The Frozen Princess – community panto which entertains from start to finish (Waterfront Studio until 31 December)

Based loosely on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, and with more than a nod to the Frozen movie, the Waterfront Studio pantomime this year is The Frozen Princess.

When Emily is cursed by a broken mirror and disappears off to the Snow Castle up on Cave Hill, her sister Anna is desperate to thaw relations in time for her wedding. Her nanny, Amanda Marry-Weather, has an endless list of tasks to complete ahead of Princess Anna’s wedding, but top of the list is finding her own perfect man. Meanwhile the Frozen Princess’ sidekicks are hunting high and low to capture Prince Freddie Foundered, there’s a reindeer on the loose, a snowman ready to melt someone’s heart and rhyming Fairy Sunshine who is trying to make everything good again.

The energetic cast of six tackle the multi-roled script and director Chris Robinson incorporates lots of audience participation, quick changes and jumping off stage to race around the auditorium. The two-level set is glittery, the props are supersized, there are references galore to streets and landmarks across Belfast, and there must be 12–15 songs (kudos to Katie Richardson) packed into the two-hour show which trilled audiences at the early afternoon performance I attended today. The cover of George Ezra’s Shotgun is superb and the final uplifting We’ve Got Each Other Back for Good really shows off Annika Graham’s choreography.

Marty Maguire’s pantomime dame spits out strings of jokes, littered with puns and ad libs. It’s a real skill to be able to hold a stage on your own for five minutes at a time in front of such a young family audience.

Gavin Peden is a Waterfront panto regular and revels in his role as the somewhat dumbfounded Prince. Eimear Barr’s Princess Anna is tall, confident, and will do anything to rescue her finance. The I’m a Sucker for You duet with Barr and Peden is a highlight before the interval.

Every Christmas panto needs a couple of clowns, and The Frozen Princess has two capable comic actors in the cast, Nicky Harley and Jo Donnelly, who pull off crazy disco dance moves and try to help their evil overlord put a freeze on the imminent nuptials. Finally, playing the titular role, Catriona McFeely spends most of the performance casting withering looks down from her lofty stage before her getting her warmth back in the finale.

This is a community panto which entertains primary school-aged children and their accompanying grownups from start to finish. There are no big gimmicks or fancy projections, though the lighting design is pretty spectacular and there’s a quick flurry of snow. Instead Tom Rowntree-Finlay and Thomas McCorry’s well-structured plot is performed with vigour and verve.

The Frozen Princess by GBL Productions runs in the Waterfront Studio until 31 December.

Ordinary Love – a triumph of restraint as script, direction, music and cast combine with the audience’s own insecurities (UK and Irish cinemas from 6 December)

Has a film ever been made before about Whiteabbey? Ordinary Love is a celebration of late sixties and early seventies Northern Ireland architecture with heavy wood panelling, ghastly pink and beige bathroom suites, exposed internal brickwork and chunky stone fireplaces. Was it every truly modern?

Joan and Tom take a purposeful stroll every evening down the Shore Road. Their lives are full of ritual, gently needling each other before retreating back into comfortable mundanity and talking about everything and nothing in the abstract. They eat chops that Joan takes out of the freezer. It’s like watching your parents up on the screen. Welcome to County Antrim!

The couple have been married for a long time, but the seeds of doubt are soon sown about their emotional and physical health. Discovering a lump in her left breast, Joan embarks on an unmapped journey through the health service that will put more than her body under the microscope.

“All I know is it felt serious.”

Lesley Manville plays Joan as a woman who is down but not out. We watch her despondency, her confusion, her narkiness, her coming to terms with treatment and its side effects. The character is written with an inner strength that never quite breaks.

“I just can’t tell her how frightened I am.”

Meanwhile we see a very different side to the normal bullish Liam Neeson. Tom isn’t an alpha male, or an aggressor. He’s a broken man who grieves the death of his daughter and with the sceptre of further loss hanging over his family, he bottles up his anxiety about the woman he’s come to rely on and takes for granted. Add to that a smidgeon of casual sexism, and you have a classic Northern Ireland emotionally reserved man.

Growing up among a couple of generations of medics must have stood co-director Lisa Barros D’Sa in good staid to bring the well-meaning but confusing and dignity-stripping nature of the health service to the fore in the story. Along with Glenn Leyburn, she creates moments of great isolation and loneliness (often in waiting rooms) along with scenes of warmth and intimacy (as Joan allows Tom to sort out her hair loss) as we spend a year in the life of a breast cancer patient.

“On top of everything I’m going through, I’ve got to cope with you.”

Owen McCafferty is well versed in writing about tragedy and Belfast. While Ordinary Love is his first screenplay, it doesn’t feel overly theatrical, and uses silence to tell the story as much as clever words and neat situations. Sure, there’s symbolism in the death of a goldfish, but it’s not laboured. Piers McGrail’s cinematography is full of long tracking shots down corridors, along roads and through scanners. The sense of unstoppable wordless movement is amplified by the rich soundtrack from David Holmes and Brian Irvine. Creatively, it’s an ensemble success.

Half-way through the 90-minute film, another couple (David Wilmot and Amit Shah) are introduced, reflecting some of Joan and Tom’s worries and behaviours back at them. In a theatre script, McCafferty might have been compelled to bounce between the two families much earlier in the show; but here on film they are dropped in gently and we find out whether there room in Joan and Tom’s seemingly empty house and somewhat empty lives for other people.

The restraint of Ordinary Love is its triumph. Neeson and Manville don’t have to chew the scenery in order to act their socks off. It’s about tone. It’s about building on the audience’s own insecurities and family – or even personal – experience of cancer. It’s about quietly offering up the big unspoken philosophical questions in the midst of coping with what life throws at us.

Ordinary Love is released in UK and Irish cinemas on 6 December. The 6.20pm screening on Monday 9 December in the Queen’s Film Theatre will be followed by a Q&A with directors Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn.

Peter Pan – Paul Boyd’s fresh adaptation of the classic tale (Lyric Theatre until 4 January)

The children in the Darling household are frustrated that their nightly episode of the adventures of Peter Pan has reached a real cliff-hanger and there’s no sign of the next part … when a fairy appears in the room followed by a young figure at the window. Soon, from the safety of the nursery – though I don’t like the look of Nanny Cookson – Wendy, John and Michael are flying off to Neverland to go native, battle pirates on the Jolly Roger, and rescue some very grubby lost boys.

