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Visual Arts
'Absorbing' Troubles Art exhibition reflects decades of tension and turmoil
Over 40 works from National Museums NI's collections create an account of the conflict that's heartbreaking and hard to forget
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Performing Arts
Peter Pan given a dazzling Derry makeover at the Millennium Forum
Big musical numbers, pyrotechnics and pixie dust-like sprinklings of the city's trademark sense of humour takes the age-old panto to a magical new place
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Literature
Derry: The Irish Revolution, 1912-23
Historian Adrian Grant delves a century into the city's past and, with new facts and parallels to today, manages to makes a gripping read from events we already know the outcomes of
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Performing Arts
Myra's Story
A play so good they named it twice, Fionna Hewitt-Twamley not only fills Carmel McCafferty's shoes comfortably, but is bewitching as the rock bottom title character once known as Maire
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Film
Hear My Voice: film inspired by Colin Davidson exhibition 'offers a tribute to the human spirit'
Brendan J Byrne manages to further enrich the moving source material of Silent Testimony while extending the experience for those unable to see its portraits in person
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Literature
Her Name Was Rose
Claire Allan leaves 'Chick Lit' behind in favour of a dark thriller which, for the Derry-based author, signals a bright new chapter
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Literature
The Lost Soul of Eamonn Magee
While his wasted sporting potential is a source of frustration, the ex-world champion boxer's remarkable, still unfinished story makes for an absorbing read with as much tragedy as it has triumph
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Performing Arts
Hansel and Gretel
Featuring a role call of fictional favourites, the MAC's fairytale production places a feast of Northern Irish theatre talent firmly in the (sweet) shop window
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Dance
WICCA
The fifth Echo Echo Festival of Dance and Movement bows out with an entrancing multinational exploration of the female bond
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Literature
The Dead Beside Us
Tony Doherty wastes no time in following up his 'important' debut with a 'profound' adolescent account of conflict continuing to tear through 1970s Derry
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ReviewVisual Arts 'Absorbing' Troubles Art exhibition reflects decades of tension and turmoil
Over 40 works from National Museums NI's collections create an account of the conflict that's heartbreaking and hard to forget
-
ReviewPerforming Arts Peter Pan given a dazzling Derry makeover at the Millennium Forum
Big musical numbers, pyrotechnics and pixie dust-like sprinklings of the city's trademark sense of humour takes the age-old panto to a magical new place
-
ReviewLiterature Derry: The Irish Revolution, 1912-23
Historian Adrian Grant delves a century into the city's past and, with new facts and parallels to today, manages to makes a gripping read from events we already know the outcomes of
-
ReviewPerforming Arts Myra's Story
A play so good they named it twice, Fionna Hewitt-Twamley not only fills Carmel McCafferty's shoes comfortably, but is bewitching as the rock bottom title character once known as Maire
-
ReviewFilm Hear My Voice: film inspired by Colin Davidson exhibition 'offers a tribute to the human spirit'
Brendan J Byrne manages to further enrich the moving source material of Silent Testimony while extending the experience for those unable to see its portraits in person
-
ReviewLiterature Her Name Was Rose
Claire Allan leaves 'Chick Lit' behind in favour of a dark thriller which, for the Derry-based author, signals a bright new chapter
-
ReviewLiterature The Lost Soul of Eamonn Magee
While his wasted sporting potential is a source of frustration, the ex-world champion boxer's remarkable, still unfinished story makes for an absorbing read with as much tragedy as it has triumph
-
ReviewPerforming Arts Hansel and Gretel
Featuring a role call of fictional favourites, the MAC's fairytale production places a feast of Northern Irish theatre talent firmly in the (sweet) shop window
-
ReviewDance WICCA
The fifth Echo Echo Festival of Dance and Movement bows out with an entrancing multinational exploration of the female bond
-
ReviewLiterature The Dead Beside Us
Tony Doherty wastes no time in following up his 'important' debut with a 'profound' adolescent account of conflict continuing to tear through 1970s Derry
-
ReviewFilm Murder on the Orient Express
Kenneth Branagh keeps Agatha Christie's detective tale on the right track as both director and lead amidst a cast bristling with star power
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ReviewLiterature This is Hame: Two Modern Ulster-Scots Poets
