following or a ready audience. This production from David Bolger and CoisCéim Dance Theatre treats us to a visual and aural conversation between a dancer and percussion. Toes tapping, limbs flapping, and drums beating.

David Park // Wed 23 Oct // The Linen Hall // Novelist David Park in conversation with Hugh Odling-Smee.

Aurora: A Modern Myth // Thu 24 Oct–Sat 2 Nov // The MAC // Another highly anticipated theatre production from Prime Cut with Dominic Montague’s tale opf environmental concern and activism merging gaming technology, animation and live theatre to create a magical experience. Directed by Emma Jordan and starring Meghan Tyler, Maria Connolly, Conor O Donnell, Thomas Finnegan … and a tree.

North Star // Thu 24–Fri 25 Oct // The Telegraph Building // An immersive night of live music inspired by a speech given by abolitionist Frederick Douglassin Belfast in 1845. Features performances by Kaidi Tatham, Nandi Jola, Leo Miyagee, Winnie Ama, Hannah Peel, Colin Salmon, and nearly 100 pupils from four Belfast schools. Part of Belfast 2024.

Losing It & In Between // Fri 25–Sat 26 Oct // The MAC // In this double bill, Losing It explores the lingering trauma of war through movement and sound with Palestinian dancer and choreographer Samaa Wakim. How does growing up in a war zone and inheriting the pain of previous generations manifest itself in your body and your movement. And to open the show, in In Between circus performer Esam Sultan “depicts an innocent Palestinian born into a life of struggle”, dreaming of a better life, but battling against alienation and loneliness.

WILD // Sat 26 Oct at 13:00 and 15:15 // CS Lewis Square // Free // In recent years, the festival has brought circus into the fold and Motionhouse’s latest production places its performers on a forest made of tall scaffolding poles and platforms high up in the canopy. Described as “gravity-defying dance-circus”, head over to east Belfast to get a glimpse of the acclaimed acrobatic outdoor show.

The Vanishing Elephant // Thu 31 Oct–Sat 2 Nov // Grand Opera House // Cahoots is a theatre company with an incredible still in telling stories suitable for young and old that captivate through their sense of closeness or intimacy, fine gestures, elaborate puppets and magic. The shows are curated in a theatre environment which has an incredible control of sound and light. This latest tale from long-time collaborate Charles Way follows the paths of a boy born in Bengal who befriends an Asian elephant. Years later as an old man he hears that Houdini will vanish an elephant live on stage in New York. Expect gasps, magic and maybe even tears.

Granny’s Jackson’s Dead // Thu 31 Oct–Sun 2 Nov // 47 Malone Road // Big Telly Theatre Company’s favourite grandmother is getting another wake. Step into her home and pay your respects alongside her family as they remember this larger-than-life character who lives on the hearts of so many. Immersive, subversive and thought-provoking. The show premiered earlier this year in NI Science Festival and alongside the overtly theatrical elements, it gently explores our attitudes, tolerances and reaction to death, grief tech, and the ethics of loss.

Austin Duffy & Phil Harrison // Tue 5 Nov // No Alibis Bookshop // two Irish authors in discussion about their latest works, the turning points of the Troubles, and the legacy of masculinity.

Michael Longley // Wed 6 Nov // Seamus Heaney Centre // Recording and live-streaming events, I witness all kinds of performers, lecturers and events hunched behind a sound mixer and a preview screen of video feeds. One of the most memorable this year was doing sound for an academic conference in a subdued Ulster Museum art gallery as poet Michael Longley read from a selection of his work and threw in wry comments on their context. It was captivating … and I say that as someone who rarely ‘gets’ or looks forward to poetry. Longley is back, this time in conversation about his new selected poems collection Ash Keys with poet and novelist Nick Laird.

Impasse // Wed 6 Nov // The MAC // Two performers confront the biased narratives etched onto Black bodies throughout history. Considering cultural imperialism, racial projections, autonomy and self-determination. The first presentation of work in Northern Ireland by Luail, Ireland’s (new) National Dance Company.

Chicken // Wed 6–Sun 10 Nov // Lyric Theatre // A Kerry Cock shares his feathery story of getting a big break in the world of acting, winning awards, and sliding into ketamine addiction. A one woman show like no other. Expect chicken suits and clucking in this biographical tale and absurdist satire.