With a family member in one of the alternating young ensemble casts, it’s not my place to offer a critical opinion of a show I’ve such a close connection with, not to mention spent so long dropping off and picking someone up from rehearsals.

Writer, lyricist, composer and director Paul Boyd has gone back and incorporated some of J.M. Barrie’s original ideas into this fresh adaptation of the classic tale which uses all kinds of nooks and crannies in the Lyric Theatre’s main auditorium to tell the story.

Expect a few casting twists, steam punk costumes, a Mad Max soundtrack, psychedelic Neverland plants that could be straight out of In The Night Garden, some clever misdirection to divert your attention, and scenes that are stolen by the appearance of Nana the dog (who really needs to come on and take a bow) and a rather familiar friend from recent production of Crocodile Fever.

If you want to help reunite Peter with his shadow, experience the musical mermaids, witness some high flying jinks, laugh along with a toothy Miss Smee, marvel at the exuberant Peter Pan, join with Wendy as she learns to take risks, or sit back to enjoy Tiger Lily’s darling voice, then you have until 4 January to run away to Neverland and join Peter Pan’s gang in the Lyric Theatre.

Photo credit: Johnny Frazer

A Christmas Carol – a fun, family-friendly and fast-paced show (The MAC until 5 January)

When it comes to Christmas theatre shows, the key is to know your audience. While the advice should apply at all times of the year, it’s particularly crucial for festive events. After all, it should be a crime against the arts (not to mention funders) not to grasp the opportunity to superserve those who only attend out of annual habit in order to lure them into coming back to something else before the end of next year.

This year’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol in The MAC knows what it’s doing. At what other time of the year would it would be proper to include a song that includes a list of corny (cracker) jokes? But that was the moment in last’s night performance that sealed the deal and won over the hearts of the youngest audience members, and with them, their grown-up family and friends, who giggled easily through the rest of the show.

Tara Lynne O’Neill and Simon Magill’s script places Ebenezer Scrooge (Richard Croxford) in a run-down theatre that would be more profitable if he closed the doors and sold the land for apartments. Ignoring everyone around him, he takes little notice of his assistant Bobbie Cratchit (Molly Logan), optimistic nephew Fred (Darren Franklin), and is immune to the arguing ghosts of dead staff who haven’t quite gone away. But when his former co-owner Jacob Marley rattles his chains (the projected image of director Sean Kearns), Scrooge is given an opportunity to mend his ways.

Croxford’s Scrooge is selfish and mean, but never nasty. His interactions with the ghosts of Christmas part, present and yet to come gradually soften his approach, showing increasing understanding as his evening of education progresses. He cuts a much more redeemable figure than the normal miserly portrayal of Scrooge. And the lightness of touch is very appropriate for the family audience in the stalls who want to be entertained rather than frightened or depressed.

Dianna Ennis’ intricate set is full of doors, trap doors and interesting props. There’s always a lot going on and on top of the built-in lighting, Conan McIvor’s projections animate the set and props. Cartoon sound effects and visual kapows are wildly anachronistic for a turn of the last century theatre environs, but they definitely keep the show alive for the weeuns.

An other-worldly feel is quickly established with flickering paintings and the ghosts wandering around in their white attire. With the action largely taking place at the front of the stage, there’s an intimacy about the performance that helps connect this non-pantomime with its audience.

The script is peppered with theatrical in-jokes, and the inclusion of a deceased stage manager alongside the dead actors adds to the richness of observation as well as the comedic opportunity. I’m sure I wasn’t the only audience member thinking about Jonathan Bell during the discussion about needing a larger turkey!

On top of a somewhat magical soundscape, Garth McConaghie delivers a set of songs built around the musical talents of the cast. Jolene O’Hara’s voice is allowed to soar up to the rafters of The MAC as she brings the French ghost Scarlett to life with a heavy accent worthy of 'Allo 'Allo and a constant struggle to find the right English word to finish her sentences. Maeve Byrne milks every last quart out of the gagtastic Ghost of Christmas Present standing atop a moving staircase (a near-mandatory feature in all musicals). Jenny Coates hobbles (and is sometimes carried with a choreographed precision) around the stage as peppy Tiny Tim, while Maeve Smyth delivers the final punch as Scrooge comes face to face with his future. While featuring some familiar faces, the cast also includes a number of actors — some returning home — making their debut on a Belfast stage.

The fretful mention of reviewers (“fingers crossed for a good one”) in a song – not quite so cynical as Curtains! – turns out to be unnecessary worrying by the creatives. By the time Welcome to our World of Make Believe is reprised at the end, and the snow has fallen (always a beautiful moment in any theatre production and who could begrudge awarding an extra star for its inclusion), a rather satisfying tale has been well told. As director, Sean Kearns weaves together a tight script, a technically complex set and a well-balanced cast to create a fun, family-friendly and fast-paced show.

A Christmas Carol continues at The MAC until 5 January.

Shooting the Mafia – celebrating Letizia Battaglia’s Sicilian photography which documented the aftermath of mafia violence (QFT from Friday 29 November)

Born in 1935, celebrated photographer Letizia Battaglia’s young life was dominated by men who cramped her freedom. A man’s sexual act in front of her in a shadowy street, her father grounding her and sending her to a convent school, an older husband who fathered her two children but was violent towards her and didn’t think a young mother barely out of her teens should go back to study.

As her children grew up, she took on casual work in the L’Ora daily newspaper in Palermo, Sicily, preferring pictures over words and becoming a photographer documenting the violence and killings, and it was the turn of the mafia to try and exert pressure on Battaglia, only to discover that while she experienced fear, she wouldn’t cower or desist.

Shooting the Mafia tells the intertwined stories of the breakdown in the rule of law on Sicily with the Corleonesi clan dominating local industry, commerce and society while Battaglia’s own personal breakdown in the rule of love, taking on young lovers, one of whom her jealous husband shot. They divorced in 1971.

