Event of the week
The Cruellest Month
Saturday, April 12th, and Sunday, April 13th, NCH, Dublin, 6pm/7.30pm/10pm, various prices, nch.ie
The Cruellest Month, the title for which comes from TS Eliot’s poem The Waste Land, is curated by Sounds from a Safe Harbour – which is to say Mary Hickson and Cillian Murphy – and Brassland, aka Bryce Dessner of The National. Billed as a weekend of Irish debuts, collaborations and musical meetings, it features much that will appeal to fans of imaginative, intimate, nerve-calming music. Saturday’s highlights include Crash Ensemble, Cashel Day-Lewis and Bryce Dessner Chamber Music (NCH studio, 6pm); and Mina Tindle, Thomas Bartlett, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Bryce Dessner (main stage, 8pm). Sunday’s highlights include Sam Amidon, Kate Stables and Navan’s favourite son, Oisín Leech (main stage, 7.30pm).
Gigs
Finneas
Sunday, April 13th, and Monday, April 14th, 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin, 7pm, €39.50, ticketmaster.ie
Everyone knows Finneas Baird O’Connell is the older brother of Billie Eilish, don’t they? While his sister, whose music his studio work is crucial to, is one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, Finneas has so far flown under the radar enough to mean he could probably still walk down Grafton Street uninterrupted by all except the siblings’ biggest fans. That could be about to change. Not too far away from his 30th birthday, the prodigiously talented songwriter and producer, whose solo work is rooted in winsome acoustic balladry and deft pop melodies, returns to Dublin for two shows that are very close to selling out.
Primal Scream
Monday, April 14th, Ulster Hall, Belfast, 7pm, £49.50 (sold out); Tuesday, April 15th, and Wednesday, April 16th, 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin, 7pm, €45.70, ticketmaster.ie
For some successful bands of a certain vintage, there is always one album in their back catalogue that they can’t afford to ignore. For Primal Scream it’s Screamadelica, released in 1991. The album’s songs haven’t waned, their “imaginative hybrid of past, present and future” (as Pitchfork described it) emitting a vibe that none of their subsequent albums, including last year’s Come Ahead, has come close to matching. Expect a gig of two halves, then, alternating from average to (as a Screamadelica song title has it) higher than the sun.
Paul Noonan and Brian Crosby
Friday, April 18th, Spirit Store, Dundalk, Co Louth, 8pm, €37, spiritstore.ie
For the first time in more than 15 years, Paul Noonan and his former Bell X1 bandmate Brian Crosby team up for two-for-one shows highlighting both their solo and their collaborative music. Crosby will open the show with instrumental pieces from his superb debut album, Imbrium. Noonan will then perform a solo set featuring songs culled from his various music projects, including Bell X1, Printer Clips and Houseplants. After that, the pair will perform early Bell X1 songs. The tour continues with shows at Greenacres, Wexford (Saturday, April 19th), Connolly’s, Leap, Co Cork (Friday, April 25th), White Horse, Ballincollig, Co Cork (Saturday, April 26th) and Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin (Wednesday, April 30th).
Sally Rooney: ‘I enjoy writing about men ... the dangerous charisma of the oppressor class’
Alzheimer’s: ‘I’ve lost my friend and my companion,’ says Úna Crawford O’Brien of fellow Fair City actor Bryan Murray
Ryan Adams at Vicar Street: A gig that nobody will forget anytime soon, but perhaps not for all the right reasons
Visual art
Nathalie du Pasquier: Saint Fairy Anne
From Saturday, April 12th, until Saturday, May 17th, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, kerlingallery.com
The Bordeaux-born artist Nathalie du Pasquier plays with the phonetic anglicisation of “ça ne fait rien” – which translates as “it doesn’t matter” – to locate her exhibition of recent paintings in a world of humour and experimentation. The pieces explore the links between real and imagined forms (“all of my work is about combinations between existing things,” she says), often taking on the guise of skilfully arranged and curiously merged still-life paintings.
Julianknxx: Chorus in Rememory of Flight
From Saturday, April 12th, until Saturday, June 21st, Model, Sligo, themodel.ie
The Sierra Leonean poet, visual artist and film-maker Julian Knox uses his work to register a living, oral-history archive of west African diasporic experiences. This film-installation exhibition is the outcome of months of travelling around Europe to collaborate with musicians, artists, singers, politicians, activists and prominent figures from expat African communities. Identity and community form the spine of the exhibition, which opens on Saturday with the artist in conversation with the writer and creative producer Debo Amon (3pm, free).
Stage
Death of a Salesman
From Tuesday, April 15th, until Saturday, April 19th, Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, 7.30pm, €45/€35, ticketmaster.ie
Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman (subtitled Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem), which won the Pulitzer prize for drama in 1949, is one of the great plays of the 20th century. Focusing on the anti-hero travelling salesman Willy Loman (played here by the Scottish actor David Hayman), it explores truth, deceit, disillusion, failure, jealousy and mental health. Dan Cahill, Beth Marshall and Michael Wallace also feature. Andy Arnold directs.
Hothouse
From Tuesday, April 15th, until Saturday, April 19th, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, 7.30pm, €22/€20, projectartscentre.ie
All aboard for a time-travelling cruise to the Arctic that tackles climate change and domestic disturbance with surreal idiosyncrasy, dark humour, smarts, clever songs and dancing. Carys D Coburn’s script is skilfully poised, while Claire O’Reilly (who in 2024 directed the acclaimed adaptation of Emma for the Abbey Theatre) oversees the production with class. Peter Corby, Thommas Kane Byrne and Bláithín Mac Gabhann feature. Touring from Friday, April 25th, until Thursday, June 5th, with stops in Kerry, Cork, Galway, Roscommon, Sligo, Limerick, Tipperary, Donegal and Wicklow. You can find out more at malaproptheatre.com.
Still running
Oh My Godot!
Saturday, April 12th, and Sunday, April 13th; then Friday, April 18th, and Saturday, April 19th; various venues, free (booking required), Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, eventbrite.co.uk
Taking its title from Samuel Beckett’s best-known work, Oh My Godot! features a range of creative activities across two weekends. Alongside literary and theatrical events, a series of ceremonial chess moves on the streets of Enniskillen celebrate the playwright’s love of the game. The weekends are presented by the Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival.
Book it this week
Fastnet Film Festival, Schull, Co Cork, May 22nd-25th, fastnetfilmfestival.com
Melvins, Vicar Street, Dublin, August 18th, foggynotions.ie
Helen Bauer, Sugar Club, Dublin, October 16th, ticketmaster.ie
CMAT, 3Arena, Dublin, December 5th, ticketmaster.ie
