Reviews include Bloc Party at Whelans, Dublin, The Lesson at the International Bar, Dublin, Ulster Orchestra at the Ulster Hall, Belfast and Hello Cork at the Everyman Palace, Cork

Bloc Party

Whelans, Dublin

"Attention unbelievers!" Kele Okereke barks out the opening words of The Marshals Are Dead, and the crowd replies with a cheer. No unbelievers here, mate - everyone is certain they're in the presence of imminent greatness. This time last year, Franz Ferdinand were on the brink of a breakthrough; and the Dublin venue is packed with pop fans eager to catch the first big buzz of 2005. Should Bloc Party follow Franz into the big time, no one here wants to miss it.

Bloc Party are not ashamed of their art-rock influences - they even wrote a letter to Alex Kapranos confessing their debt to The Cure, Sonic Youth and Talking Heads. Their music has that angular edge beloved of arty types, and they're not afraid to pull out a mekkanik dance beat when necessary. The spelling of their name might suggest a bolshie manifesto, but songs such as This Modern Love, She's Hearing Voices and Positive Tension seem concerned with the realpolitik of relationships. Music's the message, delivered via sharp, stuttering tunes and pointed, passionate lyrics - fuelled, of course, by good, old-fashioned music-biz buzz.

Okereke's tall, dreadlocked frame dominates centre stage, flanked by floppy-haired, fresh-faced guitarist Russell Lissack and calm, collected bassist (aren't they all?) Gordon Moakes. Drummer Matt Tong sets the staccato rhythms, but it's not all camp, goose-stepping beats - this is a tougher take on Gang Of Four, informed by an admiration for Fugazi and The Pixies. Indeed, it's Bloc Party's variegated set of influences that will keep them standing firm in the coming storm.

Bloc Party's début album, The Silent Alarm, is due out next month, and then we'll see if they have the legs to stay ahead of the other 2005 frontrunners. But on the strength of this gig - "our first time in the Emerald Isle" - you'd be well advised to start blagging a plus-one for the next time.

- Kevin Courtney

The Lesson

International Bar, Dublin

Eugene Ionesco's savagely dark 1951 comedy of an ageing tutor, his uptight housekeeper and the young woman who comes calling for help in her studies, is given a lively and thoughtful treatment in this production by Watchit Theatre Company.

As the older pair, Jim Roche and Aoife Moloney draw from their background of straight drama and somewhat slapstick comedy to create characters that disturb as much as they amuse, and while Isabel Claffey takes a little longer to settle in her scholar's desk, the trio manage to whip up just the frenzy of volatility and hysteria that a play by this author demands.

While it is clear from the outset that Roche's tutor is a troubled man, we should not be able to discern whether the source of this trouble is something that he himself can actually control, and Roche does well to elongate this tension, disguising the menace of the man with a buffoon surface that seems as fitting to the spluttering, disconcerted character as it is diverting for the audience. At points Ionesco suggests sexual longing on the part of the tutor for the student; however, Roche's lewdness is overdone.

The lesson itself, a whirl of mathematical and linguistic problems and puns, is Ionesco's device for undermining the purported truths of size, scale and sense on which we base our capacity for communicating meaningfully with one another. The playwright shatters this certainty by taking a knife - literally - to all relationships built on trust and need.

Against Denis Clohessy's unnerving score, and in Shane Crossan's threat-tracing light, these actors combine a fidelity to the darkness of the original while taking to it a comic style that is very much their own.

- Belinda McKeon

Ulster Orchestra

Ulster Hall, Belfast

Brahms - Symphony No 3. Piano Concerto No 1

The second instalment of Thierry Fischer's current Brahms cycle opened with a performance of the Third Symphony which maintained a fine balance between the work's rhythmical and expansively melodic elements. The Third Symphony is a more reflective piece than its predecessor, and Fischer showed a feeling for the work's autumnal side, especially in the slow movement where rich but gentle tone from the lower strings of the Ulster Orchestra supported a restrained clarinet solo, but he also responded to the more passionate middle section of the first movement. In the last two movements, he was sometimes impatient, and occasionally one would have liked a fuller tone from the upper strings.

Brahms's Third seems to be the only symphony in the standard repertory where all movements end quietly, and as the least obviously assertive of the four symphonies it worked well as a curtain-raiser for Peter Donohoe's impressive playing of the first Piano Concerto, magisterial in the first movement's second theme but demanding even in the stillest parts of the slow movement.

But for spontaneous and stylish communication, the honours go to Donohoe's encore, the A major Intermezzo Opus 118 No 2. From the unassuming opening, the innocent theme lent depth by the subtle pull of Brahms's harmony, caught with delicate rubato, the piece built to a climax not so much of volume as of feeling, the cradle-like lilt conveying volumes of regret and resignation.

- Dermot Gault

Hello Cork

Everyman Palace, Cork

It's not as easy as falling off a log, this business of variety. Hello Cork presents itself as a celebration of the city in laughter and song, and is characterised by an almost informal cheerfulness. The flood of affection and expectation rising from the audience is well deserved and rewarded by stalwarts such as Paddy Comerford (one keeps hoping for a casting agent to place him in an actual play) and Tony Hegarty, while Cha and Miah add to the hilarity.

This is true comedy: alive to the moment, devoid of obscenity, yet pungent, worldly-wise, carried in local accents which are not degraded, and honed to professional values. But other elements of the programme, aimed though it is at reviving a kind of entertainment once guaranteed by the very names of particular "acts", hint at a relaxed approach which is not justified by the end result. This may seem a harsh comment about a show which is so bright and engaging, but even informality has to be worked at - even when working the crowd seems easy, the performance still has to be achieved.

The harmonious atmosphere was established on opening night by the Cork Airport Singers conducted by Ann Healy Mayes and accompanied by Terry McCarthy, and the programme includes some fine singing and dancing from Celtic rhythms to classical ballet. It offers plenty to engage all ages and tastes, including Jean Elliott and Jimmy Crowley, with the finale provided by the Butter Exchange Band, sadly reduced in number but still, under Herbie Hendricks, giving a resounding account of itself in the finale of an entertainment which, with a little more determination, could become less a revival and more a resident event.

- Mary Leland