Larpers, scammers and spoofers: how the language of pretence has evolved
Will we ever stop weighing up who is ‘true’ and authentic and who isn’t? Don’t count on it
I’ve read the Booker 2026 shortlist. Two novels are brilliant on living through the mess of the 2020s
Black Bag, by Luke Kennard, and The Things We Never Say, by Elizabeth Strout, hinge on characters who confront the ways in which their lives are at the mercy of others
I didn’t get to see George Michael’s Faith tour. Can a new concert film make up for that?
George Michael: The Faith Tour underlines how watching live music performances at the cinema can be a strange, bittersweet experience
Irish comedian Catherine Bohart: ‘I’m surprised my following is bigger in the US and UK than it is here’
The Irish comedian, who is on her Borrowing Trouble tour, has been playing her biggest rooms, watching ‘smut’ and ‘winning the nerd Olympics’
Joanne McNally played a blinder on The Celebrity Traitors. Here are 15 of her best lines
By remembering to be funny, the Irish comedian proved an excellent booking on the BBC show
Colm O’Regan: ‘I’m tipping away at sorting my parents’ stuff into artefacts and rubbish’
The comedian’s new book, Tipping Away, is his second on Hiberno-English expressions. Sure, what else would he be doing?
Spoiler alert: Slow Horses, Strictly Come Dancing and an Irish actor’s strange beach limbo
As the BBC and Apple shows illustrate, the art of not revealing too much too soon has been complicated by on-demand viewing and the popularity of reality TV
Melanie C in Dublin review: Spice Girl meets teenage raver in night of effortless joy
At 3Olympia, Melanie Chisholm exudes likeability, confidence and a sense of liberation on a tour to promote Sweat, her ninth studio album
Lena Dunham’s Girls will be glorious again as long as it sticks to this one principle
The HBO show’s revival offers an intriguing chance to move on from the woeful way it ended in 2017
Bookshops are lovely places, but they do create this one hazard
These repositories of joy, knowledge, respite and armchairs need to be cherished
Last-minute €20m funding cut for RTÉ could have messy consequences
Broadcaster is unlikely to touch its big tent poles, but the breadth of its offering could suffer and some shows could be delayed
Russell T Davies: ‘I keep a kitchen knife by the front door’
Queer as Folk writer and Doctor Who showrunner has written a memoir about his career. It’s ‘a nice moment to take stock’, he says
Ireland’s rising star Ella Lily Hyland: ‘People would say I was meant for the stage, because I was mad’
The actor, a ‘dark horse’ in Tall Tales & Murder, an offbeat assassin in Black Doves and now in the play Electra/Persona, learned to take direction in an unusual way
The writers behind Blue Lights: ‘I think I fell in love. I thought, I have to work with this guy’
Writers Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson say that despite the ‘love’ in the North for their hit PSNI-centred drama, they were petrified to take on such a ‘hot potato’ topic
John Boyne: ‘Wilde was gay, he went to Trinity, he went to England. That’s me, me, me’
The Irish author’s new novel is an alternate history in which Wilde lives a long life. It has been on his list of books to write for years, he says