OthelloCivic Theatre Studio, TallaghtGerry ColganIt must be extremely difficult for up-and-coming solo acts - with little other than a bunch of songs, an acoustic guitar and varying levels of arrogance - to instil any sense of newness and wonder into an audience that has probably seen too many singer/songwriters to be overly impressed with yet another one.

The many activities which combine to launch a play, casting is perhaps the most critical. Get the right actors, and a company is half-way to where it wants to go; do not, and the production is listing badly from the start. The Civic Theatre's presentation of Othello is in the latter category.

J. J. Rolle and Mark Wale, who play Othello and Iago, are visually and vocally wrong for the parts. Rolle, an American, is very short and stocky, and has an accented, thick voice that seems to have difficulty in handling the Shakespearian verse. Mark Wales's tall and burly Iago towers over him, and speaks in a monotone that is a poor vehicle for the great words.

The pair are far from being the noble, warrior Moor and his serpentine, sadistic aide, and their deficiencies seep into every corner of the production. It is played in traverse, with the audience seated on two sides of the intimate space, with a large, rectangular box as the only prop. Costumes for the men are shapeless military fatigues, for the women, simple dresses.

Only a few actors rise above the general low-flying path of the vehicle, and of these, Isabel Claffey's Desdemona soars best. She looks and sounds right, always in command of her character. Ciaran Reilly's Cassio is credible and strong, a convincing portrayal. Tadhg McMahon's Roderigo manages some credible passion, and others achieve varying measures of competence.

It is clear that the script has been trimmed, a common feature of Shakespeare productions today, and not a matter to be criticised in itself. By their fruits shall ye know them, however, and there is little about this outing, directed by John Delaney, to gladden the hearts of the Bard's faithful followers.

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Sunday at Noon

Julia Dickson (baroque flute), Maya Homburger (baroque violin), Sarah Cunningham (viola da gamba), Alessandro Santoro (harpsichord)

Hugh Lane Gallery

Douglas Sealy

was a time when a recital of baroque music on period instruments would have been sparsely attended, but the Hugh Lane Gallery was full at midday last Sunday. The audience, whether attracted by the high standing of the performers or by the delectable music, was not disappointed.

The sound of the early instruments was ravishing in works by Bach, D'Anglebert, Leclair, Marais and Telemann; and the Celebration for solo violin by Barry Guy, though in a modern style, was cunningly contrived to match the gentler baroque idiom.

Bach's Trio Sonata in G, BWV 1038, was a friendly dialogue between flute and violin, supported by the smoothly blended tones of harpsichord and gamba. Alessandro Santoro, who was standing in for the indisposed Malcolm Proud, had a solo later in the programme, playing three movements from D'Anglebert's Troisième Suite in D minor.

The opening Prelude, in free style, had a winning playfulness, and the more regular Allemand and Sarabande were played with an admirable combination of convention and fantasy.

The French composers of the period have the gift, it seems to me, of touching profound feelings with a lightness the Germans seldom attain. Telemann's Paris Quartet No 6 in E minor, for flute, violin, gamba and harpsichord, though witty and entertaining, and given an expressively detailed performance, belongs to a sterner tradition that Leclair's Trio Sonata in D, for flute, gamba and harpsichord, or that Marais's Suite in G

(for gamba and harpsichord).

In these it seemed the rules could be stretched in a playful but always elegant manner.

However, whether the music was French or German, the performers were adept in fulfilling the demands of the composers.

Ger Wolfe

Spirit Store, Dundalk

Tony Clayton-Lea

So here is Cork-based Ger Wolfe, a semi-veteran of sorts who has been around and writing songs for the past 10 years, and who has recently released a solo album, Ragged Ground. With an acoustic guitar, a banjo and a partner in drummer Martin Healy (who is reduced part of the time to just sitting on his drum stool), Wolfe plays in front of about 25 people. Like most enthusiasts, he gets on with it, his stage nerves apparent, yet willing himself to succeed through a mixture of the solo-act brass neck syndrome, no small talent for surreal comedy (he is from Cork, after all) and some fine songs.

It's the songs and their constituent elements that will make or break Ger Wolfe, however. They are naïve and simplistic, born of personal reminiscence. O Little One is about Wolfe's toddler of a daughter; The Lark of Mayfield concerns his older brother. Others, such as Princess Please Put On Your Coat, Call Me Down and Bluebell encapsulate the vagaries of growing into your own skin at a reasonable rate.

While other singer/songwriters might weigh down such personal songs with a barren sense of profundity or pretentiousness, Wolfe pares down the analyses to a series of economic but thoroughly effective lyrical strokes. Describing him as Irish folk's answer to Syd Barrett or Nick Drake is stretching it somewhat: he's occasionally as rough as a cheese grater and he often loses us with between-song incoherence that not even his charm can salvage.

But there's something there, dammit. Yes, definitely something there.

Denys Baptiste

Whelan's

Peter Crawley

Inviting the Whelan's audience on "a musical journey through the darkest reaches of jazz", Denys Baptiste rammed his tongue squarely into his cheek. But his intentions seemed genuine.

Glowing with an easy charm and driven by an impulse to demystify the music that he calls home, the British saxophonist stated the obvious: jazz is a performance without a script. They would be making it up as they went along.

Improvisation is both thrilling and terrifying. Its energy comes from performers on high alert, its nervous excitement from the possibility that, at any moment, it could all go horribly wrong. For a while, it almost did.

Hoisting a well-worn tenor sax to his lips, Baptiste's staggered melody formed an elusive lead, before Tom Skinner's tentative percussion and Larry Bartley's diffident bass followed into his debut album's title-composition, Be Where You Are.

This agenda, keeping his fellow musicians in the dark, continued throughout the set.

More amused than frustrated, Skinner shrugged across his drums at inquiring pianist Andrew McCormack before adroitly accompanying Baptiste's lounging motifs.

Such challenges were often met with inspired responses, although during Baptiste's retreats, the rhythm section came into its own, McCormack's piano suddenly unshackled.

Baptiste's gift for melody kept the concert as buoyant as his thoroughly plámásed audience. Gasping for air after a whirlwind rendition of Parallax, he claimed not to have played so well for ages.

It was our contribution that pushed it over the edge, apparently.

"We're not the only people in this band," he cajoled.

Baptiste's accessibility was as refreshing as his desire to explain the meanings of song titles.

But at his best, splicing the sauntering motif of Rollinstone to chopping rhythms and a stark piano counterpoint, there was no need to explain.