Ciné footage of Sicilian events is mixed in with her own stark black and white still photography – sometimes featuring still warm corpses lying where they fell – as well as clips from Italian films of the time which are used to symbolically illustrate the voiceover narration about her life. Amazingly, two of her former partners sit down on camera to recollect with Battaglia: Santi who used to sneak into her house while she was still married, and Franco who lived with her for 18 years. There’s still a lot of affection and the men continue to be entranced by the octogenarian.

Battaglia briefly acknowledges her difficult relationship with her daughters and it’s clear that her happiness and wellbeing floats above any joy or satisfaction she gets out of love or companionship. Included in the film are the stories of anti-mafia judges Falcone and Borsellino who became friends as she moved from merely shooting the mobsters to enter politics as an elected representative for the Green Party.

War correspondents and war photographers tend to work away from home. Their biographies typically outline how they attempt to compartmentalise what they see and who they are, though the trauma of work inevitably seems to impinge on their home life. Battaglia’s conflict was right on her doorstop in the capital city of the island of Sicily: five or more murders a day in Palermo and 1000 people killed one year at its peak. Along with colleagues, she was under threat for documenting the faces of mafia friends and family at funerals.

Battaglia was suffering from depression when she started working for L’Ora. While showing remarkable resilience, the photojournalist speaks about the moments in her later career – and she certainly shows no sign of retiring – when she could not face jumping in a taxi to witness the aftermath of the latest major atrocity, reminding me of the trauma Deric Henderson spoke of earlier this year about organising a team of 20 reporters and photographers to report from Omagh after the 1998 bombing, but his decision not to be there himself.

As a refresher on mafia history and an exhibition of imagery by Letizia Battaglia, this is a superb documentary. If you endured Martin Scorsese’s mob confessional feature The Irishman, then Shooting the Mafia is a less glitzy companion piece to show how the Sicilian mafia bosses actually lived and worked.

Unusually, this film benefits from director Kim Longinotto’s wandering focus which belatedly shifts away from Battaglia to assess how Sicilian society began to change in light of the car bombs that murdered anti-mafia figures. It’s as if the population found their voice and the huge public vigils could begin relieving the pressure on Battaglia’s shoulders to bring the madness to the fore.

Shooting the Mafia (15) is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 29 November. The screening on Monday 2 December will be followed by a discussion with the film’s producer, Niamh Fagan, as part of BFI Audience Fund’s Reclaim the Frame project.

Two Fingers Up … to staid and inadequate sex education that prepares no one for love nor life

Welcome to an hour of self-discovery as three young women look back over the education system’s lacklustre attempt to prepare them for growing up. Two Fingers Up remembers the silence and discomfort in the classroom, from priests and parents and their own friends who talk a good game but are fumbling in the dark when it comes to understanding what’s happening to their bodies and minds.

There’s a frankness and honesty about their wild misconceptions, vaginas (“my Mum says theiy’re hidden for a reason”), gratuitously texted dick pics (that look “nothing like the dicks [they] draw in school”) received from boys (who are excluded from ‘the talk’ girls receive in P7 about puberty) whose ignorance hides in the shadow of their boasting, and unanswered questions about human anatomy, and the mechanics of periods never mind satisfaction. Even in the age of chat rooms and websites, misunderstandings persisted as this generation grew up.

The pace moves swiftly as they shift from childhood to adulthood before the threesome hit overdrive with bursts of song like When your lips hang low (probably funnier and cleverer than anything you’ll see on stage this Christmas), an incomplete and shaming lesson from Love For Life, and a rip-roaring visit to Ann Summers (another source of deceitful notions).

Co-produced by Prime Cut Productions and Tinderbox Theatre Company in Dublin Fringe Festival, Two Fingers Up was back in Belfast for one night at the Brian Friel Theatre.

Orla Graham strikes great poses while playing the delightfully matter-of-fact Sharon, and twists her mouth around the raft of other characters that populate the girls’ universe. Hayley is queen of the understatement and the long pause, played to a tee by Shannon Wilkinson who impressed this time last year in PintSized Production’s Wasted.

Leader of the pack is Leah, a young woman who steps forward into the unknown as much as she is pushed by peer pressure. Sarah Reid demonstrates a flair for physical comedy as she exaggerates movements and rolls her eyes with confusion, disgust and sometimes even joy.

Overlapping dialogue emphasises the closeness of teenage friends. Written and directed by Seón Simpson and Gina Donnelly, the cast and creatives make fannies funnier than is normally permitted. The writing is intelligent, the awkward yet never ribald situations certainly resonating with tonight’s student-aged audience who roared with recognition. By putting two fingers up to stiff, staid and incomplete education, the writers deliver a frank yet accessible lesson in sex education that no teacher would dare to host in a school.

Which begs the question: in a world constantly labelled as hyper-sexualised, and with a sex-obsessed internet which offers no context or explanation for the graphic insights it contains, should the education system really continue to value ignorance over understanding and rely on inadequate contracted-in lessons? And are parents really so uptight that we’d prefer old fashioned attitudes to prevail rather than learn from our own flops?

Private Peaceful – powerful writing performed with talent and conviction, a statement about what it means to be alive (PintSized Productions)

Simon Reade’s adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel Private Peaceful is a powerful piece of writing. And Odhran Mc Nulty’s portrayal of Private Tommo Peaceful is a joy to watch.

As Tommo counts down the hours to a grave event, he remembers a more carefree life before the Great War, growing up in rural Devon with brother Charlie and local girl Molly. Conflict changes everything and when he joins up at 16, pretending to be his older brother’s twin, the pair undergo the same gruelling training and are posted together to the front at Ypres.

The descriptive monologue fires up your imagination. Nuala Donnelly’s direction paints Mc Nulty across the full width of the stage and to its sides and front. He’s bristling with agitation and energy, his khaki uniform set against the black back wall of Accidental Theatre. His eyes are wide, sweat rolls off his brow as he delivers an intense performance, full of emotion and pace. That somehow there will be a reunion by one of the Peaceful lads with Molly sustains the audience’s hope that some good can come from amongst the terror.

“In the next room slept the two people I loved the most in the world … who had deserted me.”

