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Reviews

LOOK BACK IN ANGER – GATE THEATRE

March 8, 2018
THEATRE-GOERS like to reaffirm their own highbrow taste. Regardless of what’s happening on stage, interval banter typically features thoughtless questions like, “Don’t you love... Read more »

RESTLESS SOULS – DAN SHEEHAN (WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON)

March 8, 2018
SET IN the 1990s, this ambitious debut novel focuses on the close friendship between three Dubliners in their mid-20s. When Tom Dempsey returns after... Read more »

SOFT BORDER PATROL – BBC One

March 8, 2018
THE SECRET of comedy, they say, is timing and if that were the only benchmark, then Soft Border Patrol, which kicked off on BBC... Read more »

THE APPROACH – PROJECT ARTS CENTRE

February 22, 2018
AT THE turn of the millennium, Mark O’Rowe’s ultra-violent plays exploded like a fat line of speed up the nostrils of the Irish theatre... Read more »

THE YOUNG OFFENDERS – RTE 2

February 22, 2018
BASED ON writer-director Peter Foott’s underwhelming but uber-popular 2016 movie of the same name, The Young Offenders is a co-production between RTÉ and the... Read more »

IN WHITE INK – ELSKE RAHILL (APOLLO LILLIPUT)

February 22, 2018
THIS COLLECTION of 11 short stories follows Elske Rahill’s 2013 debut novel Between Dog and Wold. The French-based Irish writer specialises in exploring many... Read more »

SIVE – GAIETY THEATRE

February 8, 2018
AMONG theatre companies, even the most sure-footed occasionally misstep. Druid is no exception. The Galway troupe rehabilitated the work of John B Keane over... Read more »

THE BLINDBOY PODCAST – BLINDBOY BOATCLUB

February 8, 2018
LISTENING TO The Blindboy Podcast is akin to stepping on a bus with no knowledge of where you’ll be disgorged. Blindboy turns out to... Read more »

THE EARLIE KING & THE KID IN YELLOW – DANNY DENTON (GRANTA)

February 8, 2018
LITERARY dystopias have become commonplace in recent times. But what distinguishes this ambitious debut novel is Denton’s anarchic language – a propulsive blend of... Read more »

SPRING SEASON SCHEDULE – TV3

January 25, 2018
DAMP SQUIB would be a polite description for the launch earlier this month of TV3’s spring schedule. Coming so soon after the Ballymount broadcaster... Read more »

BLOOD TIDE – CLAIRE McGOWAN (HEADLINE)

January 25, 2018
THIS IS the fifth book in Claire McGowan’s “Ulster noir” series which sees Northern Irish forensic psychologist Paula Maguire investigating the disappearance of a... Read more »

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI – DIRECTED BY MARTIN McDONAGH

January 25, 2018
MARTIN McDONAGH’S Three Billboards… arrives in Ireland garlanded with four Golden Globes (best drama, screenplay, actress, supporting actor) and, at time of writing, a... Read more »

MRS OSMOND -JOHN BANVILLE (VIKING)

January 11, 2018
IN HIS latest novel, John Banville picks up where Henry James left off at the close of The Portrait of a Lady (1881). James’s... Read more »

GETAWAYS – RTÉ 1

January 11, 2018
IT BEING January, holiday shows are a TV staple along with the get-fit programmes. RTÉ’s offering is Getaways, produced by Waddell Media, which is... Read more »

HERE AND GONE – HAYLEN BECK (HARVILL SECKER)

January 11, 2018
HAYLEN BECK is the pen name of Northern Irish crime writer Stuart Neville, who has been capturing the mean streets of Belfast in a... Read more »

OH MY GOD WHAT A COMPLETE AISLING – SARAH BREEN / EMER MCLYSAGHT

December 14, 2017
THE NOVEL Oh My God What A Complete Aisling began life as a Facebook page detailing the travails of the typical country girl who... Read more »

MY ASTONISHING SELF – (RTÉ 1)

December 14, 2017
IN recent years, a growing trend is evident towards arts documentaries presented by celebrities rather than unknown (boring) experts – presumably because knowledge and... Read more »

THE RED SHOES – GATE THEATRE

December 14, 2017
AS A new era takes hold at the Gate under Selina Cartmell, one thing is clear. Audiences may come to the theatre to be... Read more »

