2024-04-17 17:39
An author and an artist relocated from London to rural Country Galway a few years ago. Middle-aged but younger than average, they are seen as useful newcomers. But they’ll probably alw… Read More
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Alan In Belfast Blog
alaninbelfast.blogspot.com
An irregular set of posts, weaving an intricate pattern around culture and technology. Alan ... in Belfast, Northern Ireland
2024-04-12 15:14
Biopics of musical performers have chequered histories in my book. Elvis encapsulated the essence of Presley’s performance but over-sanitised his life. One Love captured the rhythm and… Read More
2024-04-11 23:16
Sunny Side Up is Diona Doherty’s new show that charts a woman’s struggle to have a child. And to be clear, fertilised and healthy is how Erin would like her eggs. Before long we… Read More
2024-04-11 12:47
The crew of a police landrover have been thrown in with each other for an evening in September 1996. There’s plenty of tension outside on the streets of Belfast. But sweep aside the bo… Read More
2024-04-11 12:37
Alex Garland’s new film Civil War is at first glance a sober warning shot across the bows of US citizens. Push the boundaries of mutinous action against the forces of government too… Read More
2024-04-06 23:17
A man who disappeared is found dead in a bog after ten years of sporadic not never terribly reliable reports of sightings. It’s no mystery how Seamus ended up there. But those responsi… Read More
2024-04-03 08:02
As musical theatre adapted from children’s/family-orientated films goes, Shrek The Musical is at the top of my list. There’s nothing dumbed down or phoned in about the production… Read More
2024-03-28 12:41
Amanda Verlaque’s autobiographical monologue has lost none of its shock and potency in this latest production. This Sh*t Happens All the Time relates to her experience as a university… Read More
2024-03-26 00:11
The Hole in the Wall Gang are back and the audience know what to expect from the familiar characters and giddily revel in the banter. Give My Head Peace’s simple set – a sofa, a… Read More
2024-03-24 22:34
Caitlin (Catherine Rees) and Danny (Simon Sweeney) are expecting a child. They’ve turned their back on possessions and seem to be living in a virtual reality environment that accepts v… Read More
2024-03-18 17:52
Attila the Stockbroker certainly has stamina. Two John Peel sessions in 1982 have been followed by more than 40 years of performing in 25 countries* and over 4,000 gigs, not to mention 20 al… Read More
2024-03-14 23:53
On the back of a bad breakup, extrovert Jamie joins her more introverted friend Marian on a one-way hire car journey from Philadelphia to Tallahassee in Florida. Due to a misunderstanding, t… Read More
2024-03-13 00:48
Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley is taking the class of 1982 through their 12-week officer candidate training course in Pensacola, Florida. Not everyone will make it to the end, and fewer still w… Read More
2024-03-07 19:30
The penguins have itchy feet and a strong sense of taking control of their destiny. Marty the monochromatic zebra also wishes he had been born free rather than living in Central Park Zoo. Th… Read More
2024-03-04 11:46
Happy birthday Imagine! Festival of Ideas and Politics. Ten years of delighting, educating, and engaging the grey matter of citizens of Belfast and beyond. Running between Monday 18 and Sund… Read More
2024-02-28 22:56
Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap is like a historic rodent that has been trapped in amber. It’s an artefact that people come from far and wide to study. A blast from the past th… Read More
2024-02-17 20:17
“Sorry for your loss” accompanied by a firm handshake seemed like the most appropriate thing to say as I stepped out of the mizzle and walked inside a house on the Malone Road to… Read More
2024-02-14 21:47
Madame Web’s multi-threaded plot is fairly knotted and the act of mentally untangling it distracts from enjoying the film.A pregnant woman searches for an elusive spider in the Peruvia… Read More
2024-02-12 12:48
American Fiction is a well-painted takedown of the tendency to pigeonhole culture and the creatives behind it into simplistic categories without examining the actual art. In this case, middl… Read More
