Emma Dabiri and Lemn Sissay: The Myth of Race
Thursday, June 3rd, 6.30pm, €8, festivalofwritingandideas.com
How do we become less racist? Two great thinkers on the topics of race and identity team up for an "insightful, inspiring and informed" conversation, subtitled Interrogating Whiteness and Concepts of Identity. It's the latest in the Spring Series from the Borris House Festival of Writing & Ideas. Dabiri is the author of the bestselling What White People Can Do Next, and Sissay is the poet and author whose moving memoir is titled My Name Is Why. They'll discuss how society can get past identity politics, and show how education and accurate information are key to tackling racial intolerance and entrenched views.
Bloom at Home 2021
Thursday, June 3rd to Monday, June 7th, bordbiabloom.com
For the second year in a row the popular Bloom festival, which normally opens its doors in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, is going virtual, bringing the best of horticulture and garden design right into your potting shed over the bank holiday weekend. The focus is on giving you the advice and tips you need to maintain your own piece of paradise outside your back door, and Bloom has lined up lots of experts to share their knowledge and experience. Want to create your dream garden? Bloom is sharing seven award-winning designs you can recreate in your own space. Miriam O'Callaghan will host chats and Q&As on keeping your garden blooming, and the physical and mental benefits of gardening, with guests including the actor Aoibhinn Garrihy and the rugby star Peter O'Mahony. And the Bloom BBQ will feature Catherine Fulvio and Rory O'Connell giving you tips on how to keep the barbecue fires burning.
Unstaged with Maroon 5: The Encore
Friday, June 4th, 8pm, €6.50-€95, universe.com
It's 20 years since the Los Angeles band Kara's Flowers renamed themselves Maroon 5, since when they've become one of the world's biggest-selling pop groups, racking up more Billboard number one hits than any other band this century, and becoming pretty much the American Coldplay. Now, the band led by Adam Levine are doing an encore performance of their Unstaged online show last March. Again, it's sponsored by American Express, which will be offering complimentary tickets to fans who were there in March. The band, whose current single, Beautiful Mistakes, with Megan Thee Stallion, is riding high in the charts, will be delivering "special arrangements" of their greatest hits, which include She Will Be Loved, Girls Like You, This Love and Moves Like Jagger, and unveiling a new single.
Clinton Heylin: The Double Life of Bob Dylan
Friday, June 4th, 6.30pm, £10.72-£31.10, eventbrite.ie
A week after Bob Dylan turned 80, here's a chance to hear possibly the world's leading Dylanologist as he launches a new biography of the man, which he says will challenge what we think we know about the most iconic singer-songwriter in music. When Dylan sold his personal archive to the George Kaiser Museum for a reported $22 million, the museum called in Heylin to go through the material and see what was there. Heylin was astonished to discover new insights into Dylan's creative process, so line up to pick the brains of the man who has Dylan living in his head.
A Night in with Lenny Henry
Friday, June 4th, 6.30pm, £10-£25.50, fane.co.uk
Lenny Henry's having a busy 2021 – he's just finished hoofing around in disguise as a contestant on The Masked Dancer, and later this year he'll be starring in Amazon Prime Video's fantasy series based on The Lord of the Rings. For this special night in he'll be chatting to Naga Munchetty about his life and work, from growing up in Dudley, performing at workingmen's clubs as a teenager alongside blatantly racist comedians, hosting the children's show Tiswas, joining the comedy troupe The Comic Strip, and starting up the hugely successful Comic Relief, which raises millions for charity every year. He'll also talk about his tough childhood in the 1970s as the son of immigrants, and the trauma of learning that his dad was not his biological father.
Ash: The 1977 Album Global Online Concert
Saturday, June 5th, 7.45pm, €19-€60.97, stabal.com
It's 25 years since three teenagers from Downpatrick unleashed their astonishing debut album, which featured such anthems as Oh Yeah, Goldfinger and Girl from Mars. Tim Wheeler, Mark Hamilton and Rick McMurray are in their 40s now, which in rock'n'roll terms means they're still spring chickens. To celebrate this 1990s milestone, the trio are going to perform the album in its entirety. Wonder will they revisit the "secret" closing track on the original CD, Sick Party, which features basically the sound of someone puking (serious avant garde vibes there).
