The award-winning author, Louis de Bernieres, will be one of the star attractions at the second annual Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, launched with clowns and canapes in Belfast yesterday.
The festival, which runs from May 3rd to 13th, features an eclectic range of music, comedy, theatre, film, performance art and literature. Mr de Bernieres, author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin (the film of the book is due for release next month), will read a selection of his work and talk about his writing life.
Described as "the problem sister" of the more established and entirely separate Belfast Festival at Queen's, this year's programme also includes contributions from the controversial author Will Self, the actress and author Pauline McLynn, comedian Kevin McAleer, poet and critic Tom Paulin and Turner Prize nominee Gillian Wearing.
Theatrical events include the acclaimed one-man show Seal boy: Freak by Matt Fraser, the true story of a short-armed freak show performer from the US. The John Hewitt pub in Donegall Street is the venue for The Rare Oul' Times, which explores what happens when Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh meet for a drink at the Bailey pub in 1950s Dublin.
The festival will also host the premiere of a new work from the Community Theatre Association of Belfast. Playing for Time is the first play by William Mitchell, a youth worker in the Shankill area. The play, which centres on the sectarian and sporting rivalry between two local football clubs, has received funding from Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Speaking at a reception in the John Hewitt, the festival director, Mr Sean Kelly, said that while the festival had a social and educational function it was essentially "a great big party someone else is paying for".
A spokesman for the main sponsor, Laganside Corporation, said last year's festival had "breathed new life" into the Cathedral Quarter, the 30-acre north inner-city site which is being developed as Belfast's answer to Temple Bar.
Some of the expected highlights on the festival's musical bill include a six-piece Cuban acapella group, Vocal Sampling; cabaret artist Barb Jungr; alternative country outfit The Handsome Family; and a local rock act, My Vitriol.
Vantastic Day on May 5th, a series of events celebrating the work of Van Morrison run by a Belfast-based music website, Oh Yeah, is a must-see for all fans of the Northern rock star. Among the Van-related events is a bus tour of east Belfast, taking in musical Morrison landmarks such as Big Davy's Chipper and Cyprus Avenue.
The tour can also be done virtually on the Internet. This will be followed by a seminar entitled "Van Morrison: Made in Belfast?" and a celebration of Morrison's songs featuring musicians from both sides of the Border.
For more information on the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival phone 048 90 232 403 or e-mail cqaf@hotmail.com