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Irish Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Development and diversity – Deserving of a wide readership
This comprehensive and wonderfully written book serves to remind us of how much outstanding Irish theatre has been produced in the past quarter-century
By Anthony Roche
Author Martin Waddell: ‘When I got blown up, I was no longer fit to write. I lost several years’
The author on writing stories with ‘emotional punch’ for children, walking in to a bomb during the Troubles, and his less-than-flattering opinion of writers as people
By Martin Doyle
MORE CULTURE
Mary Poppins, Peter Pan and Cinderella: 23 Christmas pantos and shows to see around Ireland this festive season
Jack and the Beanstalk, Mary Poppins and an adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s The Giggler Treatment are among the highlights
Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin: A Life in Music: Stellar capture of irrepressible force of nature
Rich collection of essays, poems and reflections on a visionary who breathed life into Ireland’s musical tradition
The Cure’s Robert Smith: ‘I wear lipstick, I’m 65. I’m not the person to stand up to say what’s wrong with the world’
The Cure’s Robert Smith interview: With his band’s first new album in 16 years just released, post-punk’s dark prince discusses enduring on his own terms and clashing with the most powerful company in live music
‘Dreadful government, lack of nightlife, lack of cultural spaces’: Dublin writer Thommas Kane Byrne on his home city
What’s Next For?: TKB, whose new play, It’s Always Your Bleedin’ Own, completes his St Mary’s Mansions trilogy, on the evolution of Ireland’s capital
In a Word ... Swiftie (the originals)
Those of us who admire Jonathan Swift, the contrary old weed, were the original Swifties
Three sporting events to watch this week: Your handy guide to sport on television
Your guide to the best sport on television
The address book of war: La Grande Illusion shows why Brian Maguire is one of Ireland’s most powerful painters
The Irish artist has made witnessing his work – and the subject of the astonishing art in his Hugh Lane Gallery exhibition – since the 1970s
TV guide: the best new shows to watch, beginning tonight
November 24th-29th: Including Ballroom Blitz, an all-new female Matlock, and The Making of Do They Know It’s Christmas?
Four new films to see this week
Movie of smash-hit musical Wicked is well-cast and spectacular. Plus moving and evocative Irish documentary Housewife of the Year, solid IVF drama Joy, and fascinating feminist doc Witches
November’s young-adult fiction: fantasy worlds and alien encounters
Featuring Sabaa Tahir’s Heir; Silver by Olivia Levez; When It’s Your Turn For Midnight by Blessing Musariri; Rani Choudhury Must Die by Adiba Jaigirdar; and Darkly by Marisha Pessl
Paul Mescal’s response to meeting King Charles was a masterclass in diplomacy
Gladiator II star said meeting the English king at the film’s British premiere was ‘not on the list of priorities’
Anthrax’s Charlie Benante: ‘I was always a big U2 fan. They just got better and better’
Drummer Benante discusses how the music industry rips off bands, rumours of a new Anthrax album and his love for U2
Lifestyle empress Martha Stewart: Grown-up since birth and ageless ever after
Self-made billionaire’s story is in many ways an American fable - of a working-class girl who climbs her way to the top, then falls, only to rise again
The album that nearly finished U2: The story of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and its new ‘shadow’ LP
How to Re-Assemble an Atomic Bomb features 10 tracks from the recording sessions that made some of the band wonder if they’d have anything to release
Amy Adams: ‘There is so much women normalise in relation to pain and sacrifice’
In Nightbitch, Marielle Heller’s new film, the star plays a woman crushed by childrearing. It’s not the only pressure women are under, she says
The Guide: the events to see, the shows to book, and the ones to catch before they end
November 23rd-29th: The best movies, music, art and more coming your way this week
Irish Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Development and diversity – Deserving of a wide readership
This comprehensive and wonderfully written book serves to remind us of how much outstanding Irish theatre has been produced in the past quarter-century
Author Martin Waddell: ‘When I got blown up, I was no longer fit to write. I lost several years’
The author on writing stories with ‘emotional punch’ for children, walking in to a bomb during the Troubles, and his less-than-flattering opinion of writers as people
The City and Its Uncertain Walls: Murakami aspires to García Márquez’s lush style
Haruki Murakami expands on a 1980 novella in a book that evokes the spirit of the late Columbian Nobel Prize winner
Actor Cillian Murphy and artist wife Yvonne McGuinness buy historic Dingle cinema
Couple say they will reopen Phoenix cinema where actor went to see films as a young boy while on holiday in Co Kerry
Colm Tóibín’s Long Island is Waterstones Irish Book of the Year
Books newsletter: A preview of Saturday’s pages; Richard Flanagan wins Baillie Gifford Prize; Irish translator wins Stephen Spender Prize; MS Readathon; (S)worn State(s) launch at MoLI; Never Too Late Award; Dublin Literary Award judges; Limerick Writers’ Centre launch; Rory Brennan dies
Suspect Device: The poignant story of Irish trans bus driver Wilma Creith
Theatre: Staged in a vintage Ulsterbus, Raphaël Amahl Khouri’s high-concept play chronicles Creith’s difficult transition as she found her true self
Jack Reynor: ‘We were in two minds between eloping or going the whole hog but we got married in Wicklow with about 220 people’
Irish actors Jack Reynor and Sam Keeley met before being cast in Lenny Abrahamson’s What Richard Did and remain very close, to the point that Keeley was recently best man at Reynor’s wedding
Author Maggie O’Farrell: I had a teacher at school who took the register, called my name and said to me, ‘Are your family in the IRA?’
The novelist Maggie O’Farrell on leaving Ireland, growing up in Britain, life as a child with a stammer and her new book
