Latest news with #CorkMidsummerFestival
Irish Examiner
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Stitch review: Irene Kelleher shines in dark tale set on Cork's Shandon Street
Stitch, J Nolan's Stationery Shop, Shandon St, Cork Midsummer Festival ★★★★☆ Watching a play set at the spookiest time of the year, performed in a dark and gloomy old shop, on the day of the summer solstice, when the sun is splitting the stones outside creates a somewhat jarring disconnect. However, it is an unsettling feeling that is perfectly in tune with the themes of Stitch, a one-woman play performed by Irene Kelleher as part of Cork Midsummer Festival. The play makes good use of its site-specific location — a former shop on Shandon Street, here brilliantly transformed by set designer Jenny Whyte into Pins and Needles, a dilapidated seamstress's premises in a small Irish town. It is Halloween night, 1989, and the shop is about to be turned into an Xtravision but one tenant remains, a girl called Alice. This is no wonderland, however, and soon we discover the sad and horrifying story of Alice's past and the scars she bears, both visible and invisible. Stitch was performed at the a former stationery shop on Shandon Street, Cork. As well as the reminders of real-life tragedies and the repression and pious hypocrisy of Irish society, there are disturbing echoes of the folk horror of The Wicker Man as Alice talks of the crowning of the Samhain Festival Queen, and The Butcher Boy, when she dances around wearing a pig mask. It is truly heartrending to witness Alice, with her hair in girlish plaits, cuddling her beloved cat and crying for her mammy. When she fantasises about how all of the locals who colluded in her nightmarish existence will burn on the Samhain pyre, you feel like picking up a torch and joining her. Irene Kelleher in Stitch. Picture: Marcin Lewandowski Kelleher is also on writing duties for Stitch, and the ingenious use of rhyme effectively conveys the horrific adult experiences Alice has been exposed to as a child. Her performance too bursts with imagination — she conjures up entire characters from the rags and remnants that surround her — although the splenetic rage can sometimes tip over into melodrama. Overall, it is a feat of extraordinary commitment, made even more impressive by the fact that Kelleher performed Stitch in tandem with another one-woman show in the festival, Footnote. Her vision is realised with skill and verve by director Regina Crowley, while production, overseen by Michael Anthony Greene, is outstanding, with sound and lighting design by Cormac O'Connor and costumes and masks by Valentina Gambardella adding greatly to the overall atmosphere.
Irish Examiner
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Patrick McCabe review: Monaghan author provides a Howl of a night at UCC
Patrick McCabe with David Murphy and Michael Lightborne, Howl On, The Hub, UCC, for Cork Midsummer Festival, ★★★★☆ If Patrick McCabe did not invent the genre of Bog Gothic, he certainly perfected it in his 1992 novel, The Butcher Boy, surely the most sympathetic portrait of a murderer that has ever been committed to the page. As is evidenced in his most recent, and eleventh, novel, Poguemahone, McCabe's anarchic spirit remains very much intact, and we are all the better for it. McCabe's performance of Howl On is soundtracked by the pedal steel guitarist David Murphy and the electronic artist Michael Lightborne. The mood is set by an arrangement of grasses amongst the performers and on the windowsills above their heads. McCabe begins with a meditation on the idea of going 'up the Town' in his native Clones, Co Monaghan. He wonders what that might even mean today. One should, he suggests, address the question to Lidl or Aldi, or maybe Woody's, as the town centre of his youth – a place of endless adventure – has been supplanted by such convenience superstores. From there, McCabe heads off on various flights of the imagination. Reflecting on the mishmash of local and international influences those growing up in rural Ireland were exposed to in the 1960s and '70s, he imagines Pink Floyd performing Big Tom McBride's Gentle Mother, or Big Tom paying tribute to the 'lost' Pink Floyd genius Syd Barrett. Harking back to a previous decade, he reads the opening lines of Allen Ginsberg's epic poem Howl, and one can all too easily imagine how 'the best minds' of his generation that Ginsberg saw 'destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked' in San Francisco had their counterparts in Co Monaghan in the 1950s. Similarly, McCabe's reading of Patrick Kavanagh's Epic, an account of neighbours battling over a boundary wall, reminds us again of the universality of such divisions. McCabe mentions the 'sin-birds' in another poem of Kavanagh's, Father Mat. In his own experience, these included see-through t-shirts, Jimi Hendrix, and the individual members of the Monkees. One might quibble that McCabe's musings might benefit from a more coherent narrative structure, but that, one suspects, would be to defeat the very purpose of his performance, which allows space for a recollection of how the late author Dermot Healy once proposed that hens have ghosts. McCabe is more inclined to believe that cabbage butterflies do. Murphy and Lightborne's musical soundscape is just as eclectic, including as it does snatches of the Beatles' Love is All You Need, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's Fire, and Pink Floyd's Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Howl On indeed. The verdict? The surreal deal.