Lots more treats in the online festival programme.

Yerma – Lorca’s classic tale reimagined to rural Ireland with a novel staging (Tinderbox Theatre Company in Lyric Theatre until Sunday 3 November) #biaf24

Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca’s story about a childless woman living in rural Spain has been shifted to rural Ireland in Tinderbox’s exciting new production. Yerma is desperate for a child. But five years into her marriage, conception is illusive.

The women that Yerma meets in Lorca’s original text have morphed into her younger, more fertile sisters and her mammy. It all kicks off at a nephew’s christening in the parish church. The baby’s blanket symbolically unravels as Yerma’s sense of wellbeing collapses: everything gets too much and she retreats to the car park. From there, it’s a heady mix of partying, love, loss and violent retribution for holding secrets.

Tinderbox are building a reputation for reimaging and retelling plays in modern contexts. Their vibrant retelling of Eugène Ionesco Rhino in last year’s Belfast International Arts Festival wowed audiences and has been deservedly shortlisted for a UK Theatre Award.

Yerma boldly places a yellow Suzuki car (a pre-2003 Ignis) in one of two parking spaces painted out in the middle of the Lyric Naughton Studio stage, using the vehicle’s back passenger doors as the theatre’s wings, with an impossible number of characters appearing out of the back of the Tardis-like city car. Traversing locations, say from the hotel reception out into the car park, involves actors moving through the back of the car. It’s quite a funny concept at first, but the constant opening and closing of doors does wear think towards the end of the performance.

What doesn’t wear thin is the gripping performance of Caoimhe Farren as the angst-ridden Yerma. A woman who is maligned and judged by others, constantly blamed and shamed for her circumstances, while struggling to process her emotions and get to grips with her physical and mental health. Despite all this pressure being piled on top of Yerma, Farren still allows her character moments of comedy, laughing – even if it is hysterically – in the face of failure and criticism.

Niamh McAllister plays ‘Herself’, a happy-go-lucky single mum who is fighting through fatigue with her newly first born and has the most empathy for her big sister. Sophie Robinson – labelled ‘Mammy’s Favourite’ in the show’s programme which is styled as an order of service – has been busy breeding a big brood and is disappointed by and dismissive of Yerma. Hazel Clifford is the final sibling, a fine songstress who is untroubled by the lack of pockets in her dress and is endlessly pulling balloons, vapes and fertility-enhancing herbs out of her cleavage. And Mammy should not be forgotten. Laura Hughes portrays a powerhouse of a mother who can feed, mollycoddle, chastise and embolden her chicks before engaging in some dark arts as a siren-like enchantress.

The men in the show get actual names, though the script pencils their personas in much lighter detail. Yerma’s husband John (Stefan Dunbar) is a farmer, a gentle brute of a character who could be played more sympathetically at the start to allow a greater and more dramatic descent into his later hateful state of quietly immutable obstinance. Matthew Forsythe plays Victor, a mysterious man who drifts in and out of scenes, and the unrequited love of Yerma’s life.

On the surface, the play is about the pain of involuntary childlessness, but at a deeper level it also about what it’s like to be so trapped and isolated that you begin to doubt yourself. Yerma is a woman of integrity – unwilling to pursue a more charming and emotionally available man – and is as harsh on herself as her nagging sisters. In the spirit of so many playwrights throughout the ages, Lorca gleefully pushes a character’s sense of powerlessness past their breaking point, resulting in an almost inevitable Pyrrhic victory.

Tracey Lindsay’s car-centred set is bold, with the front bonnet opening up to deliver yet more surprises. Mary Tumelty’s stadium-like backlighting is complemented by a tight spotlight that brings the front seats of the car into focus, helped by changes in the texture of the soundscape and micing inside the car interior that directs the audience’s attention into the confined space before a word is said. Garth McConaghie once again plays with live sound effects, a karaoke sequence that delights, and some original songs that place the action in rural Ireland and showcases the great voices of the cast.

Tinderbox’s collaborative method gives the cast and the full creative team a lot of latitude to play with the text and the production during rehearsal. Patrick J O’Reilly pulls everything together as director and writer/adapter. Though the handprints of his producer, marketing and business development colleagues at Tinderbox can be seen all over the work too: it really feels like a team effort.