Tommo’s remembrances are full of regret and disappointment. Spoiler alert: Morpurgo isn’t known for happy endings! Sensory overload is nearly tangible as the battlefield effects bolster the sense of panic in Tommo’s voice. (The use of Howard Goodall’s familiar The Lord is My Shepherd – the Vicar of Dibley theme tune – is anachronistic given that it was written in 1994.)

Simply staged but performed with talent and conviction, Private Peaceful is a statement about what it means to be alive. At a time when English nationalism is on the rise, the spirit of forced patriotism and brotherly love is very poignant.

Private Peaceful’s short tour continues with performances in The American Bar on Sunday 24 November at 3pm and Tuesday 26 at 7.30pm in The American Bar, Belfast and Wednesday 27 at 7.30pm in Sean Holywood Arts Centre in Newry.

Driving Home For Christmas – strange happenings in a snowed-in mid-Ulster pub (Lyric Theatre until 4 January)

Grimes and McKee are back on the Lyric Theatre stage with a new festive show, Driving Home For Christmas.

When a disparate bunch of people are frustrated by snow in their attempts to get home on Christmas Eve, they take shelter in The Dander Inn, off the beaten track in isolated mid-Ulster, and experience a less than warm welcome from twin sibling proprietors Pat and Paddy.

Take one ABBA tribute band, a posh BT9er going to spend Christmas Day with his fiancée’s culchie family, and a travelling saleswoman. Throw in some classic film and TV references, a scene from the Godfather, and the hound from hell, and you’ve got a peculiar mix of comedy sketches, musical numbers and linking dialogue.

Ruby Campbell plays Ciara, a calm and gracious nurse. Her soulful voice lifts the performance of the title song which is a highlight of the second half. We never quite understand why she has agreed to marry Rudy (Gary Crossan), an impractical fellow with marbles in his mouth and an accent that drifts between English public school, Helens Bay and the Malone Road.

Ali White adds yet more familial strife as Alison, who sells supplies to Catholic churches. Her husband is not expected to be coping well with preparations for the big day at home. But the male characters are better written and developed than the women. Alan McKee plays rough and ready Frank from the tribute group while his fellow artist Rod McVey is a man of few words who settles down at a piano he ‘finds’ in the corner of the pub. Conor Grimes revels in his dual roles, accents and costumes of dithery Pat and frugal Paddy, though sadly steers clear of pantomime-style too quick changes.

A madcap Bullseye sketch is crowd-pleasing and shows off the team’s talent. The set design (Stuart Marshall) gives some subtle clues to the late plot twist, and inclusion of Bacon Fries behind the bar is a nice nod to another recent show on the same stage.

While there are plenty of jokes, good harmony singing and some clever lyrical changes (These are a Few of My Favourite Best Selling Things) throughout the two-hour performance, the timing and pacing of the show is still a little rough. That may settle down as the run continues, but overall it doesn’t have the ambition or winning formula of Grimes and McKee’s magnum opus Nativity … What the Donkey Saw (which was also directed by Frankie McCafferty).

Driving Home For Christmas continues in the Lyric Theatre until 4 January.

Curtains – a witty, feel good show-within-a-show for the ‘paying suckers’ in the stalls (Grand Opera House until Saturday 23 November)

The year is 1959, the city is Boston. A musical production of Robin Hood set in the Wild West with cowboys is on the verge of collapsing under the weight of poor first night reviews. When the leading lady is indisposed – at first temporarily, then permanently – the company hope that the show can be resurrected. But then a homicide detective arrives and seals everyone inside the theatre until he can find the murderer.

From the pen of the creative team responsible for Chicago and the cinematic version of Cabaret comes Curtains, a theatrical whodunit. It’s another show-within-a-show, with a reversible set that allows the audience to go backstage and see what’s happening behind-the-scenes.

Jason Manford steps into the shoes of Lieutenant Frank Cioffi, a wannabe thespian who can’t help but break off his investigations mid-sentence in order to give notes, slowly becoming a de facto assistant director with a passion to improve the flailing Robin Hood production.

Manford may be better known for his on-screen comedy, but his strong singing voice and Boston accent blend well with the other performers and there’s never a doubt that the star turn merits being centre stage. Refusing to ham up the role, he leaves space for the other characters to gather the full laughs their witty lines deserve. Playing opposite Manford, understudy Pamela Blair stepped into the shoes of Niki Harris last night, confidently manoeuvring the ingénue into Cioffi’s warm embrace.

Rebecca Lock’s performance as Robin Hood producer Carmen Bernstein almost steals the show as she belts out Show People and It’s a Business. Samuel Holmes dials back the campness of the director Christopher Belling, while Emma Caffrey fills out young Bambi’s character and performs a great Cleopatra-inspired ballet dance against the understandably bizarre backdrop of Wild West square dancing. And a special mention for Adam Rhys-Charles who bursts into the theatre as the much-hated Boston Globe critic Daryl Grady and suffers What Kind of Man?, a whole song devoted to ripping his profession to threads!

Curtains might begin with the letter C, but it’s no Cabaret or Chicago. The show tunes are much less memorable and the sexual tension is tied back like polite living room drapes. The murder mystery is overshadowed by overly-long scenes from the truly horrific Robin Hood production which show off Carley Stenson’s voice (playing Georgia Hendricks) but needlessly pad out the show and distract from what should be a more involving hunt for motive and evidence.

However, Curtains’ director Paul Foster succeeds in creating a feel-good atmosphere that the “paying suckers” in the stalls can enjoy. David Woodhead’s set serves the double show and double perspective well. The light swearing is effective, jump scares shift the audience in their seats, and dead bodies and injured performers satisfyingly mount up as the show reaches Lieutenant Cioffi’s great reveal.

Curtains runs in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 23 November.

Photo credit: Richard Davenport

Harriet – a significant character in the road to abolition (UK and Irish cinemas from Friday 22 November)

Bringing historical characters – well known, or overlooked – to life has always been an important facet of cinema. A big personality can light up the screen. Their role in an already well understood moment of history can reveal new insights. Resonance with contemporary issues can be established. And filmmakers can sometimes even resist the temptation to make the film into a love-story.

