Culture
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This new co-production of the Corn Exchange and the Abbey falls at even the shortest hurdles By Rory O’Sullivan The best moment in The Fall of the Second Republic is at its end. Emer Hackett (Caitríona Ennis), a journalist, has spent the play trying to expose corruption in the government of Manny Spillane (Andrew Bennett), […]
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This production by Theatre Lovett, the Irish National Opera and the Abbey Theatre is fun and artistic, but the opera’s libretto is lost in the woods By Rory O’Sullivan Engelbert Humperdinck (not that one, I’m afraid) produced the opera Hansel and Gretel from four songs he wrote to accompany a puppet show his nieces put […]
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The new production at the Gate makes Medea’s children more than mere victims By Anna Mulligan Like the play itself, the set for Oonagh Murphy’s Medea walks the line between the mundane and the mythic. The children have a teddy bear named Hercules, and the play takes place in a bedroom whose sloping sides, rising […]
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By David Burke The BBC’s lavish Christine Keeler drama concealed her claim that the Director-General of MI5 was a Soviet mole and ignored what she knew about the infidelities of Prince Philip. The real story is one of treachery, depravity, judicial corruption and the sexual abuse of children by VIPs such as Lord Mountbatten. The […]
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Commemoration is always political
By Rory O’Sullivan. The most interesting thing to emerge from Charlie Flanagan’s atrocious interview on Drivetime yesterday (Tuesday) evening, apart from a lesson in how thoroughly politicians can squeeze their talking points into shapeless pulp when the going gets difficult, came when Mary Wilson asked him why the now-cancelled commemorations of the RIC and DMP […]
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By Rory O’Sullivan It is fitting that after a year mired in controversy, particularly over its relations with Irish actors and directors, the Abbey Theatre should choose ‘Drama at Inish’ for its Christmas show. Plays like this almost invariably swaddle audiences in a cotton wool of nostalgia for the easy days they depict, but which […]
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By Rory O’Sullivan EMILY AOIBHEANN’S ‘Mother of Pearl’ is the second in a two-part production and follows ‘Sorry Gold’, which played at this year’s Dublin Fringe Festival. There are three dancers and three musicians in the cast: respectively, two women and a man, and two men and a woman. Aoibheann herself is one of […]