2024-02-10 15:40
It’s not often that I sit in the theatre and can forget everything else around me and be entranced by the storytelling on stage. It’s much more likely to happen in the cinema. Th… Read More
2024-02-04 20:55
Ireland has a lot of shameful history and another part of it from mid-1800s has been captured in theatrical form by playwright Jaki McCarrick. Belfast Girls is the story of women who board… Read More
2024-01-30 09:22
All Of Us Strangers portrays the isolation of being gay by physically sequestering two men at opposite ends of an otherwise empty new modern apartment block. It’s metaphorically &ndash&hell…Read More
2024-01-29 21:05
The Commandant’s family reside next door to Auschwitz concentration camp. While Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) spends his time with engineers trying to build ever more efficient… Read More
2024-01-29 20:17
Hats off to Maeve Smyth for producing an evening of short film screenings at the Strand Arts Centre to celebrate eight female-driven films. An event that didn’t just applaud the writer… Read More
2024-01-29 19:11
Musical films are undergoing a renaissance at the box office with Wonka and Mean Girls getting high profile releases in recent months. Blitz Bazawule’s The Color Purple dives right in… Read More
2024-01-28 19:51
Three 16-year-old students celebrate the end of their school days and give thanks for the one teacher who offered them hope and gave them a passion for theatre. John Godber’s Teechers… Read More
2024-01-24 13:34
Once you strip away the exuberant anticipation of the final scene, and once you move past the audience whipping themselves up into a frenzy anytime the mere whiff of a bum cheek might be pro… Read More
2024-01-22 23:17
While the overall construction of Anyone But You is solid and it’ll make you smile, it’s crying out to be written off as ‘much ado about nothing’ (upon which the stor… Read More
2024-01-22 13:53
The End We Start From is a far-fetched feral film but much more believable and effective than other movies in the genre like The Survivalist and Couple in a Hole.Jodie Comer once again shows… Read More
2024-01-14 18:23
A retired asset from a deniable squad of violent fixers who have agency to keep the US on the straight and narrow abandons his beekeeping and decides to avenge the death of a sweet lady off… Read More
2024-01-02 00:23
Fourteen-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu is introduced to Elvis by one of his military friends. He’s serving with the US military in Germany. Ten years his junior, she’s naïve… Read More
2023-12-23 01:59
The closer a pantomime can get to its audience, the more powerful and connected it can be. That’s certainly the case with the Beauty and the Beast being performed by the Belvoir Player… Read More
2023-12-18 23:53
After a couple of years staging productions of A Christmas Carol – with what must have been the cutest Tiny Tim on the island – Bright Umbrella Drama Company are taking a very di… Read More
2023-12-17 21:42
Cinderella at the Devenish Complex in Finaghy is the Belfast pantomime that’s on everyone’s lips. The hotel ballroom may not be a typical venue for theatre, but Neil Keery’… Read More
2023-12-17 20:51
O Holly Knight is set up as a nostalgic story that plays out in the run up to Christmas in a 1960’s Belfast that is still devoid of Troubles. There’s a newspaper editor who doesn… Read More
2023-12-12 23:54
I’m not sure how I missed The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan earlier in the year, but I wish I’d also been able to skip the two-hour sequel The Three Musketeers: Milady. Some… Read More
2023-12-10 18:38
The hospitality industry provides a rich seam of material for alternative Christmas shows. Fraught industrial relations between workers and managers, agitated customers, the heightened emoti… Read More
2023-12-08 01:49
With a big auditorium, advance ticket sales that must be the envy of other venues, and 12 shows a week, the finances are there to throw the kitchen sink at Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in… Read More
2023-12-04 16:54
The pesky freedom fighting chickens are back in Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. Following their escape from the clutches of Mrs Tweedy and the farm she ran like a prisoner camp, the chicken… Read More