Harriet explores the life of a Maryland slave, Mindy, who leaves behind her free husband and escapes north in 1949, travelling 100 miles to cross the state boundary into the more liberal Pennsylvania. Taking Harriet Tubman as her ‘free name’, the titular character insists on returning to rescue relatives, eventually joining the resistance movement and becoming one of the most prolific slave liberators of her time. Later federal legislative changes that allow slave-hunters to cross state boundaries, extend the dangerous journey of those fleeing Maryland, requiring travel to safety in Canada.

Cynthia Erivo plays Mindy/Harriet, capturing the tenacity and resilience of a woman who stands up to men who – even after she finds freedom – continue to tell her what she can’t do. She’s a passionate and no-nonsense leader, never wavering from her goal. Faith and premonitions are well integrated into Harriet’s story. The spiritual songs of the underground railroad (the network of safe houses and antislavery activists) are used to good effect, and inject some much-needed emotion into Kasi Lemmons’ film that quickly establishes itself as something of a docudrama rather than a gripping exposé of slavery and abolition.

The brutal treatment of slaves is mostly implicit. The legend of ‘Moses’ leading slaves to the promised land is established, with rampant sexism leading men to believe it was a white abolitionist in ‘blackface’ rather than a black woman. The roadblocks placed in the way of those who supported the abolition of slavery are laid out. However, the explanation of Harriet’s role in the American Civil War is disappointingly muddy, and the film relies on captions to establish the longer-lasting import of this figure’s work.

Harriet marks a significant character in the road to abolition. The film is an important history lesson. But its emotional grip on the audience is minimal. While Lemmons may have wanted to avoid making an action film that relied on sensational brutality for impact, his tale of slavery is somewhat underwhelming and oddly humdrum given the seriousness of the topic.

Harriet is released in UK and Irish cinemas including Movie House from 22 November.

GAA Maad – purposefully haphazard experimental storytelling #Outburst19

The title sums it up: GAA Maad. Áine and Vickey are mad about the GAA. Mad about the sport. Mad keen on their county team. Mad at the way the hierarchy has tended to relegate women to near invisibility. Mad with other diversity challenges too.

Vickey Curtis is loud and ebullient, a spoken word artist who fell in love with the GAA and her beloved Dublin before she fell in love with a woman. While visual artist and set designer Áine O’Hara – self describing as “arty, queer and into the GAA” – sits and calmly explains the history of the GAA (who knew that hurlers’ families used to get compensation if they died on the pitch?), Vickey overlays her own ornamental commentary.

They point out that the Ladies Gaelic Football Association was only founded in 1974, though ‘laydees’ have been playing for the guts of a century. The men’s game is still firmly in the closet, while women’s sides seem free to express their natural diversity. There are running jokes about the Brits … and Áine’s ever-the-bridesmaid Mayo.

Dramaturgically, GAA Maad is all over the place. The slither of a thread holding together the different scenes is at best tenuous, at worst snapped. The ending appears from nowhere without much warning. The stage entrances and exits are haphazard, with Vickey wandering around the Black Box Green Room carrying a tower of labelled IKEA archive boxes which contain the show’s props, yelling comments at Áine up on stage.

Yet this breaking of the rules and flinging out of convention brings a real warmth to the storytelling. Perhaps a good sign that the DUETS initiative by Irish Theatre Institute, Fishamble: The New Play Company and Dublin Fringe Festival is willing to take risks and experiment with form.

It feels very real, naturalistic rather than polished. Purposefully haphazard. The chattiness is deliberate and early on, Áine discusses her fibromyalgia while Vickie later describes being beaten up, both issues somewhat tangential to the sporting theme, but very relevant to the audience understanding that these two women are not fake. Urban and rural, butch and femme, opposites attract. The pair genuinely support Dublin and Mayo. They love the game, though differ on whether the GAA should be marching in Dublin Pride.

The flimsy feel is underpinned with some thought-out production values. Director Niamh Mc Cann insists that the projected imagery is deliberately brief, flashed up on screen for a few seconds at a time, just long enough to sustain a roar of audience laughter before being blacked out.

Everyone in the audience is given a handout. We sing along to support the doomed notion that “there’s always next year for Mayo”. I leave the show wearing my miniature Mayo flag, chosen on the way into the venue over the dark and sky blue Dublin flag because I instinctively wanted to support the underdog. But I also leave it embellished – as with the recent performance of Spliced – with a new understanding of the nuances of the GAA behemoth, and the origins of the Mayo curse. Now to find out whether Lisburn is in Down or Antrim …

GAA Maad was performed on the closing day of the 2019 Outburst Arts Festival.

The Irishman – “it’s what it is” – Scorsese rewards loyal fans with a mob-handed epic

Frank ‘The Irishman’ Sheeran sits alone in a nursing home and reminisces how petty crime led him into the vice like grip of the mob, jumping from swindling customers as he drove around making deliveries of raw beef from his meat wagon, to become the violent enforcer responsible for the dead bodies that needed a hearse.

It’s a strange tale, slowly told, that takes in familiar world events – the Cuban missile crisis, the election and assassination of President Kennedy – and the growth in size of television sets through the eyes of the Frank (Robert De Niro), his boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) and Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) the president of the powerful Teamster union for whom Frank becomes the mob’s liaison.

While Martin Scorsese was able to get the old gang back together for his epic yet gratuitously bladder-extending three-hour 20-minute mob confessional feature, he forgot to include some lines for women. His daughter Peggy (young Lucy Gallina, older Peggy Sheeran) looks on as she grows up, judging her father and ultimately putting distance between their lives after one particular murder hits close to her heart. It’s finely acted, but accompanied by just a handful of words.

Digital de-aging and commanding acting allow the surprisingly spritely principal cast to play their younger selves without distraction. 209 long minutes that could have been a dour TV mini-series allow the story to be told as an episodic slow burn. Shot on 35mm film, it adopts a televisual widescreen aspect ratio, filling the height of the cinema theatre’s screen, and working well for Netflix who picked up the distribution rights (available online from 27 November, just four weeks after cinematic release).

Adapting Charles Brandt’s book I Heard You Paint Houses, Scorsese does nothing to glamorise the violence, or redeem the gangsters. Captions indicate the truncated lives of minor characters. Life, or rather death, and loss catch up with everyone. There’s a slight sadness as some people’s final days are spent in penitentiary, though never showing any penance. But it’s never touching.

