Sweeney’s Pub, Dame St *

MAN-I-PULATE IS more of a manifesto than a performance. The group is comprised of four musicians, an interpretative dancer, and a visual artist, who has abandoned his usual practice and taken up a microphone to berate audience members about their attitudes to the arts. The central point that the aggressive compère makes is that the group believe in the “amalgamation of art-forms”, in “access for all”, and that “Offaly is the last bastion of hope for the arts”.

The performance itself, however, goes no way towards proving MAN-I-PULATE’s argument. Although the different strands are enacted simultaneously, the artistic elements are not brought together in any meaningful way. The promised juggling materialises towards the end as a brief performance and laboured metaphor, but mostly as welcome relief from the belligerent speaker’s hostile tirade.

Runs until Saturday