2023-12-03 09:00
Step into Darkwood Manor where the unseen Lady Alice is convalescing upstairs with her care assistant Ciara, the handyman McKillop is pootling about, the butler is lingering in the corner of… Read More
2023-12-02 17:02
The act of sitting with a notepad and a pen in hand ready to scribble in the dark already slightly distracts from the normal audience experience. For film previews, the early morning start c… Read More
2023-12-01 22:47
It’s beginning to look a lot like … Santa’s elves need help figuring out what the man in the red suit wants for Christmas. But help is at hand from young volunteers who ac… Read More
2023-11-30 23:57
It may be The Night Before Christmas, but after a rousing opening number – Happy Christmas to All – it’s soon apparent that not all is well in Queen Talia’s land. The… Read More
2023-11-26 23:46
Hansel & Gretel gets off to a cracking pace, and keeps it up for most of the performance. It’s aimed at children and families, and it confidently throws a rake of characters at t… Read More
2023-11-22 10:43
Julie returns to a sprawling country hall her Mum used to visit. She’s there to write a screenplay about the mother-daughter relationship and mark her Mum’s birthday. Tilda Swint… Read More
2023-11-17 22:23
Raphael Khouri takes his audiences on a trip through Berlin, Beirut, Amman, Saudi Arabia, and Los Angeles to Athens and beyond in a performance that was commissioned by Outburst Arts. It&rsq&hell…Read More
2023-11-15 11:20
It’s been a stressful few months. What with the new house and the renovations and starting to redecorate, on top of a new baby, and husband Sam disappearing off the grid to the island… Read More
2023-11-13 09:44
The Safety Catch is set up as a fictional confrontation between road racing champion Michael Dunlop and a friend of the family Liam Beckett who asks the rider to think about the possibility… Read More
2023-11-11 00:27
The Belfast Ensemble premiered their first version of Abomination in the Lyric Theatre as part of Outburst Festival five years ago. It was a thrilling bonus, tacked on the end of a restaging… Read More
2023-11-10 18:47
In 2004, a patient absconded from his English nursing home and travelled across to attend the 70th anniversary D-Day commemorations in Normandy. Bernard Jordan’s escapade inspired a nu… Read More
2023-11-09 10:04
Three young women celebrate the end of school and distract themselves from looming exam results with a boozy holiday in Malia, Crete. Will it be a rite of passage into adulthood for Tara, Sk… Read More
2023-11-08 00:54
Samuel (Samuel Theis) plunges to his death from the attic window of a snowy chalet. The police identify his wife, Sandra (Sandra Hüller), as their chief suspect, the only person known t… Read More
2023-11-08 00:19
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s episodic film Monster presents a series of glimpses into the same set of events from different perspectives. First time around, it’s clear who the bad guy is… Read More
2023-11-07 00:33
This year’s Belfast Film Festival certainly isn’t afraid to explore faith and spirituality. Silent Roar calls out false spirituality and false hope as it explores a young lad&rsq&hell…Read More
2023-11-07 00:24
The first ten minutes of Elene Naveriani’s Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry would make a great short film in their own right. Yet after the opening credits, the exciting narrative expand… Read More
2023-11-05 23:13
Two of the NI Independents short films caught my eye in the Belfast Film Festival programme. They were screened this afternoon in the Strand Arts Centre.Marie Clare Cushinan’s VIVA ima… Read More
2023-11-04 17:57
The Rear Windows company are keeping rather too close an eye on how their products are performing in people’s homes. Perhaps looking through them more than they’re looking at the… Read More
2023-11-04 08:48
If you go down to the woods Belfast Film Festival today, you’re in for a big surprise.Double Blind sees seven young people check into a spartan facility to take part in a medical trial… Read More
2023-11-04 08:31
Annie was the third film I saw in the cinema as a child. ET, followed by War Games, and then Annie. From memory, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was the fourth. I’m that old!
