Arts & Culture

Man of SteelDIRECTED BY: Zack Snyder STARRING: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon CERT: 12A

They’ve got Lenin’s brain pickled somewhere in the Kremlin.

THIS year’s Ennis Street Festival will reach new heights as it welcomes a spectacular aerial show to its line-up. Ennis Street Festival, running from July 5 to 7, will showcase a variety of events, which under this year’s theme will encourage visitors to Let’s Explore.Two aerial shows with community participation will be the main attraction when Fidget Feet will perform an aerial show launching from a 40m high crane at Abbey Street Car Park. These shows will be held at 3pm and 11pm on Sunday, July 7.The aerial performance group will also provide a creative opportunity to both professional artists and to the public to get involved through drumming and performance workshops. A packed line-up of events was announced at the launch on Saturday and full details are available locally and from Glór in Ennis.  This year’s visual art project will follow the Let’s Explore theme and artists will showcase works based on folklore and enchantment. A unique visual experience …

Ennis singer-songwriter Emer O’Flaherty embarks on an exciting summer schedule from this Friday as she brings her new show Life in 3 Words to audiences in North Clare, Glór and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Kicking off at the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon at 8pm, she will perform her own songs following a set by oboe player Etain McCooey, violinist Karen Kelly and low -whistle maker and guitarist, Ian Lambe. It will be Emer’s first time performing at the Fringe Festival and explains how her body of work came about, ultimately leading to her netting the slot at the Scottish arts festival. “It was a snowball effect and who I have to thank for it are the Ginger Jam sessions in Brandon’s. They gave me 20 minutes last September to do a set and I said, ‘listen I’d love to do one song’, I had a few written but I said I’d let one out to the public first and they …

The Killaloe Chamber Music Festival returns to the South East Clare town after an absence of more than a decade this weekend and musicians will be coming from across the globe to showcase the best of Viennese composition. The revival event has been organised by Clarecastle resident John Horgan, who was involved with the original festival, as a board member of the Irish Chamber Orchestra. Killaloe’s St Flannan’s Cathedral will be the venue for the main recitals, which take place on Friday and Saturday at 8pm and on Sunday at 3pm. Speaking about the recitals, Mr Horgan hopes the festival will return as a staple on the Killaloe events calendar. “It hasn’t been there for ten years. It moved out of Killaloe and went to Limerick and it was there for a while and it sort of died away then. So this is a revival but on a slightly smaller scale to start with. We hope it will run every …

Doolin Folk Festival is taking place this weekend, with a number of big names coming to North Clare.The entire festival is taking place on the grounds of Hotel Doolin, less than a mile from the site of the famous Lisdoonvarna Festival of the late 1970s and early ’80s.Things get underway on Friday afternoon, with Peadar Reilly and Friends performing from 5 to 6pm. After this, Socks in the Frying Pan will be on from 6.30 to 7.30pm and from 8 to 9.30pm, it’s Scullion. From 10 to 11.30pm Martin Hayes and Steve Cooney are on with special guest Iarla Ó Lionáird, who is well known from his involvement with the Afro Celt Sound System.From 12 to 1.30am, The Céilí Bandits will be on stage with Kevin Griffin. Kevin is from Doolin himself and has recorded three popular CDs, Traditional Irish Music from Doolin, Co Clare, Across The Pond with Roger Burridge, Michael Shorrock and Quentin Cooper (2002) and Kevin Griffin …

After EarthDIRECTED BY: M Might ShyamalanSTARRING: WillSmith, Jaden Smith,Isabelle FuhrmanCERT: 12A After Earth is based on a story idea by its main man, Will Smith, an idea perhaps conceived in the hope that this would be the one – the movie that would mark Mr Smith’s triumphant return to the top of the hill. It’s been a while since he was king of the box office.I suppose it might have happened, had the project fallen into the right hands. Unfortunately for the now Not-So-Fresh Prince, it fell into the hands of M Night Shyamalan, the Hollywood equivalent of Wayne Rooney or Fernando Torres – a man who once dazzled the world with an immense talent, but is now a mere shadow of his formerself. Like his football counterparts, Shyamalan is still capable of the odd genius moment and to his credit, After Earth is an improvement on, say, The Last Airbender, but it’s a long way from the top of …

ÉNNIS Glór Theatre will play host to actress Mary McEvoy, comedian John Moynes and Newstalk broadcaster Dil Wickremasinghe as they share their personal stories of mental health problems on Thursday. This specially commissioned theatre piece entitled Box of Frogs embarks on a national tour as part of the national Green Ribbon campaign to encourage open discussion of mental health.Dubbed by the cast as “a happy play about being sad,” Box of Frogs sets out to take an irreverent and rollicking look at the Irish approach to mental health using the authentic material of the cast’s real life experiences. Through a mixture of stories, comedy sketches and songs, the cast tell their own stories, demystifying, debunking and having a laugh with what really goes on inside our heads.Actress Mary McEvoy, whose personal story of anxiety and depression forms the basis of her part in the show, said “I have no shame about my condition at all. I can work perfectly well …