THEATRE FESTIVAL
Newcastlewest
Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin Sep 25-Oct 4 €15-€25 dublintheatrefestival.com
Pan Pan, Ireland's leading contemporary theatre company, may seem like an idiosyncratic bunch. In recent years, director Gavin Quinn and designer Aedin Cosgrove have combined an anarchic sensibility with rigorous consideration to create electrifying new versions of Shakespeare and boldly repositioned Beckett texts. That hasn't come at the expense of living collaborations, where shows such as The Seagull and Other Birds, or The Crumb Trail, welcomed new contributors. Dick Walsh, the creator of the unsettling A Dangerman and Some Baffling Monsters, is just their kind of guy, an artist with a deadpan sensibility genuinely pushing at the form of theatre. Billed as a black comedy involving indeterminacy, randomness and dependency within a family, it may not be an easy ride, but hopefully it should take us to a new destination. PC
ART
Extensions
Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda, Co Louth Sep 30- Nov 13 droichead.com
Marshall McLuhan may seem like a blast from the past, but far from being a modish 10- day-wonder, he was a serious media theorist and visionary. The medium has proved to be the message – again and again. Sound artist Mark Templeton, film-maker Kyle Armstrong, Droichead AC and Thirty Three-45 have delivered a 30- minute film tribute that incorporates sampled film and audio. AD