The Irishman is faultless in many respects. Robbie Robertson’s soundtrack supports the action. Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography captures the greys and browns of the 1950s, 60s and early 70s. I can only assume that screenwriter Steven Zaillian and film editor Thelma Schoonmaker were under strict orders not to trim harshly.

Yet The Irishman fails to become a great movie. The story is just compelling enough to keep you seated for the mammoth duration and not forfeit the considerable investment of time. “It’s what it is” is how one piece of action is foretold. And that describes the film. Having lasted right through, no one at my public screening bothered to stay to watch the credits. Their loyalty to Scorsese was simply paid by their presence, but the film hadn’t earned any additional affection.

You can catch The Irishman in local cinemas for the next couple of weeks before Scorsese’s shark jumps to Netflix.

Last Christmas – like its subject, this film deserves a second chance (cinemas from Friday 15 November)

Take some strained family relationships, throw in a bit of disadvantage, some seasonal songs, an attractive young woman in an elf suit, the chance of love, and a sprinkling of snow … it’s the must have list of ingredients for any number of Christmas movies that hoped to become all-time classics. And stepping into the queue for plaudits is Last Christmas.

It’s the story of Kate (Emilia Clarke) who fits in auditions for musical theatre roles around long shifts in a kitsch Christmas decoration shop. Originally from Yugoslavia, her family settled in London. Gurny sister Marta (Lydia Leonard) is climbing the career ladder as a lawyer. Her father (Boris Isakovic) drives his minicab to all hours of the morning to avoid her somewhat paranoid mother (Emma Thompson).

“I’m busy. You’re weird. Goodbye.”

Unlucky in work, health and love, Kate becomes transfixed with the radiant figure of Tom (Henry Golding) who hangs around outside the shop. He helps her look up and see past her own ego and baggage to instead care for the people around her.

Michelle Yeoh creates a fabulous boss. Thompson (who wrote the story with her husband) revels in her Balkan accent and sensibility. Quaint back alleyways add a magic sparkle to a London that is normally crushingly busy at December.

The cast are very recognisable, the rich soundtrack is a George Michael tribute album (15 tracks squeezed in), and the only thing missing is Richard Curtis’ name from the credits! And there’s the challenge. Can the film overcome its foibles, plot holes and romcom saccharine to justify its ambition to be a hit?

There is much that could be disliked about Last Christmas. Some of the set pieces are incredibly well edited, but it feels like they’ve been dropped into the rest of the narrative. The homeless plot line is laid on pretty thick. The overly intense flirting between ‘Santa’ and the ‘Boy’ are – I think – knowingly cringeworthy, though somewhat rescued by a cute cabbage tree at the end.

For some people the plot twist will be incredibly obvious, though I’ll own up and say that – like other people in my row at the preview screening – I was completely taken in, having imagined a totally different twist and ignored the mounting pile clues that I was tripping over.

Last Christmas never manages to pull off the slickness of Love Actually. Switching the auditioning table around in the second half adds another layer to the tale, but the references to Brexit are apt yet unnecessary and the commentary on racism would have stood up without this extra context. At times it tries too hard; at other times it doesn’t try hard enough.

Yet, Clarke and Golding have chemistry. His smile is winning, her elf boots are divine, and her accident-prone clumsiness had me gasping out loud. (Sorry to the folk in the row in front for that breach of cinema etiquette.)

Despite a heavy sprinkling of schmaltz and snow, director Paul Feig just about turns Last Christmas into a surprisingly touching tale. Woke and awake to the times we are all living in, the film captures the Christmas spirit and had more than one tear rolling down my cheeks by the time the credits rolled. Which for festive fare in the cinema at this time of year is success. Frivolous fantasy, but good enough to qualify as a film we might all grow fond of.

Last Christmas is released in UK and Irish cinemas including Movie House from Friday 15 November.

This Sh*t Happens All the Time – deeply personal story of love, menace and taking back control (Outburst Arts Festival) #outburst19

I recently wrote about the joy of rehearsed readings of new theatre scripts, and the imaginative freedom their lack of set brings.

Last night’s sold out performance of This Sh*t Happens All the Time as part of Outburst Arts Festival was no exception. Nicky Harley brought to life Amanda Verlaque’s autobiographical monologue about a young woman going up to university in Belfast, falling in love, and receiving a death threat for her trouble.

“He said he’d kill me.”

It’s the early 1990s, and while I was happily learning to code Modula 2 in the QUB Drill Hall and eating sausage rolls in the Beech Room, the central character of this play was rolling with the verbal punches as she dodged slurs about her sexuality and tried to avoid getting a hiding.

Harley stands behind her lectern with the confidence of a newly announced Doctor Who, dressed with a magnificently collared dark suit, a polka dot blouse and a cowboy cravat. It’s a crisp costume that tells the audience she has something to say that we need to hear.

She guides us into Amanda’s world, and we chuckle at her “ill-configured gaydar” and observation that “a short haircut and a pair of dungarees does not a dyke make”. We play along with term after term of tentative flirting with an older female student before a lusty dinner in Smokey Joe’s – I remember those chips fondly – and new love blossoms … chilled only by the emergence of a third, sinister figure in what was intended only to be a strict ménage à deux.

It’s a tale about what seems too good to be true, a short story about jealousy and menace, about the abusive power of a man to shake a young woman’s confidence in everything she wants to achieve at university, about the silence that accompanies not being able to report a homophobic crime that won’t be recognised by the criminal justice system for another couple of decades.

Harley brings the soaring ending to life, owning the reversal of power, the switch from vulnerability to assert her control over the bully. The reaction of the young student’s tutor seals the story. Victory, but at such a price.

That this tale should have happened in order to be told now is appalling and a shame on a that generation. That this tale is still happening in the lives of other women is equally appalling and shame upon our generation. That violence against lesbians is still an issue is just one reason for Outburst Queer Arts Festival to speak out and speak loud at this time of year.

Directed by Paula McFetridge, This Sh*t Happens All the Time was written by Amanda Verlaque and performed by Nicky Harley in The Black Box. Check out my previous post to see my picks from the full Outburst programme which runs until Saturday 16 November.

