Event of the week
Sea Sessions
Friday-Sunday, June 21st-23rd, Bundoran, Co Donegal, €149.95/€69.95, seasessions.com
Sun, sea, surf, music. It sounds like California rather than Bundoran, but, as long as the weather is good, Sea Sessions delivers in every category. Part of the appeal of this unique festival are its sporting activities, from morning yoga and “swimrise” on the beach to knockout five-a-side soccer, tag rugby and beach volleyball. (All beach events are lifeguarded.) Many people are also here for the music, of course, so pack your flip-flops, sun cream, bucket hat and good vibes for the likes of Johnny Marr, Cian Ducrot, Jazzy, Don Letts, DJ Kelly-Anne Byrne, Elaine Mai & Maykay, Bricknasty and loads more.
Festival
Beyond the Pale
Friday-Sunday, June 21st-23rd, Glendalough Estate, Co Wicklow, 1pm, €249/€99, itsbeyondthepale.ie
It’s nigh on impossible to beat the location of the Beyond the Pale festival: Glendalough Estate is lush. Factor in a triple line-up of music, arts and food and (if the sun agrees to pop out, even now and again) you have a feast for the senses. International music acts performing across the weekend include Jungle, Jessie Ware, Orbital, Courtney Barnett, Romy and Richie Hawtin. Irish acts to catch include Ailbhe Reddy, Daithí, Mathman, Gilla Band, Rachael Lavelle and Lemoncello.
Gigs
P!nk
Thursday & Friday, June 20th & 21st, Aviva Stadium, Dublin, 4pm, €89.90, ticketmaster.ie
Alecia Beth Moore has won more awards than you might realise and sold far more records than you can imagine (more than 60 million albums and 75 million singles), yet P!nk – she adopted her nickname during her troubled teenage years – wears her successes lightly. Her stage shows are triumphs in blending her many hit songs with Cirque du Soleil-style touches (she trained as a competitive gymnast as a child), while her boldness and emotional rawness have been highly influential for a generation of female songwriters. Special guests include Rag’n’Bone Man, Gayle and DJ KidCutUp.
Mick Flannery and Susan O’Neill
Friday, June 21st, Live at the Marquee, Cork, 6pm, €45, ticketmaster.ie
Is this one of the best pairings of Irish songwriters and singers in recent times? Mick Flannery is headlining, so his home county will get to hear tracks from albums such as White Lies, I Own You and his most recent, Goodtime Charlie. Susan O’Neill will be presenting tracks from her forthcoming album, Now in a Minute, as well as teaming up with Flannery to perform songs from In the Game, their critically acclaimed fictional break-up album from 2021.
Comedy
Dylan Moran: A Work in Progress Wander
Tuesday, June 18th, Station House Hotel, Clifden, Co Galway, 7pm, €23; Wednesday, June 19th, Mall Theatre, Tuam, Co Galway, 8pm, €25; Thursday, June 20th, Róisín Dubh, Galway, 8pm, €25 (sold out); all tickets roisindubh.net
Dylan Moran, uncompromising, acerbic and very much his own comedian, is less than a week into an extensive nationwide tour that concludes in August – that’s more than two months of schlepping to 25 venues and generally living the life of his former days as an aspiring stand-up comic. Moran is anything but, of course, so these “work in progress” shows promise to be revelatory, exploratory and very funny.
Visual art
Caoimhín Gaffney: All at Once Collapsing Together
Until Sunday, July 28th, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, butlergallery.ie
When a particular sound from our ecosystem disappears, what are the consequences for us and the environment? How crucial to our sense of self are organic sensory experiences? In a new solo exhibition, the film-maker, writer and artist Caoimhín Gaffney envisions our relationship to the natural world through images, text and film that consider its transient and frail state. (Every second screening of the film is presented with subtitles, and large versions of the text-based pieces are available through smartphones with a QR-code reader.)
Stage
The Sugar Wife
Until Saturday, July 20th, Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 7.30pm, €40/€30/€22, abbeytheatre.ie
In Dublin in 1850, abolitionist campaigner Hannah Tewkley and her businessman husband, Samuel, are prosperous Quakers who aim to live a life so modestly that their large house intentionally lacks the advantages of their wealth. The arrival into their home of a freed slave who is visiting Ireland on an anti-slavery lecture tour upends the Tewkleys’ apparent principled attitudes towards affluence, marriage and charitable ethics. Annabelle Comyn directs Siobhán Cullen, Síofra Ní Éilí, Peter Gaynor, Chris Walley and Tierra Porter in Elizabeth Kuti’s prize-winning play.
Classical
Katia and Marielle Labèque
Saturday, June 15th, NCH, Dublin, 8pm, €45/€37.50/€29.50, nch.ie
Katia and Marielle Labèque are no strangers to equilibrium in their music, a fact that this concert should showcase to sublime effect. Several years ago the sisters conceived instrumental suites for two pianos taken from Philip Glass’s opera Les Enfants Terribles (based on the work of Jean Cocteau). That project’s success encouraged them to ask Glass and Michael Riesman, his music director, to employ the same approach with Orphée and La Belle et la Bête, the other two operas in Glass’s Cocteau trilogy. This concert is designed by the acclaimed French director Cyril Teste and the stage designer Nina Chalot.
Opera
Mr President
Friday, June 21st, Town Hall Theatre, Galway, €10/€5, tht.ie
The mezzo-soprano Catherine Donnelly and the jazz guitarist Aengus Hackett are among the performers of a new operatic work from WhistleBlast Quartet in collaboration with That’s Life, Galway’s special arts organisation, and Electric Dreams. Mr President includes music composed and performed by all the participants in That’s Life, including original gamelan accompaniment led by Andrew Madec, plus young musicians from Ceol na Mara youth orchestra. There’s also a public dress rehearsal on Thursday, June 20th, at 6pm.
Still running
Ciseach: An Embodied Manifesto
Thursday-Saturday, June 20th-22nd, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, 8pm, €20/€18, projectartscentre.ie
Linking with our past, grasping nature, gathering memories of folklore and age-old guidance are central themes of Catherine Young Dance Company’s new work, which blends movement and live music with an ethos of uniting diverse voices.
Book it this week
Garrison Keillor, Liberty Theatre, Dublin, October 15th, ticketmaster.ie
Max Richter, NCH, Dublin, October 30th and 31st, nch.ie
Bambie Thug, Academy, Dublin, October 31st, ticketmaster.ie
Snow Patrol, 3Arena, Dublin, February 25th, ticketmaster.ie
