Reviewed today are Erin McKeown, Claire Sproule, David Mead and The Glee Club, Galway Arts festival.

Erin McKeown, Claire Sproule, David Mead

Earagail Arts Festival, Radisson SAS Hotel, Letterkenny

Burt, in Co Donegal, has been generous to the world: Grianan of Aileach, Liam McCormick's church, and, of course, Donegal hurlers. Now, just maybe, there's Claire Sproule.

So far the 20 year-old has hardly been heard of outside Co Donegal; that is, if you leave out the offices of some of the world's top record companies. She's been dined, she's been signed (by Blue Note and EMI Parlophone), and she's off soon to maybe London, maybe New York, to record her first album.

The treasure, it quickly becomes clear, lies in a special voice, well-schooled in the achievements of earlier generations: Tracy Chapman, Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell are all in the mix. Claire's got quality, power and control, and it's no surprise that she also knows her way around the fretboard - her musical family includes uncle Daithi, guitarist with Altan. On this evidence, she has also got some strong original songs.

So far so good, then, and singer- songwriters are certainly the thing . . .

David Mead, from Nashville, is becoming a hot property, helped by an impressive new album, Indiana. On stage, he's relaxed, laid-back like his material, and updates that high, lonesome sound for a contemporary audience, coming in somewhere along a line that includes David Gray, Nick Drake and (believe it or not) Slim Whitman.

The set is slick and professional, that sweet voice a source of constant and at times remarkable variety.

Erin McKeown bounds on to the stage, tiny in a sensible print dress, a tattoo on her forearm, and shatters the armchair atmosphere with an electric guitar thrash.

As the set develops, more of the panorama that is Erin McKeown is revealed - very much the pocket rocker when required, but a classy musician brimming with ideas and taking on all-comers, from Cole Porter to Jimi Hendrix, with a highly versatile voice and a true songwriter's gift. It's a powerhouse performance and the perfect end to the night.

See Mead and McKeown on one of their gigs around the country this weekend. To see Sproule, it looks like it's either New York or Burt.

Erin McKeown and David Mead play at Half Moon Theatre, Cork, tonight; Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, tomorrow; and Whelans, Dublin, on Sunday. - Martin McGinley

The Glee Club

Galway Arts festival, Town Hall Theatre, Galway

The Glee Club is an all-male singing group hewn from the harshness of the Yorkshire mines. Practising their repertoire for the local gala are miners Walt (Mike Burns), Scobie (Steve Garti), Jack (James Hornsby), Colin (Ollie Jackson) and Bant (Colin Tarrant), and musical director Phil (Stefan Bednarczyk). Effusive as it may seem to list all six of Richard Cameron's characters by name, this Bush Theatre (London) production demands it, because by its end you will know each of them fondly, feel closely for each of their stories.

Cameron, and director Mike Bradwell, pull off a duality often boasted of in the theatre but rarely truly attained: this portrayal of the 1960s summer which brings great change to the lives of these men is at once deeply moving and wickedly funny. It is an exploration of masculinity, of the complex shadings of sexuality, of friendship and of the need for love, and, for the most part, it is all of these things with ease. Only at moments, as the calamity faced by the homosexual Phil reaches full pitch, and as the others struggle to reconcile themselves with the situation, does a sense of strain creep in, does the superb tightness of Cameron's script loosen towards melodrama.

Phil's is the play's central crisis, but each character faces some new reality to which he must adapt: his relationship to the women in his life, to the children he has conceived, and, most importantly, to himself. Bradwell's cast is outstanding, their performances rich and intelligent; theirs is a symphony of sharp exchanges, crude banter and silences both wise and wounded, and Cameron has a trained ear for dialogue and a fine grasp of plot - as the story evolves, we are reminded that each action, no matter how casual, has its consequence. The scenes in which the men shower after their day in the pit are among the most poignant in the play, although they drew some nervous titters from the opening-night audience - but the real laughs, the laughs of sheer joy, were reserved for the wonderful, raucous renditions of the Glee Club songbook, both familiar and cheekily customised. Shout for an encore; you'll get it.

Runs until Saturday - Belinda McKeon