The Irish Times reviewers run the rule over Doves, Josh Ritter, Hansel and Gretel and Swan Lake.
Doves
Olympia, Dublin
Doves clearly didn't just pluck their name out of the air. The Manchester trio may have a feather-light monicker, but underneath hangs a hefty emotional - and technical - weight. Songs like There Goes The Fear and Satellites are top-heavy with sonic trickery, but they're all about breaking out of that spiritual cage and soaring into a wide open space. At the Olympia theatre at the weekend, Doves didn't quite fly, but they hovered close to the edge of ecstasy.
Doves' fine albums, Lost Souls and The Last Broadcast, have both been nominated for a Mercury Music Prize, but their detractors have labeled them dull old dadrockers, or worse, proto-prog rockers. It's true that singer-bassist Jimi Goodwin, guitarist Jez Williams and drummer Andy Williams are reaching beyond the usual rock boundaries, but at least they're not Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Not yet, anyway.
It's plain, though, that U2 and Pink Floyd are twin sonic beacons guiding the trio out of the indie backwaters into a bigger, oceanic sound. Pounding is "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses Where The Streets Have No Name", while the band's arsenal of explosive bleeps and volcanic effects conjure up echoes of Floyd live at Pompeii. They're augmented on tour by a keyboard player, and backed up by big screen visuals, but this being Friday 13th, no one was surprised when the show experienced slight technical hitches.
"This wouldn't be a Doves gig without something going wrong," quipped singer Jimi Goodwin as he waited to get on with the next tune.
Caught By The River and Catch The Sun both succeeded in snaring that elusive buzz, but their encore caught everyone off guard.
Dipping into their previous incarnation as dance act Sub Sub, the band revived their Top 3 hit, Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use), inviting audience members to join them onstage in an impromptu dadrock rave.
Kevin Courtney
Hansel and Gretel,
Project, Dublin
Storytellers Theatre Company has pieced together a charming yet profound rendition of the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. Like a patchwork, its myriad creative devices, knit skilfully together by director Bairbre Ní Chaoimh, function as foil and enhancement to each other, all working together to underscore the psychological bent of the production.
The adaptation by Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy remained faithful to the original in many nuances, diverging in detail to put an Irish spin on the story. After a year of "never-ending rain" leading to a bitter-cold winter, Hansel and Gretel's family are starving, and the mother - Bríd Ní Neachtain - bends under the strain: "You can never tell what people will do when they're demented by hunger". She persuades the father (Barry Barnes) to join her in her ghastly plan - to leave the children out in the forest to fend for themselves or die. After Hansel and Gretel (Fergal McElherron and Judith Roddy) spend a rather longish time searching for home through the forest, they discover the gingerbread house - complete with real sweets. Ní Neachtain also plays the witch in the gingerbread house, in an echo of the mother who had become so evil and self-absorbed through hunger; her plan to cook and eat the children could have come straight out of a subconscious vision in a David Lynch film.
Paul Keogan's lighting and Clodagh and John McCormick's puppets also emphasise the psychological aspect of the story, in which Hansel and Gretel see things that aren't really there (shadows). At one point, they play themselves as puppets placed in a tree by their parents - who speak to the puppets, not them. Their excellent performances made the switching from puppet to performer, acting to narrative, work seamlessly. Music by Trevor Knight and set design by Chisato Yoshimi added to the forbidding atmosphere.
My one quibble with the production would be the happy and quite abrupt ending. It was one way in which the adaptation diverged from the original that didn't ring true - particularly as too little time was spent making it believable. Apart from that, this dramatised fairy tale harks back to its origins in that it is excellent and meaningful entertainment for both adults and children.