Abomination: a DUP Opera (Lyric Theatre until Sunday 10 November by the Belfast Ensemble as part of Outburst Arts Festival)

People queueing to pick up their tickets from the box office were heard talking about this being their first visit to the Lyric Theatre. There to watch a brand-new opera, Abomination: a DUP Opera by the creative and talented Belfast Ensemble, that is political in every sense.

The golden thread through the 70-minute performance is formed by Iris Robinson’s June 2008 interviews with Stephen Nolan on his BBC Radio Ulster programme. She described homosexuality as “an abomination” in the same week a gay man was beaten in a homophobic attack.

“I’m asking you again, Iris, to share your understanding of homosexuals with us, not your condemnation” says Nolan. Voiced, rather than sung, by an unflustered Tony Flynn, the presenter’s precision questions certainly stand the test of time and forensically zero in on Robinson’s verbal gymnastics. “I don’t need a lecture from you, Stephen, the Bible is very clear” she retorts when Nolan challenges the tone of her language.

Projections onto he back wall and floor are used to establish the time frame and identify key figures. Conor Mitchell’s libretto uses verbatim words – spoken and written – by Robinson as well as many other DUP representatives discussing homosexuality over the last forty years. It’s almost liturgical. Nothing is added, and at intervals the phrases being sung are visually highlighted in contemporary newspaper reporting to emphasise that nothing has been twisted or taken out of context.

“Peter will not marry Paul in Northern Ireland” explained Jim Wells to the Belfast Telegraph in April 2017. An early, shorter version of Abomination was performed as part of the same festival last year in concert form with the final work now programmed into Outburst Arts Festival long before the notion of Westminster legislation to allow same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland or the notion of a general election.

Standing on the shoulders of the operatic greats, the melodies switch from tragic minor keys to major motifs for the darkest of language (“the curse of God”) counterpointing what many in the audience would hear as hate-filled speech with uplifting, mellifluous phrases. Down below in the pit, Tom Brady conducts the sparky 13-piece orchestra, whose dissonant brass accompanies the word “repulsed”.

It’s amazing that 11 years ago a modern politician could go on the airwaves and speak about “a very lovely psychiatrist who works with me in my office … he tries to help homosexuals”. While shocking in language, tone and intent, the Nolan/Robinson interviews perhaps marked a political turning point which encouraged more moderate unionist voices to speak out and change their own rhetoric and engagement.

Soprano Rebecca Caine’s grey suit and wig are loosely styled on the central anti-hero, but none of the rest of the cast visually imitate the well-known politicians or radio presenter. This isn’t played as a farce. While her diction is crystal clear, her poise and expression hint that not all is well in the life of Robinson.

Dressed in similarly grey suits – a reminder of how many party representatives spoke with one voice over the decades – the performers stand in the visible wings waiting to step onto the stripped-back monochrome staging. Jeffrey Donaldson appears in the form of mezzo Dawn Burns, accessorised with a Boudician union flag shield and trident.

They Are Poofs, a moment full of uproar and joy in the concert version – based on Sammy Wilson’s comments in June 1992 after gay rights activists requested the use of Belfast City Hall when he said “They are poofs. I don't care if they are ratepayers. As far as I am concerned, they are perverts” – is far more subdued in this performance, yet the use of loudhailers quietly emphasises the total lack of listening by the cloth-eared party.

Stunningly lit, alternating between from above, the side and below, Mary Tumelty throws lots of shade and at times turns the cast into LS Lowry-esque stick figures moving in silhouette across the stage.

Large, brightly coloured props decorate the stage. One DUP flunky (played by Matthew Cavan) slowly dresses in sparkling orange platform boots and his trademark outrageous wig, perhaps a reminder that there’s more welcome for diversity among the party faithful than any public representative is yet willing to admit. Baritone Christopher Cull and tenor John Porter complete the solid DUP voices, joined by gutsy chorus of James Cooper, Tara Greene, Caolan Keaveney, Helenna Howie and Connlaodh McDonagh. Away from the arias, the performers combine to surge up to meet Mitchell’s soaring refrains and create some powerful moments of vocal glory.

Robinson’s affair with the local butcher’s son (portrayed beautifully in a wordless dance by angelic Richard Chappell while red, white and blue balloons gently sway in the far corner of the stage) reminds audiences that the politicians comments were made at a fulcrum of personal crisis, vulnerability and self-destruction, though that excuse isn’t available for the decades of other speeches and comments that are featured from Paisley (senior and junior), McCrea, Wilson, Shannon, Donaldson, Wells. Also wordless is the brief appearance of a tiered cake with two well-known puppets sitting on top, providing social context.

As one audience member commented afterwards, to wrap a dinosaur artform around dinosaur politicians is a beautiful thing. Abomination is no hatchet job. If anything, it is all the more powerful for being restrained. Arlene Foster’s comments in June 2018 that “we must respectfully engage and listen to each other's viewpoints” even offer hope, albeit tinged with incredulous scepticism. The countermelody of Jesus Loves Me has been retained from last year and adds a musical twist to the final moments.

Abomination is a powerful reminder to public representatives about the lasting import and impact of their utterances. But more importantly, it’s a cutting edge example of how to take a social issue and translate it into a compelling art-form, with high production values and great performances across the cast, orchestra and creatives.

While no doubt a difficult piece for anyone quoted to contemplate sitting through, it’s also a challenge for many in and connected with the LGBT community who carry the hurt and isolation from years of often unchallenged political rhetoric.

Composed, designed and directed by Conor Mitchell, Abomination’s sold out run in the Lyric Theatre as part of Outburst Arts Festival finishes on Sunday 10 November. A powerful addition to the Belfast Ensemble’s repertoire of original musical theatre, it will surely resurface across Europe, where the politics and themes will resonate.

After the Wedding – clashing couples, culture, truth and identity in a flawed yet watchable remake (QFT until Thursday 7 November)

Successful media tycoon Theresa (Julianne Moore) organising her stepdaughter’s wedding, selling her business, and planning a philanthropic investment in an Indian orphanage. When Michelle Williams’s character Isabel is dragged to New York to finalise the deal, her already tangled life is further upset in this clash of couples, culture, truth and identity.

