Friday
Therapy Sessions
The Workman's Club, Dublin 8pm €10 theworkmansclub.com
As part of the admirable First Fortnight charity organisation, this event is curated by We Cut Corners duo John Duignan and Conall Ó BreachÁin. Guests include the highly distinctive Jennifer Evans and folk duo Saint Sister, who wowed them at a recent Dingle’s Other Voices event.
Sim Simma
Wigwam, Dublin 11pm €10/€5 simsimma.com
You’ll know Wigwam as the Middle Abbey Street space formerly known as the Twisted Pepper, which has morphed in recent weeks into a great Brazilian restaurant and bar. You’ll find club nights at the weekend in the basement and Sim Simma in situ on Fridays, with a fine wallop of reggae, dancehall, Afrobeat and other chilled sounds. There’s also such choice activities as dance workshops and yoga sessions.
Collate
The Bunatee, Belfast 8pm £10/£8 legowelt.com
Danny Wolfers is the Dutch lad whose work as Legowelt has long demonstrated a truly funky approach to electro and techno. Since the 1990s, Wolfers’s releases on Clone, Cocoon and his own Strange Life label have seen him perfecting a truly idiosyncratic approach to what a Legowelt track is all about. Support tonight is from rising local duo Schmutz, Peter Gibney and Collate residents Celestial and Fourth Mind.
Big Bobby. Little Bobby
Project Arts Centre, Dublin. Jan 6-9 9pm €14 firstfortnight.ie
Camille Lucy Ross’s solo performance for Brazen Tales, revived here for the First Fortnight festival, is a portrait of an Irish woman divided. Uprooted and isolated, Bobby is the guarded centre between the extreme influences of an extrovert mother – ruinously alcoholic and routinely humiliating – and a childlike demon she needs to “keep sweet”, erupting with infantile appetites and taunts. Co-written with director Kelly Shatter, the show’s allure is to see a dextrous performer slalom between roles, from her retreating protagonist to the endearing Bernard, a provincial character given the gallantry of Mr Knightley and the gait of Mr Tayto. Mental abuse and psychosis come off as little more than a plot device, though, in a show that amounts finally to a vivid character sketch, resolving the struggle between Bobbies Big and Little with something like a happy medium.
Saturday
AAA
The Limelight, Belfast 9pm £5 limelightbelfast.com
If you looking for a big club experience, here’s one with your name on it. AAA takes over four rooms in Belfast’s Limelight complex for an all-action pop, indie, house, hip-hop, rave and rock extravaganza. Your regular spinners are Rigsy, Will and Daz, who have the smarts to know what works on such big nights out.
Dublin Bowie Festival
The Grand Social, Dublin 8pm €12 Also Sun tickets.ie, thegrandsocial.ie
Ireland’s very first David Bowie Festival? It may be a little late arriving, but, praise the Thin White Duke, it’s very welcome – particularly as it takes place on the same weekend as his 69th birthday and the release of his much-heralded new album Blackstar (which is the Ticket’s album of the Week, see review on p12). Special guest for this two-day event is Dublin guitarist Gerry Leonard (left), who is, no less, Bowie’s bona-fide musical director. Expect Bowie-related music, movies, table quiz, collector’s items, and so on. On Sunday, Leonard will perform his debut Irish show under his solo nom de guerre Spooky Ghost (and will also join Bowie tribute band Rebel Rebel for a few songs). Leonard will also participate in a Q&A with Irish Times music critic Tony Clayton-Lea (that’s me, folks).
Sunday
On View
Selected works from the collection. Butler Gallery, The Castle, Kilkenny Until Feb 21 butlergallery.com
The artist Moya Bligh died in a road traffic accident in Kyoto in January 2009. Her woodblock prints were strongly influenced by her immersion in Japanese life, culture and technique (One Hundred Poets, left). This year, the Butler’s show of selected works from its fine collection incorporates a section devoted to her. The prints are drawn from a recent gift from the Bligh and Sato families.
We Are All in the Gutter, But Some of Us Are Looking at David O'Doherty
Whelan's Dublin Also Fri, Sat 8pm €17
David O’Doherty’s gifts are endless, or maybe that’s just the batteries for his Casio keyboard. This is the last of an extended stint of his delightful if bleak Fringe show. After all, as he sings himself, “What is laughter, if not happy screaming?”
