Everyone remembers Pinocchio for his socially-awkward nose - if his proboscis predicament was more widespread you'd see an awful lot of embarrassingly large noses around the place.
But there's far more to this cautionary children's tale than that - which this musical production of the classic story aims to tell.
Carolo Collodi's original Pinocchio, which first appeared as a serial in an Italian newspaper in 1881, has become one of the world's most printed books. This version's author, Paul Boyd, has remained relatively faithful to the original, adding a collection of light-hearted songs in a variety of styles to accompany the action.
Michelle Hartman winningly portrays the puppet as he stumbles through his picaresque life always trying to do the right thing but, through gullibility as much as weakness, often get it wrong - as we all do.
The co-production by Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire and the new Source Arts Centre in Thurles features some attractive musical arrangements in its songs. The Puppet Cabaret number ("A chorus pine" - get it?) worked particularly well as Pinocchio gets tricked into leading other puppets in a song and dance - a skill that proves very useful later on.
Yet largely the direction and many of the props were uninspired, in particular Pinocchio's mask - a good idea in portraying his wooden puppet nature and facilitating a growing nose that sadly ended up looking like a face bandage on a burn victim.
Unfortunately, a frequently misplaced (and unfunny) joke about Pinocchio's unusual name - "What's your name. Is that foreign?" - joins a collection of characters such as a dim-witted policeman with very rural Irish tones, a fast-talking, cheating showman with an American accent and two Cockney tricksters in drawing attention to stereotyping in a country trying to come to terms with socio-cultural diversity. It would improve the production to leave this aside.
Although the production values could have been higher, the piece showed imagination in its reworking as a musical for a small stage and cast. Young people warm to this story, and the show and its songs kept them entertained. - Christine Madden
Snow Patrol, Point, Dublin
Hail the conquering heroes and all of that. And while we're at it, hail the best crossover rock band Ireland (with a little help from Scotland) has produced since, well, U2. There was with no shred of doubt a sense of homecoming about these two sell-out concerts last Friday and Saturday - they were Snow Patrol's final dates of the year, a period wherein the band thrashed all comers to produce one of the best and best-selling albums of 2006 - Eyes Open.
Unlike U2, however, who professed quite early on in their career that their music was made for large venues with no roofs, there is a nagging feeling that while Snow Patrol have, through the roaring success of Eyes Open, been forcefully thrust out of semi-cultdom into the premier league, their collective heart still beats to the rhythm of bottles being opened at the bar in Whelan's. And it isn't that their music isn't up to arena-bashing snuff (far from it, in fact), it's that through apparent Pavlovian responses to every twist, tweak and turn of their set it seems to further tie them up in small, tight knots of confusion.
It's an interesting conundrum that more and more rock bands are facing - only a small portion of Snow Patrol's audience over the two nights would be familiar with very early material (debut album When It's All Over, We Still Have To Clear Up, and lead singer Gary Lightbody's side project The Reindeer Section), so does that mean the "new" fans will stick around? Or is that contemporary audiences view exceptionally good rock acts like Snow Patrol as little more than commodities to be downloaded?
In other words, given that this time last year they were merely moderately successful, where's the investment of time and commitment that bands such as Snow Patrol ultimately deserve?
Whatever way the band will address these issues remains to be seen; certainly humility is still intact as Lightbody, aspiring to be more than just a jobbing rock star, confesses, apropos the audience reaction, that he doesn't know whether he "should burst into tears or flames".
It's a touching note to what can only be described as a night of more than several triumphs - although surely the highlight was the song Chasing Cars, the rendition of which proved that just because a song is popular doesn't mean its power is diluted; rather in this case its potency is strengthened via an almost transcendent sense of simplicity, purity and beauty.
Old fashioned values that new fans should, perhaps, be alerted to. - Tony Clayton-Lea
