It is a rather rank Big Top that greets us for this, the final event in this year's Arts Festival. Five days under the giant aquatic stage that was the Vis a Vis theatre have turned the ground into a soft, dank mush, much like a bad crop of silage. Unfortunately the grass isn't the only thing that stinks around here.

Tex-mex chanteuse Tish Hinojosa sings wholesome tales of homespun hardship. Like an ethnic Nanci Griffith, her sweet voice sings up-beat blank verse. She's big on kids, love, marriage and Texas, but short on wit, and has all the stage presence of a folk mass. In her wake, Luka Bloom had an uphill struggle to inject some atmosphere back into the proceedings but, by sheer hard work and enthusiasm, not to mention his own brand of torch songs, he managed to give substantial lift to the collective spirit.

All that's left for Simon Emerson's Afro-Celt Sound System is to sweep the stage with their new-age synthetic ethnical hybrid. Unfortunately, their show peaks with their first movement, a slow lament that inexorably rises to crescendo of flute, pipes bass and drum. Despite James McNally's free-range flute, it is quickly apparent that this is the Afro-Celt's best and only trick. Ho hum. . . anyone for a cup of tea?

Tish Hinjosa plays on Wednesday night at the Olym- pia, Dublin. Booking: 01- 6777744.