The… Read More
2023-11-02 05:00
Stolen will be shown in schools across Ireland in years to come – spread over a couple of periods since the 102 minute film would bust a single lesson – to remind students about… Read More
2023-11-01 06:30
As always at this time of the year, there’s lots to catch your eye in the Outburst festival programme. Previous festivals have gifted audiences with performances like Damage, Scorch, T… Read More
2023-10-31 15:46
We’re now into peak festival season in Belfast.Belfast International Arts Festival is into its last week (finishing on Sunday 5 November), local events in the ESCR Festival of Social S… Read More
2023-10-28 22:39
Some of the strongest work featured at Belfast International Arts Festival has been that (like Rhino) which embraced the imagination and creative power of an ensemble to produce something th… Read More
2023-10-24 21:37
work.txt is an ensemble piece of theatre. With a difference. The audience are the ensemble. A set is built. One member will unwittingly be written into the whole evening’s dialogue and… Read More
2023-10-24 00:05
Prodigal son Gabriel returns to the home lived in by his grieving mother and twin brother Michael. It’s an awkward welcome given his two years of globetrotting following the tragic dea… Read More
2023-10-23 14:59
Hen feels trapped in her seven-year-old marriage. Yet it’s her partner, Junior, who is getting out: the human Hen married will soon be swapped out for a sentient clone while Junior spe… Read More
2023-10-20 23:42
It’s as if this was the definitive staging Eugène Ionesco had intended when he wrote Rhinoceros in 1959. Notionally it’s a story about rhinoceroses arriving in a small vil… Read More
2023-10-20 23:22
Take 15 acrobatic bodies that bounce and flip and spin, one DJ who provides a constant live soundtrack, a circling motorbike, 48 or more red Coca Cola crates, and a dance floor and billowi… Read More
2023-10-16 18:35
Back when I was young, most of the GCSE English Literature classes in school studied Robert Bolt’s Man For All Seasons (based on the life of Sir Thomas More), leaving just one class &n&hell…Read More
2023-10-12 22:19
It’s the beginning of the summer, and hair stylist Cheryl (Kerri Quinn) and primary school teacher Michael (Terence Keeley) live in a modern and fashionable home opposite a field tha… Read More
2023-10-03 16:17
Becky is heading away to Ibiza for her hen do, accompanied by her mum, sister, and some friends. On a boozy weekend that is meant to be about letting their hair down ahead of Becky’s m… Read More
2023-09-30 22:51
Lies Where It Falls is a theatrical memoire, an incredibly personal retelling of a set of moments in Ruairi Conaghan’s life and career. We hear about the highs and lows of sharing his… Read More
2023-09-27 07:30
Screenwriter Paul Laverty and director Ken Loach are back with The Old Oak, the completion of a trilogy of films based in the north-east of England (I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You)… Read More
2023-09-26 18:05
The Bodyguard builds on some great musical theatre performances with a set dripping with style and panache and a lighting rig that stands out from most touring productions to create a worthy… Read More
2023-09-24 23:30
Some highlights to look out for in the Belfast International Arts Festival, which runs for the 61st time from 12 October–5 November 2023.THEATREGary Mitchell’s new black comedy B… Read More
2023-09-23 13:10
Shane is ill at ease with himself. He’s living on his own in a shabby two-up two-down and his sense of wellbeing mirrors his lodgings. Once a week he drags himself out to a comedy clas… Read More
2023-09-21 22:20
In the aftermath of the murder of his father, Joe Nawaz travelled from south Belfast back to Pakistan with his family to piece together what had happened. His one man show Five Days begins… Read More
2023-09-16 12:53
Francis might get beaten black and blue and experience prejudice from all and sundry on the street, but the most hurtful attacks are probably from the mouth of his mother. An immigrant from… Read More
2023-09-10 11:28
Northern Ireland Opera’s autumn production is Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, a tale of illicit love, jealousy, police brutality, murder and suicide set in Rome and running from the aft… Read More
2023-09-07 21:49
It seems to be the season for cinematic love triangles. Maybe it’s a consequence of filming during Covid. Maybe it’s just a perpetual theme that paints a canvas for rich drama. I… Read More
