This might be the most beautiful thing you will ever see on the Abbey stage. Some philanthropist should block-book the Abbey for the week and give the tickets to teenagers and people who’ve never been to the theatre. And then they should persuade James Thiérrée to stay on for a few nights, and straight after… read more +

As the media and political system obsessed with the question of Irish sovereignty, late last year, in one area at least we were still in control of affairs, and running them well. Irish theatre had a good year, one of the best in my time covering it. Theatre companies responded to more difficult circumstances with… read more +

There was a scrum outside the entrance to the Abbey Theatre, but it wasn’t for tickets. There were raised voices, and a knot of people pushed against the glass doors. It looked like it could get ugly. But it was simply the free market in action. At the centre of the group, a man was… read more +

Bernard Farrell launched his career over 30 years ago with a farce about six people at a group therapy session, I Do Not Like Thee Dr Fell. In Bookworms, literature has replaced therapy, but the form is the same, and so is the intent: to poke fun at the foibles of the age. The book… read more +

Karl Shiels is a broken man. It wasn’t the six-month, unpaid labour of love installing Dublin’s newest fringe theatre, the Theatre Upstairs at the Plough pub on Abbey St, that broke him. The excitement in the theatre community and rave reviews had long since repaid that. It wasn’t the bleak midwinter, when burst pipes cut… read more +

One day at the dawn of the 1960s, a remarkable script landed on the desk of the director of the Abbey Theatre, Ernest Blythe. Blythe was in his 70s. He had retired from politics almost 30 years earlier, and had been managing director of the Abbey for 20. His was a staid directorship, and the… read more +

‘Macbeth’ is the everyman’s tragedy. He lacks the nobility of Othello, the intellect of Hamlet, the authority of Lear. He is Shakespeare’s premonition of Tony Soprano – always in slightly above his head, struggling to catch up, resorting to horrific violence in a bid to assert himself over a fate he can’t quite master. For… read more +

They say you need your bad luck to strike during the dress rehearsal, at the latest. The dress rehearsal for Swan Lake went smoothly. On opening night, over 2,000 people mingled in the foyer and bars of the new Grand Canal Theatre, celeb-spotting or simply being celebs. The staff, who had been practicing their drills… read more +

Aged 16, I got my break in the theatre. Playing a broom carrier in the school production of Macbeth, I arrived for the performance to find myself promoted. A classmate had fallen ill. My new role was that of the Captain in the second scene: gravely wounded from battle, he reports to King Duncan how… read more +

Eamon de Valera once said that if he wished to know what the people of Ireland were thinking, he had to simply look into his heart. Today, the politicians prefer to rely on polls to know what the people are thinking, while de Valera’s role as a moral grandstander has been largely usurped by my… read more +