This imaginative reset of the story is rich and intriguing. However, the runtime exceeds some audience members’ bladders, triggering disruptive coming and going in the stalls. (Maybe not an artistic priority, but still a practical one that is worth considering.) The set with its crazy entrances and exits is novel and will be memorable. The story is compelling. The casting – particularly Farren in the titular role – is excellent. Some of the best moments come when the whole family clamber over the car in exhuberent celebration but I just wish that there was a greater gradient to the sense of doom and foreboding that would make this into a real helter skelter race to the bottom and the finale.

Yerma is produced by Tinderbox Theatre Company and is part of the upcoming Belfast International Arts Festival. The run continues in the Lyric Theatre until Sunday 3 November.

Photo credit: Carrie Davenport

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Rose+Bud – one teen’s transition into student life and acceptance by themselves and others (Commedia of Errors)

Bud wants to be “born again” as Rose. Livinbg with a catastrophising mother in Ballynahinch, the bright lights of a fresh start at Derry’s Magee campus beckon. Can this transition into student life offer Rose acceptance and a chance to blossom? Can Bud ever really be left behind?

Rose Coogan and Conor Cupples play the two sides of Rose’s identity, alter egos at loggerheads with each other for much of the play as they overthink everything and verbalise their inner debates. The two actors also step into the shoes of a myriad of other friends and family. Coogan developed Rose+Bud’s autobiographical script through the Lyric Theatre’s 2021 New Playwright’s programme, a scheme which sadly seems now to be defunct.

The script and direction tend towards a constant stream of comedy, with the physicality of the bickering pair backed up with Garth McConaghie’s fabulous (and often flippant) soundtrack that accents specific lines of dialogue and makes the whole production unusually playful rather than worthy. Another unusual aspect is the questioning yet accepting maternal figure who isn’t totally comfortable but puts love above all else. Frankly, it’s a relief to have a parental ally portrayed on stage rather than the easier and all too familiar homophobic and transphobic stereotypes.

The audience cackle at the one-liners zinging out from the overly dense scrip. Some of the minor characters are better defined (fellow-student Clodagh) than others (beefcake Conor McDriscoll). Endings are notoriously difficult for autobiographical standup comedy and plays, but this production nails it. Rose+Bud finishes abruptly, but with a great final line that pleasingly suggests a new hope-filled equilibrium has been found.

Commedia of Errors was founded a decade ago by Clare McMahon and Benjamin Gould (who directs Rose+Bud). Its portfolio of work straddles a number of strands: riffing off Shakespearian works, using Commedia dell’arte techniques (most obviously wooden masks), and exploring transitions (both youthful and in more senior years). This production leans into the latter, but benefits from Gould’s ability to send up a serious subject without losing the integrity of the message. 

Rose+Bud is a coming-to-terms-with story rather than a coming-of-age tale. Cupples and Coogan are well matched as the different sides of the one protagonist. The balance of being vulnerable and exposed gently shifts over the hour-long performance as Rose is challenged to stop lying to herself and others.

Having debuted in Dublin Theatre Fringe and just finished a run at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, Rose+Bud is heading up to The Playhouse in Derry on Thursday 10 and Friday 11 October.

Photo credit: Ewa Figaszewska

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Shadowdock – experience Belfast’s past, present and future from a new perspective (part of Belfast2024 until Sunday 29 September)

Walk down the Maritime Mile, past the Odyssey, past Titanic Belfast, past the back of the film studios, past HMS Caroline, the distillery and the Science Park, and on a wee bit further towards the Pump House and you’ll hit the Thompson dry dock which once housed the Titanic.

Descend the 66 steps and you’ll be on the dock’s floor, looking up at the tiny figures of the ‘above deck’ audience leaning against the railings at this Belfast 2024 project. Before the sun sets you’ll spot the yellow H&W cranes peeping into view at the far end of the dry dock before darkness descends. You’ll marvel at the sine wave created along both sides the 850 foot long wall. (When it opened in 1911, it was the longest dry dock in the world, and when the doors were closed the adjoining jump house could empty the water in a mere hundred minutes.)

Technically, Shadowdock is a large-scale light and sound show, which takes the ‘below deck’ audiences 40 feet down from ground level and onto the bottom of the dry dock. Wearing headphones, you’ll hear a beautiful soundtrack, some narration, and begin to interact with the spotlights that shine up, down and through the enormous space.

