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 +

One of the most famous lines in theatre is just two words long: “A handbag?” It comes early in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, a masterpiece of comic wordplay and barbed social satire. (For review of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Gaiety, see here.) And yet the line isn’t particularly funny,… read more +

There are two things that Irish actors can’t do: verse, and class. When Rough Magic tackled The Taming of the Shrew two years ago, director Lynne Parker found a solution, of sorts, in a very Irish rendition of the play, roughing it up and embracing regional accents. Parker has done something similar with Wilde’s great… 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 +

Olwen Fouéré is even more beautiful in person. Sitting in tracksuit and cardigan in a light-filled dance studio in Dublin, hurriedly eating a packed lunch, the French-Irish actress exudes a warmth and charisma that belies the often aloof, statuesque roles she plays on stage.

Michael Frayn was a spectacularly unsuccessful playwright. The Cambridge Footlights has for years provided British comedy with a litany of its brightest stars, from the Monty Python team to Fry and Laurie. In his final year at Cambridge, Frayn got the opportunity to write most of the Footlights annual Spring Revue. Normally, the Revue is… read more +

Michel Tremblay’s play is a 90-minute walk along the Via Dolorosa. This is a play about the agonies of separation and betrayal, and Tremblay does not spare us in his depiction of that pain. The structure of the play is simple, but ingenious. Six separate stories are told by the residents of an apartment block,… read more +