Monday
Town Is Dead
Peacock Stage, Abbey Theatre. Previews until Jun 7 Opens Jun 8 8pm (Sat mat 2.30pm) €15-€25
abbeytheatre.ie
What kind of a show is Town is Dead, the latest collaboration between writer Phillip McMahon and composer Raymond Scannell? This new work has flirted with a couple of descriptions, first "a play within music" then a "living-room musical", which sounds like a carefully issued disclaimer for anyone expecting a lost Leonard Bernstein sequel. But the collaborators responsible for Alice in Funderland, easily the most daring and joyful production at the Abbey in the past 20 years, may simply want to cool the more breathless expectations that come with staging a musical. The central character is Ellen (Barbara Brennan), a 66-year-old woman returned from a London council flat to live in the box-room of her sister's home, where the past returns to confront her. McMahon and Scannell, both writers of risk and wit, have always been deftly socially attuned, and taking the pulse of the nation provides necessary melody and rhythm – even as it flatlines.
Ryou-Un Maru
Brian Duggan. Project Arts Centre, 39 East Essex St, Temple Bar, Dublin Until August 13th
projectartscentre.ie
When the 2011 Tohoku tsunami and earthquake hit Japan and caused havoc, the fishing boat Ryou-Un Maru was swept out to sea and drifted across the Pacific for 391 days until it was found and sunk off the Alaskan coast. Brian Duggan's installation tells a story of ghost ships, currents, tectonic plates and Fukushima.
Tuesday
Slayer
Olympia Theatre 8pm €40
ticketmaster.ie
California's Slayer have been around since 1981 and have five Grammy nominations (one win). Special guest is Anthrax, a thrash metal band that will surely give the headliners a run for their money.
Carlene Carter
Whelan's Dublin 8pm €20
whelanslive.com
Carlene Carter, the daughter of June Carter Cash, is plugging her new album, Carter Girl. This Grammy- nominated singer- songwriter is making a very rare visit to Ireland.
Wednesday
What if We Got it Wrong?
Emily Robyn Archer, George Bolster, Mark Clare, Alice Clark, Blaise Drummond, Seamus Dunbar, John Gerrard, Andrew Kearney, Susan Leen, Ruth Le Gear, Selma Makela, Anna Macleod, Christine Mackey, Seamus Nolan and Brigitta Varadi.
Wexford County Council, Carricklawn, Wexford Until July 29th
wexfordartscentre.ie
Irish-based artists cast a cold eye on climate change, taking their cue from Lemm Sissay's poem What if?, as in: "What if our wanting more was making less? And what if all of this wasn't progress?" Nora Hickey M'Sichili, Frank McDonald, Darragh McKeon and Katherine Waugh contribute essays to the catalogue.
De La Soul
The Limelight 1 8pm £31
limelightbelfast.com
Formed on Long Island, New York in 1987 (yep, thirtysomethings – 1987!), De La Soul are innovative pioneers of hip-hop wit and wordplay. While it's true that the trio's 1989 debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, is the one they're best known for, you'd be foolish to think that's all they have in their impressive back catalogue.
Thursday
Caha, Joe Wilson
Catherine Hammond Gallery, 61 Bridge Street, Skibbereen, west Cork. Until June 30th.
hammondgallery.com
To a certain kind of temperament, a rising gradient is irresistible. Joe Wilson spends a great deal of time walking on high ground and his work is concerned with the immediate physicality of that experience. His latest series of paintings stems from his exploration of the Caha Mountains on the Beara peninsula. Bracing, vivid images, they are based on day-by-day climbing, walking, sketching and photography.
Bloomsday: Blooming Ulysses
Bewley's Café Theatre at Powerscourt. Jun 13-18 1pm €8-€12 (lunch €4)
bewleyscafetheatre.com
Strolling Through Ulysses
The Stag's Head, Parlour Bar. Jun 12 1pm & 7pm, Jun 16 1pm; The International Bar 7pm €10
eventbrite.ie
Portrait of the Artist
Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire. Jun 16-17 8pm €18/€14
paviliontheatre.ie
It's time to start the day: to eat with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls, to pursue a bar of lemony soap, attend a funeral, work a bit, catch lunch, lose yourself in reveries, suspicions, politics, confrontations and comradeship, and to slip finally home, to sleep. On the surface, Bloomsday is always a vast performance. People saunter through Dublin, following Leopold Bloom's footsteps in Edwardian dress, making a pilgrimage through Joyce's famous words.
Sociability and dense literature have never been easy to reconcile, though, so naturally there are various adaptations to spur you along: Gerry Farrell’s one-man Ulysses adaptation, Blooming Ulysses (Bewleys Café Theatre), crunches the tome into an hour’s performance; Robert Gogan’s Strolling Through Ulysses does much the same (The Stag’s Head, International Bar); and, for variation, Jimmy Fay’s well-regarded production of Portrait of the Artist (in Tony Chesterman’s adaptation) returns to pursue its own odyssey.
42
Dance Limerick, 8pm €12/€10
dancelimerick.ie
Ballet dancer turned contemporary dance artist Ella Clarke presents her autobiographical performance piece 42, exploring her journey from the heart of classical ballet to the outer reaches of "acceptable" public behaviour in search of what makes her tick.