You’ll grow used to the percussive musical track suggesting hammering, steel work and heavy construction. Your spine will shiver as you hear the roar of water in your headphones, wondering if the wall that now seals in the dry dock doors has failed. You’ll be tempted to sing along with Katie Richardson’s Into the Night anthem: sure, everyone’s wearing headphones and no one can hear in a silent disco!

Artistically, it’s like a guided meditation. Time set aside to connect with the sea and the city, with people and place. And to consider how the planet is changing in terms of climate and how that could the affect the ground that we’re standing on. It ponders size and perspective, the shadows and impact we leave on where we live and work.

It’s not quite what I expected. A different – and even more costly to stage – version of this event might have insisted on projecting video onto the stone walls of the dry dock, and retold the history of the dock. But then, is that really what Belfast needs in 2024?

We need to be reminded that if you shine powerful spotlights through the legs of members of the public in a dry dock, even before the narration offers a hint, they’ll have started to dance in the beams and play with the shadows in the walls. Left in a vacuum people will let their hair down to play and cavort. They’ll be moved to create and collaborate in community. They’ll work with what’s to hand to make something beautiful.

Shadowdock is a product of the imagination of designer Henry Sykes and Three’s Theatre Company (known for their site specific storytelling). It’s a product of the lighting talent of Conal Clapper and Alan Mooney, and the sonic skill of Katie Richardson. And it’s an exceptional achievement for Three’s Theatre Company’s unflappable producer and artistic director Anna Leckey, the largest scale project undertaken, yet one that builds on eight years of productions that have gone before.

While tickets have sold out for the ‘below deck’ experience, there’s still availability to be up top where you can watch the show and hear a tailored version of the soundscape and narration.

Photo credits: Belfast City Council/Twitter/X, alaninbelfast, Shadowdock/Instagram

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Ciaran’s Bartlett’s Phantom of the Opera House – a dark and filthy evening rolling in the aisles (Grand Opera House until Saturday 28 September)

Ciaran Bartlett kicked off his week-long stint at the Grand Opera House this evening. True to the show title’s promise, Phantom at the Opera House begins with a touch of Lloyd-Webber’s musical which quickly morphs into a spot of Meat Loaf. Soon he’s talking sausage rolls, Patrick Swayze and twisted nipples.

A couple of days shy of his 38th birthday, Bartlett has been battling vestibular neuritis for much of this year. The prolonged bouts of vertigo may have influenced his ‘deep dive’ into darker material. Last week’s loss of a wisdom tooth has already become embedded in the routine.

Dressed in comfortable green trackie bottoms and a coarse black tea-shirt, Bartlett periodically wanders back and forth from his faraway guitar stand. Some of his songs are over before they’ve started. Others are replete with big production values, rich backing tracks and effects. A starry backdrop at the back of the stage adds a touch of class to proceedings. The flexible backlighting keeps the audience’s faces lit so the comedian can always gauge their reaction.

We’re a first night crowd, so there’s some conscious self-editing going on when throw things off with our clapping and tittering. Though I don’t think small rewrites will do anything to spare his mother’s blushes when she attends tomorrow evening. While the first half is dark, the whole show is as filthy as you could imagine.

Podcast listeners (and watchers) will be familiar with Bartlett’s wife Chloe and his musical mucker Jonny Martin. Fine musical tributes to both are included in the show. Bartlett has a fine voice, a background in crooning over his guitar in back-alley pubs, and would make a great pantomime dame at Christmas.

The front rows of the audience reveal their vulnerabilities as Bartlett channels his inner Derren Brown. Few topics are untouchable, and he carefully steps over the potential landmines presented by Jeffrey Donaldson, the McCanns, trans athletes … and even exploding pagers when prompted by the audience. There’s even a rather hangry encounter with the legendary Joe Lindsay!

Bartlett’s post-interval musical improvs based on suggestions by punters sadly run dry after just one or two stanzas, abruptly stopping as he turns to riff on another topic. But hey, he’s more confident and able to generate mirth on demand than the audience. And he made me laugh: I’m a tough audience that survived two hours of John Bishop in the SSE Arena this time seven years ago without a single guffaw.

Phantom at the Opera House continues in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 28 September.

Photo credit: Instagram/@andrearussell_xo

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