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN – ABBEY THEATRE

November 30, 2017
VAMPIRES SMELL funny. Or at least they do according to Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindqvist, whose bestselling 2004 novel is currently in an adaptation... Read more »

he: A NOVEL – JOHN CONNOLLY (HODDER & STOUGHTON)

November 30, 2017
THE “he” of John Connolly’s title is Arthur Stanley Jefferson, born in Lancashire and who went on to become the thin part of the... Read more »

FUNNY BUSINESS – ALAN SHATTER (POOLBEG)

November 30, 2017
IT’S EASY to mock Alan Shatter and it’s very hard to like him. This book could well be regarded as his effort to change... Read more »

POSTCARDS FROM THE LEDGE – GAIETY THEATRE

November 2, 2017
WHEN THE curtain rises on the latest Ross O’Carroll Kelly play, the ‘Ledge’ stands in front of a tiny derelict house, and describes it... Read more »

THE WARRIOR’S CODE – JACKIE TYRRELL (TRINITY MIRROR)

November 2, 2017
JACKIE TYRRELL is selfish. That’s not Goldhawk’s assessment, it’s Tyrrell’s own. On no fewer than 12 occasions in his new autobiography does he make... Read more »

Roddy Doyle’s ‘Smile’

November 2, 2017
THROUGHOUT his successful writing career, Roddy Doyle has been associated mostly with candid depictions of Irish family life, energetic prose and vernacular dialogue. His... Read more »

DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL

October 19, 2017
AS THE 60th Dublin Theatre Festival concluded last weekend, a major hit to get all the luvvies talking had yet to surface. But the... Read more »

THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER – DIRECTED BY YORGOS LANTHIMOS

October 19, 2017
THERE ARE many things that may justify a release being called an Irish film. Being filmed in Cincinnati is probably not one of them.... Read more »

DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL

October 5, 2017
AT 60, Dublin Theatre Festival is the grand dame of Ireland’s cultural calendar. But punters can be forgiven for scratching their heads over the... Read more »

MIDWINTER BREAK – BERNARD MacLAVERTY (JONATHAN CAPE)

October 5, 2017
KNOWN MAINLY for his skillfully crafted short stories, Bernard MacLaverty’s first novel since 2001 takes place over four days of sightseeing in a wet... Read more »

GERRY ADAMS: AN UNAUTHORISED LIFE – MALACHI O’DOHERTY (FABER AND FABER)

September 21, 2017
LIKE him or loath him – as Malachi O’Doherty repeatedly intones – Gerry Adams is a colossus in modern Irish politics. He steered the... Read more »

THIS FAMILY OF THINGS – ALISON JAMESON (DOUBLEDAY IRELAND)

September 21, 2017
SET IN Ireland and America, the story revolves around the Keegan family, a brother and two sisters who are landowners in a remote part... Read more »

MOON DOGS – DIRECTED BY PHILLIP JOHN

September 21, 2017
MUCH-HYPED as a possible breakthrough for hotly tipped young Irish actress Tara Lee, Phillip John’s Scottish-set, comic drama Moon Dogs is unfortunately something of... Read more »

THE DRUMMER AND THE KEEPER – Directed by Nick Kelly

September 21, 2017
As a sensitive and nuanced depiction of mental health problems and developmental disorders, Nick Kelly’s debut feature, The Drummer And The Keeper, does an... Read more »

SCHEDULES WAR – RTÉ v TV3

September 7, 2017
OUTDATED IDEAS, over-familiar faces and second-hand formats dominate the autumn schedules recently unveiled by RTÉ television and TV3. A shortage of fresh thinking is... Read more »

MARRIED QUARTERS – SHANE CONNAUGHTON (DOUBLEDAY IRELAND)

September 7, 2017
SET IN the fictional border town of Butlershill, this sequel to Connaughton’s 1989 short story collection, A Border Station, offers a revealing portrait of... Read more »

The Mooney Show

August 24, 2017
DEREK MOONEY and Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh are natural born fillers. All broadcasting involves a degree of waffle but both of these second-string RTÉ stalwarts... Read more »

Love in Row 27

August 24, 2017
Eithne Shorthall – (Corvus) THIS DEBUT novel by the arts correspondent with the Sunday Times centres around Cora Hendricks, a Heathrow check-in attendant who... Read more »