Bart Freundlich’s film After the Wedding remakes Susanne Bier’s 2006 Danish original and recasts the protagonists as women. Nothing is terribly subtle with a fallen tree blocking a path and broken eggs in a disturbed nest offering an early foretelling of what is to come. Later fireworks shine light into darkness. We’re soon tripping over the metaphors littering the cinema screen.

A whole sequence of revelations drop with near clockwise precision. Yet while the accompanying bursts of raw emotion offer up impressive acting, they failed to move me in a story that’s intentionally designed to pull at everyone’s heart strings.

Moore gently disguises Theresa’s motivation for putting her affairs in order, while Williams works her way through the palette of how to be conflicted. They can both convey pages of script with a single glance, though Williams is nearly too young to make the storyline add up.

Theresa’s husband Oscar’s linen jacket (worn along with a permanent frown by Billy Crudup) almost creases with nervousness as he comes face-to-face with an old friend. Yet it’s the newly-wed daughter (Abby Quinn) who comes the most interesting character as she tries to understand what’s just happened to her family tree. Quinn also gets the last word, performing her own song over the closing credits.

From a cinematographical standpoint, the drone footage of the earthy Delhi scenes (the opening shot is magnificent, spoiled only by a continuity error three shots later) and the sumptuous New York environs are pretty on the eye. But ethically, the scenes of need in India not only contrast with the opulence of well-to-do US, but also with the money invested in making the film that pleasures an audience without challenging them to live any differently.

While flawed, After the Wedding is worth a trip to the cinema to try and unpack how so much of the film can work so well yet fail to connect with its audience. Unfortunately, the Danish original doesn’t seem to be available to view on demand to see if it delivered a more convincing melodrama.

After the Wedding will be screened in Queen’s Film Theatre until Thursday 7 November.

Lyric Theatre’s New Playwrights Showcase – Funny Story (Clare Monnelly) and Bug Eyed (Ross Wylie) #BIAF19

Rehearsed readings of new work are fabulous occasions. Theatres should probably charge more for them than full productions. There is a rich variety of form, with freedom to experiment. There are none of the constraints of having to work around the set, hit particular cues to sync up with lights and sound. Instead, standing behind lecterns, actors dresses in black can inhabit previously unseen characters and bring their stories to life. Your imagination fills in everything else, often leaving striking memories lingering for years that cannot be forgotten.

With brand new work being heard in public for the first time, the ending is unknown, and the process of watching the play, or the scenes from a work in progress, requires much more active – and rewarding – listening than attending a well-known work. Any scrappiness in the text or design is as much a sign of potential as weakness. This is what the audience sign up to for the privilege of sneaking a look at early works.

Back for the third year as part of Belfast International Arts Festival, the Lyric’s New Playwrights Showcase has produced readings of six writers’ work, two at a time, over three evenings. The playwrights have been working with the Lyric’s literary manager Rebecca Mairs over six months.

The showcases are always a treat, and I’m always distraught when I can’t make it to all of the shows. Hopefully, Clare McMahon’s Gap Year and Sarah Gordon’s Road will be back on stage as a full production in the coming months and years, along with Rían Smith’s Broken Light and Annie Keegan’s Bodysnatching.

Friday night’s showcase began with Clare Monnelly’s study in bodily autonomy. Funny Story is a genuinely hilarious 55-minute performance quickly built up to its “unexpecting” reveal as a couple in their 30s found themselves plunged into a tumultuous evening of grappling with questions about starting a family. In the middle of this immaculate confusion, they circle around how to articulate their previously unvoiced fears, unearth insecurities with an increasingly sense of wild abandon, all the while rotating through different emotions like a fruit machine whose handle has been pulled.

Writer Monnelly plays 32-year-old Kate opposite Richard Clements who steps into the shoes of her slightly older boyfriend Jason, while Laura Hughes stands in the middle like a heavenly referee. With a touch of Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett about Hughes’ intonation, she yells “pause!” at intervals to keep things get out of hand, before her dilemma-posing presence is revealed to the confounded couple, bringing a further level of honesty to proceedings. Kudos to Monnelly for her Olivier Award winning retching.

While the accelerated action is quite science fiction, the playful exploration of relationships and how well we know our partners, and how easily we avoid difficult topics is universal. The writing is smart and the dialogue is sparky. The phased reveal is well executed, and director Patrick J O’Reilly never allows the hysteria to get out of control. It’s sufficiently mad and engrossing that a Radio 4 audience could be entertained by it on a Saturday afternoon. And if it translates into a stage play, I’ll certainly be back to see how the narrator/overseer role is squeezed into the apartment set.

After the interval, the action switched to Ross Wylie’s Bug Eyed. The writer plays office worker, Bug, who is on still buzzing after a particularly intoxicating weekend of chemsex partying in the grubbier parts of Glasgow while celebrating the royal wedding. The enunciation of his stuttered lines helps create a fabulously well sketched character, while Patrick McBrearty throws himself into the multiple roles and mannerisms of office boss Gary, Bug’s mother, father, ex partner’s friend Kate, and many more.

Words fly out of Wylie’s mouth at such a fast pace that it feels they may be about to trip over each other. It certainly captures the sense of being as high as an over-stimulated kite. Yet Bug is always the anti-hero, a little disgusted at his own behaviour, always in avoidance, and quite unpleasant to know. My sympathy in the audience was firmly with McBrearty’s family of characters, who constantly have to weave through the chaotic wake behind self-centred and somewhat destructive Bug.

Dramaturgically, the unhurried disclosure of the motivation for some of Bug’s excesses are maturely scripted, while the flashback-laden timeline is secure enough that the “hour 48” signposts seem unnecessary. Some of the stylistic ‘footnote’ interruptions could be further trimmed. The shadow of Trainspotting inevitably looms over this original story of sweat, lube, smoke and death in Glasgow. The act of glamorising drug use carries with it the responsibility to work extra hard to make a wider point. As a life spinning out of control, Bug Eyed is well formed and good craic to listen to. But I do wonder where Bug’s journey will ultimately take him

The final two readings will be performed in the Lyric Theatre at 7pm on Saturday 2 November.