2023-08-31 20:00
Passages is a relatively dark drama directed by Ira Sachs and co-written with Mauricio Zacharias. Tomas (Franz Rogowski) is on a high having wrapped filming on his latest project. Partner Ma… Read More
2023-08-31 16:42
When tragedy hits a small town, the local minister veers towards social conservatism and uses his influence over the Bomont town council make dancing illegal. Into this repressed backwater e… Read More
2023-08-30 18:30
Robert Niblock’s new play about the life of David Ervine follows the east Belfast man from cradle to grave. As the title suggests, it riffs off Ervine’s fabled wordiness and delv… Read More
2023-08-28 20:23
It’s an audacious undertaking to rehearse and stage Les Misérables with children aged 12–18 over a three- or four-week period. As a sung-through musical, it’s not th… Read More
2023-08-28 12:34
Georgie’s dad disappeared a long time ago and now her Mum has died. But this is a feisty 12-year-old survivor (Lola Campbell) who raises enough money by wheeling and dealing to keep up… Read More
2023-08-22 23:21
The musical theatre adaptation of the hit independent film Dirty Dancing firmly roots the action in 1963, a time of change in the US as old ways were challenged and civil rights were asser… Read More
2023-08-16 00:32
Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story. The very title hints at a split personality. And there are two discernible halves to this touring musical production that ran for more than a decade on the West… Read More
2023-08-14 20:27
One of my English teachers at school – Philip Orr – staged a Sean O’Casey play every other year in the amphitheatre style assembly hall. We sat on the hard wooden benches… Read More
2023-08-09 22:36
It was a bit of a mad idea. Not perfect by any means. But one that came from the heart. Denis Mulcahy emigrated to the US in 1962 and joined the NYPD. From his side of the Atlantic he formed… Read More
2023-08-07 15:32
Shrek Jr cuts down the popular musical (based on the even more popular films) to a shorter and tighter plot and runtime, while retaining favourite characters and moments.During the show&rsqu&hell…Read More
2023-07-26 22:07
When inappropriate gifts begin to appear under pillows, the faith of a town’s children in the normally reliable tooth fairy begins to wobble. Added to that is the odd behaviour of the… Read More
2023-07-21 23:57
If a film just had to be made about the plastic doll with unusual vital statistics, then Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s screenplay for Barbie is gloriously unexpected and remarkably… Read More
2023-07-21 15:24
On paper the plot is anything but cheerful: young orphaned Oliver is thrown out of a workhouse for the sin of asking for a second helping, trafficked by a greedy couple to an exploitative fa… Read More
2023-07-19 18:47
Despite the ‘Barbenheimer’ rhetoric that Oppenheimer is terribly dark in comparison to the pink and fluffy Barbie movie that will also be released to cinema audiences on Friday… Read More
2023-07-18 10:20
One-man shows are often confessional in nature, full of self-deprecating details and salacious revelations. Tom Moran takes that to a whole new level by dissecting his character in a live au… Read More
2023-07-06 19:30
“Why are you crying?” Shabu asks his girlfriend after telling her she’s special but it’s over, he’s putting the relationship on hold as he needs to concentrate… Read More
2023-07-06 19:00
Born in Iraqi Kurdistan, Lawand has been profoundly deaf since birth. In school he was viewed as disruptive by his teachers and bullied by his classmates. There was no support. His family le… Read More
2023-06-21 15:09
The King and I is perhaps the most opulent production to have graced the stage of the Grand Opera House in recent years. A cast of thirty (including a team of children) plus eleven in the or… Read More
2023-06-16 09:22
Candice is auditioning to play Tina Turner in a new musical. She’s also holding down a job in a supermarket, keeping her relationship spiced up with partner Travis, and managing the te… Read More
2023-06-15 13:28
Primary school age audiences are remarkably sophisticated. They can associate an actor appearing on stage to give voice to a no longer visible animal puppet that previously entranced them. T… Read More
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