Event of the week
Dublin Bowie Festival
From Wednesday, February 26th, until Sunday, March 2nd, various venues, times and prices, dublinbowiefestival.ie
Dublin Bowie Festival, which bills itself as the world’s biggest arts festival dedicated to the singer, who died in 2016 (and whose Irish connections included a great-grandmother from Tipperary), is pulling some more rabbits from the hat for this year’s event, which features a range of special guests, gigs in venues small (Whelan’s) and large (3Arena), public interviews and photography exhibitions. The first big highlight is Bowie Alumni in Conversation (Royal College of Surgeons, Thursday, February 27th, 7pm), which features four integral Bowie band members – Gerry Leonard, Gail Ann Dorsey, Mike Garson and Mark Plati – discussing life with the man in the studio and on the road. The festival’s finale, Bowie Alumni & RTÉ Concert Orchestra (3Arena, Sunday, March 2nd, 6pm) is a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am must-see featuring the singers Faye O’Rourke, Duke Special, Shobsy and Dana Masters.
Gigs
Sturgill Simpson
Sunday, February 23rd, Telegraph Building, Belfast, 7pm, £32.75; Monday, February 24th, Vicar Street, Dublin, 7pm, €35.30, ticketmaster.ie
Stretching out alternative connections between traditional and fresh (and occasionally maverick) approaches to songwriting, the Grammy winner Sturgill Simpson – he won the Americana-album award for Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, from 2014 – makes music that has been described as a “mesmerising and sometimes bewildering mix of traditional country sounds, contemporary philosophy and psychedelic recording-studio wizardry.” The Kentucky star, who is equal parts grounded and cosmic, profound and playful, is a one-off who doesn’t travel to Europe too often, so try not to miss these shows.
Snow Patrol
Tuesday, February 25th, 3Arena, Dublin, 6.30pm, €45/€69.90 (sold out), ticketmaster.ie; Thursday, February 27th/Friday, February 28th, SSE Arena, Belfast, 6.30, £44/£90 (sold out), ticketmaster.ie
You might be forgiven if you once thought that Snow Patrol’s spark had been snuffed out; not so. Last year’s album, The Forest Is the Path, presented a leaner band (a trio of Gary Lightbody, Nathan Connolly and Johnny McDaid) with a sturdier sound. Of course, filtered throughout the evening will be their best-known hits, including the extraordinarily successful Chasing Cars, which has reached almost 1.5 billion Spotify plays.
RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards
Wednesday, February 26th, Vicar Street, Dublin, 7pm, €33.50, ticketmaster.ie
The robust health of Irish folk music is clear from this year’s nominees. Who will nab the award for best folk album? Best folk singer? Best folk group? Best emerging folk artist? Live performances include Niamh Regan, Landless, Junior Brother, John Spillane and the evening’s special guest, the US singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter. The broadcaster John Creedon is the MC. Highlights from the night will be broadcast on RTÉ on Saturday, March 1st.
Pamela Anderson: ‘I felt like life was really like death for me’
Jamie Dornan: ‘I lost my mom, and I lost four of my best friends in an accident. I had a difficult few years’
Dr Lydia Foy: ‘I never got an apology actually. It would be nice to get one’
New homes: comprehensive guide to what’s for sale in Dublin, Wicklow, Kildare, Meath, Cork and around the State
Visual art
Judy Carroll Deeley: Mine Lands – Glendalough & Glendasan
From Saturday, February 22nd, until Saturday, May 10th, Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, Co Wicklow, free, mermaidartscentre.ie
Based on research field trips to Estonia and South Africa, the visual artist Judy Carroll Deeley explores the former lead and silver mining sites of Co Wicklow’s Glendalough and Glendasan valleys. The works, painted in oil and depicted as pen-and-ink drawings, are also influenced by the artist’s extensive knowledge of years of hiking through landscapes deemed to be uncultivated but which are also exceptionally nuanced.
Stage
& Juliet
From Tuesday, February 25th, until Saturday, March 8th, Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin, 7.30pm, €56/€51/€45/€40, ticketmaster.ie
The jukebox musical & Juliet pivots around a question that has been asked for centuries: what if Juliet had decided not to join Romeo in death? The fictional story of what happens when Shakespeare’s wife, Anne, suggests a different ending to Romeo and Juliet unfolds to a soundtrack of contemporary pop songs co-written by the Swedish producer Max Martin. Farewell, Romeo. Hello, Britney, Katy Perry, Pink, Backstreet Boys, Justin Bieber and Kesha.
Classical
Ortús Chamber Music Festival
From Wednesday, February 26th, until Sunday, March 2nd, Cork city and county, various venues and times, €20/€15, ortusfestival.ie
For 10 years the Ortús Chamber Music Festival has presented the skills and creativity of emerging Irish composers and musicians. As it gears up to celebrate its first decade there is a sense of the festival coming into its own, with an assured schedule of concerts and solo performances. Highlights include the UK-based Marmen Quartet, the Ukrainian violin and viola player Kseniia Yershova and the Cork-based ensemble Strung, whose blend of cello, piano and fiddles delivers what Martin Tourish of Altan calls “symphonic grace and contemporary brilliance … that can only come from a deep knowledge of the Irish tradition”.
Comedy
Jenny Eclair
Wednesday, February 28th, Liberty Hall Theatre, Dublin, 8pm, €33.65, ticketmaster.ie
Jenny Eclair began her career as a novelty act performing punk poetry in the 1980s, but since winning the Perrier Award at the 1995 Edinburgh Festival Fringe (the first woman to do so), she has developed into an extremely busy multihyphenate, writing novels (six to date) and comedy monologues (BBC Radio 4’s Little Lifetimes), hosting podcasts (Older and Wiser) and appearing on reality TV shows (usually with “celebrity” in the title). In other words Eclair has been it, seen it and done it, which indicates that people of a certain age will relate to her often highly amusing and poignant stage show. Also, Saturday, March 1st, the MAC, Belfast, 7.45pm, £26, themaclive.com
Still running
Kurt Cobain Was an Energy Vampire
Until Sunday, March 2nd, Horse, Dublin, free, thehorsedublin.xyz
The latest work from the Dublin-born artist John Ryaner features impressionistic depictions of naturalised European bonsai trees and stacked sculptures made from repurposed plastic plants. The exhibition’s title is inspired by the critic Hal Foster’s remark, in the New York Times in 1994, that Nirvana “turned songs of despair into top-10 hits”.
Book it this week
I’m Grand Mam podcast, INEC, Killarney, Co Kerry, April 4th, ticketmaster.ie
Deirdre O’Kane and Emma Doran, 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin, May 11th, ticketmaster.ie
Horsegirl, Workman’s Club, Dublin, June 24th, ticketmaster.ie
Mogwai, Vicar Street, Dublin, July 26th/27th, ticketmaster.ie
