Arts & Culture

CLONVICTS: The Musical, an original Christmas musical variety show, is the latest production from Clonlara’s award-winning Underdog Theatre Group. With live onstage acts combined with short films, Clonvicts tells the fairy tale story of Nancy Clancy, a sad and lonely woman who gets in trouble with the law. While in court, she meets a group of misfits like herself, all of whom are sentenced to put on a musical variety show for charity in Clonlara.  The “show within a show” means there are plenty of chances for singing, dancing, and laughs galore, featuring actors from the Clonlara, Truagh, Ardnacrusha and Corbally areas.“After the success of last year’s show, Clondog Millionaire, we definitely wanted to put on another show at Christmas,” says Patricia Galvin, Underdog Theatre Group committee member, who portrays the evil Judge Judy Moody in Clonvicts.  “We decided to write our own show again this year and to use as many kids and adults from Clonlara as we can …

MEMBERS of a Clonlara amateur drama group have plenty of reasons to celebrate at their annual Christmas party this Saturday night, having won 18 different awards, including an All-Ireland title, during the recent one-act drama circuit.Shannonside Drama Group will display their glittering array of trophies in the Landscape Bar, Doonass this Saturday night at 8pm.The group has also decided to stage its multi-award winning production of Landscape at a local venue early in the new year. It has decided to do a joint production with another local group.In total, the group won a staggering 17 individual awards and a great national victory in the All-Ireland confined section in Dublin recently.The individual awards included five for best play on the festival circuit in Kilmallock, Haulbowline, Dunmore and Doonbeg – three for Eilish Casey, who won best actress in Kilmallock, Dunmore and Doonbeg and two adjudicators awards in Birr and Haulbowline.Eddie Dillion scooped the coveted prize for best actor in Doonbeg and …

THE Tulla Pipe Band is 75 years young this January and to mark the special occasion, the band has launched a 2011 calendar depicting images of both past and present members.Formed on January 7, 1936, the Tulla Pipe Band took over from the existing brass band, which wound down at that time. An ex-army officer by the name of Welsh was paid £2 and 10 shillings to train the new band. The band purchased their first set of pipes and drums from Crowley’s of Cork where the pipes cost £5 each and the drums cost £2.50 each. The pipe band’s first parade was down the Main Street of Tulla and thus began their long journey.In 1941 during World War II, the band was handed over to the army and became an LDF band but was returned again to the parish of Tulla in 1946. While the band was founded in 1936 it was not until 1949 that members got their …

The Tourist DIRECTED BY: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck STARRING: Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Steven Berkoff, Timothy Dalton CERT: 12A In any given week a new Hollywood movie comes along to remind us that talent doesn’t equal quality. This week that movie is The Tourist.Here’s the talent: an excellent cast, including two of the finest headliners in the business. Two Oscar-winning screenwriters, Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) and Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park) and a writer-director (the guy with the long name) who won the Foreign Language Oscar for his last film, the 2006 feature, The Lives Of Others. Here’s the quality: uummmm… it looks pretty but it could have been so much more. The Tourist has all the ingredients for a great old-fashioned comedy thriller you know, the kind where beautiful people find themselves up to their necks in silliness and peril in lovely locations, but grin and charm and slapstick their way to a happy ever after. Think …

AN INTERESTING exhibition examining the relationship with the land, entitled An Clochán, is being launched in the X-PO Kilnaboy this Sunday.The exhibition looks at the enormous changes in the Irish landscape over the last 40 years, encompassing Ireland’s accession to the EU, changes in farming practices, introduction of the REPS scheme and the unprecedented economic growth of the last 10 years, which have all played a part. “The landscape has fed us, sustained us, shaped us, taught us and brought us joy. In parallel with the nation, agriculture has developed. Large slated shed, huge imported tractors and heavy machinery are now commonplace in the countryside. “Agriculture has modernised, it is now a mechanised system of production. Has people’s attachment with the landscape been severed as the landscape has become more mechanised? Have people’s emotional and psychological connection to the land altered as a result of modernisation? These are among the issue dealt with the exhibition,” a spokesman said.It also looks …

Beyond Bond or Harry Potter at a push, it’s hard to think of a movie franchise that has managed to successfully push past the three movie mark and maintain any sort of relevance, quality or even tolerability. Star Wars couldn’t do it. Neither could Indy. Depending on who you talk to, either Peter Jackson or JRR Tolkien called a halt to the Lord of the Rings after its third portion. Trek choked after its first sequel, The Wrath of Khan, and The Godfather, Blade and, until now it seems, Shrek, faltered after two excellent outings.So what an odd thing to find that after a limp and disappointing Shrek 3, Shrek Forever After is, well, good. Not great by any means, but definitely a worthy (and hopefully final) addition to the series.After the happy ever after of the third film, Shrek is in the middle of a bit of mid-life crisis. Embattled by a his fatherly responsibilities and cranky that his …

A UNIQUE adaptation of the nativity story will be staged by Roslevan-based Dhá Lámh Theatre next week.In a break with traditional nativity plays, this production will cast off any religious elements and present two radically different versions and concepts based loosely on the well-known and regularly performed standard Christmas play.

AFTER time out touring Australia, Canada and the US, Des Bishop returns to Ireland with a deeply personal tale of his father, Mike, who has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.