Runs until January 4th
Christine Madden
Josh Ritter,
Vicar Street, Dublin
Living up to the hype can put a lot of pressure on a boy. Especially when even a whisper of being "the new . . . whoever" can spell the kiss of death for an emerging singer/songwriter. Josh Ritter doesn't sup at that trough though: maybe it's his Idaho roots (promising far more resilience in the face of music industry pressures than a Manhattanite gene pool would), or his suitably tousled hairstyle . . . or maybe it's just the happy collision of good lyrics, fine guitar playing and a hot band lurking in the shadows that sets him apart.
Like David Gray almost a decade ago, the Irish punter has taken Ritter to its bosom with unseemly abandon. Almost from the moment he yielded himself to the dubious pleasures of the Irish climate, Ritter has been able to bask in the warm glow of an audience who inhaled his every breath and embalmed his every word.
His Vicar Street gig this week might be described as triumphant if that weren't so unlikely a pose for this low-key performer to adopt. Dipping frequently into his ragbag of newer songs, as well as airing a healthy quota of material from his exceptional début, Golden Age Of Radio, Ritter managed to capture the wet-grass freshness of relationships as if he'd never exposed his eardrums to the cliché-ridden alternatives that swamp our airwaves these days.
Even his treatment of the wiliest of folk/country icons (the devil on that southbound train) sounded refreshingly wry in Harrisburg. And anyone who can put fire in the belly of a hackneyed reference to sitting on the porch listening to Townes Van Zandt must surely be party to a world that few songwriters visit, and from which fewer still emerge intact.
His own songs (Come And Find Me, Me And Jiggs, Golden Age Of Radio) sparkled, scaffolded by the sublime Darius Zelkha, Zack Hickman and Jason Humphrey on keyboards, bass and drums, and his occasional forays into covers (most especially on The Band's It Makes No Difference) soared high into the ether, breathing new life into their jaded bones.
At times, it was tempting to box him in the neat deadpan humour of Loudon Wainwright, or the bone-dry storytelling of Will Oldham, but Ritter needs no history books to help him write his own story. His voice is only his own; his songs though, might ultimately belong to anybody.
Siobhan Long
Swan Lake
The Point, Dublin
In this legendary ballet about desire and betrayal - made hyper-real by Tchaikovsky's lavish and climactic music - the visual elements emphasise the archetypal erotic symbolism of the swan while masking it all subtly in virginal white. The image of the "swans" and their tutus are what most people associate with - or rebel against - in classical ballet.
The Perm, with its superb dancers and resources, is able to produce a breathtaking spectacle from this masterpiece, using the conglomerate blueprint of master Russian choreographers Lev Ivanov, Marius Petipa and Alexandr Gorsky. Well able to combine precision with grace, the Perm's corps de ballet arranged and rearranged themselves like jewelled shards in a kaleidoscope throughout the different ethnic dances in act two and, of course, as the swans in acts one and three.
The key to the success of this ballet lies in the illusion of the dancers as swans - so difficult to achieve without looking ridiculous, particularly after nearly 130 years of production. The high technical calibre of the Perm's dancers meant they could avoid this. But the pinnacle of this act of art imitating life was the exquisite Elena Kulagina, who danced the role of Odette/Odile. Kulagina, the Perm's prima ballerina, can say more with a momentary flicker of her finger than a roomful of politicians can bluster in a year. Playing the double character of Odette, the enchanted swan, and Odile, the temptress, she managed both with animation, charisma and eloquence.
Swan Lake is really a ballet for women; the male roles are small and provide little opportunity for bravado. Roman Geer, as Prince Siegfried, rarely got the chance to show off his skills as principal, his main occupation being to gaze admiringly at Odette/Odile - like the rest of us. Radiy Miniakhmetov (who already proved his worth as the exceptional Tybald in Romeo and Juliet) as Rothbart likewise had little opportunity to show his evil stuff; only Nikolai Vyuzhanin as the Jester leapt in between the others to impress with his agility. Monica Loughman performed capably to her home audience in the pas de trois, and did herself credit. It was a rare opportunity to watch a classic of Western civilisation done with craft and mastery.
Christine Madden
