Monday
Riverine
The Hunt Museum, The Custom House, Limerick Until Nov 29 huntmusuem.com
Maurice Gunning and Alice McDowell document the progress of what they call a quiet revolution in The Gambia. In photographs, interviews and ambient recordings, they profile nine women who, though they were custodians of the tradition of female circumcision, have made the courageous, life-changing decision to abandon the practice, usually in the face of community opposition of varying kinds.
Tuesday
Susanna's Secret/The Human Voice
Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin €22/€25 01-2312929 paviliontheatre.ie
Opera Theatre Company presents a double bill of two short contemporary operas, both sung in English. Tom Creed directs both, with music direction by Andrew Synnott. Susanna's Secret stars Soprano Rachel Croash and Baritone Rory Musgrave, while The Human Voice features soprano Kim Sheehan.
Let's Get Quizzical
Berlin Café, Dublin
The new Dublin venue tackles the hoary old pub quiz by adding a cabaret-style show, with weekly host Paddy Fagan and his German alter-ego Hans Nosenfeet. Rumours of a special round on the life and times of Whitney Houston are best believed.
Wednesday
Chelsea Wolfe
Button Factory, Dublin 7.30pm €18 buttonfactory.ie
LA-based Chelsey Wolfe straddles several music forms, and if you're into descriptive pitches such as "Joni Mitchell jamming with classic-era Black Sabbath", then her singular style of artful if somewhat distorted drone-goth-folk will be right up your glass-strewn garden path.
The Unlucky Cabin Boy
Siamsa Tíre, Tralee, Co Kerry €20/€17 siamsatire.com
Based on the true story of Patrick O'Brien, a Limerick teenager and ship's apprentice who was killed and eaten by his ship-wrecked crewmates in 1835, Mike Finn and David Blake's show for Gúna Nua might make for an unlikely musical – if there was ever such a thing as a likely musical. With an initially bouyant tone that becomes ever more maudlin, the show is guided by respect rather than grisly humour, slowing into a lament. The production and multi-role- playing performances are shipshape, and the music often lovely. But would it lose the injustice to have more wicked fun with it?
Thursday
Through a Glass Darkly
Project Arts Centre, Dublin Until Dec 5 8pm €12-€22 projectartscentre.ie
It is unlikely that Karin, the focus of this stage adaptation of Ingmar Bergman 1962 film, missed her calling as a travel agent. Holidays, she decides, are "lumps of time without any distractions", opportunities "to look straight ahead and stare into the abyss". The reason for this cheery island getaway is to spend some time with the men in her life: an emotionally absent author father, an over- protective husband, and a wary adolescent brother. Already prone to mental illness, the marginalised Karin begins to slip between realities, almost the only agency afforded to her. Corn Exchange's attractively severe new staging gives a grey stateliness to what could be Karin's mental disintegration or her radical emancipation. As the biblical reference of the title hints, it all depends on how you see things.
The Future Is Self-Organised – Artist-Run Spaces
Limerick City Gallery, Pery Sq, Until Jan 15 gallery.limerick.ie
Artist-run spaces, often combining studio facilities with exhibition programmes, have become a staple throughout Ireland, from Pallas in Dublin to 126 in Galway, Catalyst Arts in Belfast to The Black Mariah in Cork, not to mention Occupy Space in Limerick. Pallas Projects kicks off its 20th birthday series of projects with a survey featuring work and documentation, placing such spaces in the overall cultural context.
Detroit Swindle
Electric, Galway 11pm €7/€5 electricgalway.com
One of the best BBC Essential Mixes of 2015 is the one Dutch duo Lars Dales and Maarten Smeets produced a few months back. It was the perfect showcase for the exquisite, bespoke house style that has become Detroit Swindle's brand over the past couple of years. Their work includes the swaggering Figure of Speech EP for Freerange, the wide range of tracks they've put out on their own Heist label, and banging appearances at clubs worldwide – from Berlin's Panorama Bar to this fine establishment in the wild, wild west.