James Fenton and Philip Robinson have been recently re-published by Ullans Press. Their books offer a window into that world – its language, humour, culture, religion and politics
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ReviewVisual Arts Eddie Rafferty: The Pursuit of Happiness
South Africa's people and places are captured with colour and invention in this career-spanning showcase bringing intrigued masses to Banbridge
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ReviewLiterature Hopdance
Against a pre-Troubles Belfast, Stewart Parker's posthumous novel shows one of the city's favourite sons discovering what would become a seminal writing voice
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ReviewPerforming Arts Waves
Gentle movement and vivid storytelling make more than a few ripples in this poignant and understated play about one woman's remarkable resilience
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ReviewPerforming Arts The Train
While some elements lack steam, Rough Magic's musical has audiences on board for its retelling of a momentous, reproductive rights-fuelled journey
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ReviewPerforming Arts The Faerie Thorn
After a promising preview, Big Telly bring Jane Talbot's North Coast fables to the stage in a fully realised adaptation fit for the company's 30th year
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ReviewPerforming Arts The Importance of Being Earnest
Not everything works in this risky all-male revision, but ultimately the source material proves it to be still Wilde at heart
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ReviewPerforming Arts Famla
John McCann's brooding drama borders on the bleak, but a sense of hope mirrored by the youth of today points to a better tomorrow
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ReviewLiterature The Rule of the Land
With eloquence and tact, Garrett Carr charts a timely expedition along the line that divides and defines Ireland, its history and its people
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ReviewDance The Cove
Echo Echo's dizzying collaboration with climber Dan Shipsides reaches its peak in this hypnotic performance inspired by the cliffs of Donegal
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ReviewDance Maiden Voyage Dance Triple Bill
Brave and breathtaking interpretations of love, loss and living prove the power of three in this new package of works
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ReviewMusic Pound Music Club
The spirit of the Belfast institution lives on in the lungs of Kenny McDowell, whose voice still enraptures a faithful following after 50 years
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ReviewFilm Best (George Best: All By Himself)
Though arguably too linear in scope, the latest chronicle of our greatest footballing talent's tragic journey is nonetheless elegantly and fearlessly told
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ReviewFilm The Fits
This adolescent dance drama eschews coming-of-age tropes in favour of a more unorthodox yet fascinating slow burn
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ReviewPerforming Arts Dirty Dancing
Staying true to the original, this steamy stage adaptation is guaranteed to satisfy fans of the classic, feel-good film
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ReviewPerforming Arts Powder Her Face
Northern Ireland's first production of Thomas Adés's notorious, sex-fuelled opera holds a mirror to modern society and the perils of promiscuity
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ReviewFilm La La Land
Despite its artistic virtues, the limp narrative of Damien Chazelle's modern musical just won't leave audiences as jazzed as they were with Whiplash
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ReviewFilm Silence
Liam Neeson is the white whale of Scorsese's monumental 26-year passion project, which caps a career-long study of spirituality on the big screen
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ReviewFilm Two Angry Men
Toto Ellis leaves us longing for a feature length in his debut short outlining the theatrical censorship his father and Sam Thompson faced in Belfast 60 years ago
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ReviewVisual Arts Janet Mullarney: My Minds i
Multi-disciplined artist confronts a gamut of emotions in a twisted fantasy of sculptures, shadows and illustrations at the F.E. McWilliam Gallery
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ReviewFilm Hubert Butler: Witness to the Future
Writer, humanitarian and market gardener, 'Ireland's Orwell' is given due recognition for his years-ahead endeavors in this detailed documentary
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ReviewVisual Arts Future Artist-Makers: The Exhibition
This exciting showcase of works created using new skills in digital technology titillates the imagination with its sense of eye-pleasing, interactive wonderment
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ReviewPerforming Arts Hey You!