Irish Examiner
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Cork Midsummer review: Burnout Paradise combines frenetic workout with audience participation
Burnout Paradise, Pony Cam Dance, Firkin Crane, Cork Midsummer Festival, ★★★☆☆ The metaphorical treadmill of modern living is literally manifested in this frenzied and fun show from Melbourne experimental theatre collective Pony Cam, as part of Cork Midsummer Festival's Australian strand. Over the course of an hour, four performers (Claire Bird, William Strom, Dominic Weintraub and Hugo Williams) race to complete a series of tasks displayed on a whiteboard — brush teeth, solve Rubik's Cube, wrap a gift, and, for some local flavour, sink a Beamish — all while running on treadmills. If they don't beat their personal best time as a collective, the audience can request a refund. While these tasks are being completed, they must also make a three-course meal for two audience members, do a performance piece, and submit an online grant application in real time (in this case, to South Dublin County Council). This particular assignment is greeted with knowing laughter by the audience, many of whom one can assume have wrestled with such a document in their time. Burnout Paradise at Cork Midsummer Festival. Picture: Jed Niezgoda The audience are invited to help along the way — shoutout to the woman who was tasked with making butter and had to vigorously shake a jar for almost the entire show — while fellow cast member, Laura, dispenses Gatorade on request and also sells merch. It all makes for a heady and chaotic concoction. As a theatrical experience, it is impossible to take it all in — you concentrate on one performer, you miss something that another has done. You're also out of luck if audience participation isn't your bag — even the ones who don't volunteer are enlisted to play bingo, blow up balloons and hunt for chocolate. On the most obvious level, the show highlights the relentless pressure to survive and thrive, and the toll it takes. Although, as my own heart rate went up and I started to feel panicky, I wondered what watching all of this was doing to my own wellbeing. There are some beguiling elements which could be more deeply explored in a different setting, such as Claire Bird performing dance competition routines from her childhood, while in a poignant echo, a screen shows her doing the same numbers as a little girl. In terms of physicality, endurance and effort, it is hard not to be impressed but as the sensory overload mounts, I find myself zoning out. As in real life, the jugglers drop some balls; the grant application is not submitted, the personal best is not achieved, but judging by the standing ovation, I doubt anyone looked for their money back.
Irish Independent
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Madeleine Keane on books: Oscar Wilde's reader's card is ‘uncancelled' by the British Library, 130 years on
Plus the Cork Midsummer Festival, and something for Beatles fans too Today at 09:30 After 130 years, the British Library plans to symbolically reinstate the reader pass that belonged to Oscar Wilde. Wilde was officially excluded from the Library on June 15, 1895, following the trial and conviction he faced as a result of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which criminalised acts of 'gross indecency' between men.
Irish Examiner
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Seven red giraffes to parade through streets of Cork city this weekend
Seven towering red giraffes will be seen parading through the streets of Cork city on Sunday as part of a Cork Midsummer Festival and Open Streets event. Les Girafes: An Animal Operetta7 is a Cork City Council-supported event as part of the Open Streets series, which encourages people to come to town without their car, either by walking, cycling, or using public transport. People can enjoy some of the city's streets without traffic and soak up the atmosphere with lively street performances, street play events, and public information stands on cycling and public transport. The parade will see seven red giraffes, accompanied by a troupe of bumbling keepers, musicians, and performers, make their way from North Main Street to Patrick's Street. Led by Compagnie OFF, a renowned performing arts school based in France, the parade will see its monumental giraffes, accompanied by a troupe of bumbling keepers, musicians, and performers, make their way from North Main Street to Patrick's Street. The procession blends circus arts, opera, and street theatre into one display of colour and sound which promises to entertain audiences of all ages. Compagnie OFF has captivated audiences worldwide with their large-scale performances that reimagine public spaces. Their celebrated production, Les Girafes, has visited cities across Europe, including Bourges and Rhone in France, Bradford in England, and Galway. For more information, click here. Read More Theatre For One review: Intimate setting makes for wonderful experience at Cork Midsummer