Joe Nawaz and Accidental Theatre combine for an immersive self-improvement satire which with a little finessing could take the comedy world by storm
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ReviewVisual Arts MAC International
With works by 18 artists from around the world, the biennial exhibition rewards its visitors with an experience as rich as its grand prize
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ReviewFilm Killer of Sheep
With its truthful depiction of racial issues in 1970s America, Charles Burnett's long-lost indie trailblazer is the perfect primer for BFI Black Star
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ReviewPerforming Arts Green and Blue
Premiering at a former British military base in Belfast, this challenging but tasteful dramatisation humanises the uniforms patrolling the border at the height of the Troubles
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ReviewLiterature Heaney, Sir! St Columb's Remembered
One-time peers including Phil Coulter recall the poet's college years with revealing anecdotes, recitals and an audience panel
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ReviewMusic City of Derry International Choral Festival
New Festival Chorus reaffirms the city's musical status in a pitch perfect opening gala performance
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ReviewLiterature The Way We Were
Dublin author Sinéad Moriarty gives shelter to fiction fans in Bangor with an intimate discussion around her latest novel and writing career
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ReviewVisual Arts Enough, and More
Jon Plunkett and wife Lindsay Turk explore the impact various naturally-occurring moments can have on our lives in a joint series of paintings and poems
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ReviewFilm Anthropoid
Jamie Dornan and Cillian Murphy excel as Czech army agents in a tense and compelling account of one of the Second World War's less heralded moments
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ReviewVisual Arts David Hockney: I draw, I do
Ireland's first exhibition of the influential artist's work is a fascinating insight into his life-long consistency and passion for getting the world down on paper
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ReviewLiterature This Man's Wee Boy
Debut author Tony Doherty lends a vital human voice to Derry's darkest period with a childhood portrait of life in the city
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ReviewLiterature The Wing Orderly’s Tales
Carlo Gébler’s new collection of short stories is an authoritative portrayal of life and death in a Northern Ireland jail
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ReviewDrama The Faerie Thorn on Stage
Big Telly Theatre Company hooks Open House Festival audience with scratch performance of their latest production
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ReviewVisual Arts Late Night Art Digest: August 2016
John Higgins takes a tour of studios and spaces across Belfast to drink in some of the key exhibitions currently on display
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ReviewPerforming Arts Closer
With its imaginative direction and competent cast, this modest adaptation has the charm to see past its lack of Hollywood gloss
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ReviewPerforming Arts Bill Burr
Though not every topic hits its mark, Belfast still revels in a masterful Northern Ireland debut from the no-frills Boston comic
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ReviewFilm The 400 Blows
François Truffaut’s pioneering French New Wave classic signals an encouraging start to a season of films to see before you're 30
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ReviewVisual Arts The Three Stories Are Flattened
Katrina Palmer challenges the notion of sculpture in a demanding yet enthralling exhibition which gradually makes its viewers participants
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ReviewVisual Arts Gerard Dillon: Painter, Dreamer, Clown
The great Belfast artist's centenary retrospective will have you leaving the Ulster Museum with a spring in your step, expecting to fly
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ReviewMusic I Was An Astronaut
Derry singer-songwriter Conor McAteer takes a giant leap forward in a controlled and cohesive fourth album bursting with love in all its forms
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ReviewVisual Arts Art in the A.M.
Naughton Gallery and Town Square café team up for a morning of coffee, conversation and soul-baring comic strips in the first of a stimulating new talk series
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ReviewMusic The Wild Swan
Recorded in Nashville and rich in variety, the third album from Foy Vance isn't just his finest yet, it bears all the markings of a contemporary classic
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ReviewVisual Arts Pig Shop
Anchored by the bygone boom of Limerick pork, Simon Fennessy Corcoran questions society's regard for living things with an arresting collection recalling Damien Hirst
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ReviewMusic Neil Young
He's taken half a century to get here, but backed by Promise of the Real the Canadian is still the hurricane force of old, and shows no signs of quitting
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ReviewMusic The Devil is a Songbird
Ports' long-awaited debut album is one to fall into and appreciate in full, placing them amongst the modern masters of sophisticated and heart-breaking alt rock
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ReviewPerforming Arts A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Royal Shakespeare Company recruit Belfast's Belvoir Players for a frothy but 'bags of fun' take on the timeless comedy
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ReviewFestivals Blues On The Bay
Van Morrison's appeal remains undiminished in his third year headlining, but elsewhere the Warrenpoint festival seems restrained by contemporary preconceptions