Arts & Culture

PROFESSIONAL artist and teacher Denise Hogan is to share her skills with novice artists in a weekend painting and drawing session in the Russell Gallery, New Quay.She says that the weekend classes will cover everything from planning and preparation, to drawing and painting to the finished piece, with everthing else that comes in between. A spokeswoman for the Russell Gallery said that whether someone is a complete beginner or an experienced painter, the workshop will cater for individual needs. Pupils will be introduced or refreshed on their knowledge of materials, given demonstrations and shown how to achieve good results even as a novice. The artist brings a wealth of experience of painting and teaching. “She is a successful exhibiting artist with works hanging in many private and public collections both nationally and internationally. She specialises in the media of paint,  watercolours, oils and acrylics, and is also a qualified fine-art printmaker and glass artist.  Denise runs her own gallery and …

ALABAMA 3 have been added to the star-studded bill for the Bob Dylan concert live at Thomond Park on July 4. Bob Dylan will take to the stage at the Munster stadium with special guests David Gray, Seasick Steve and now Alabama 3.Special train services will be operating for the event on the day of the concert.Dylan’s latest album Together Through Life includes a song called Life is Hard, which was written for a forthcoming film by French director Oliver Dahan called La Vie En Rose. Bob Dylan’s three previous studio albums have been universally hailed as among the best of his storied career, achieving new levels of commercial success and critical acclaim for the artist. The platinum-selling Time Out Of Mind from 1997 earned multiple Grammy awards, including album of the year. His most recent studio work, Together Through Life went straight into the Irish charts at number one and became one of his biggest albums worldwide, selling more …

THE shortlist for the Irish Book of the Decade has been chosen by a panel of independent literary experts.The list includes internationally renowned Irish authors such as Clare’s own Enda O’Brien, William Trevor, Cathy Kelly, Anne Enright, Cecelia Ahern and Sebastian Barry, as well as national treasures Bill Cullen, Roy Keane, Eamon Dunphy and Ross O’Carroll Kelly.The Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards Irish Book of the Decade shortlist was devised in order to chronicle the story of Ireland over the last decade as told through the eyes of Irish authors. Over the coming five weeks, each of the shortlisted books will be profiled and promoted in Irish book retailers and libraries across the country, including Clare. The public can vote for their Irish Book of the Decade via the dedicated website, www.bookofthedecade.ie. The book that receives the most votes will be publicly announced in late May 2010 and the winning author will be presented with a special Bord Gáis …

Hot Tub Time Machine DIRECTED BY: Steve Pink STARRING: John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke CERT: 16 A question for viewers of a certain age: have you ever fantasised about going back to your teenage years, looking as good as you did then but knowing all the things that you know now?Ah, to have hair again and hear Madness and The Smiths on daytime radio and be able to run 100 metres without needing an ambulance on standby – and at the same time not be a complete eejit who didn’t have a clue what to say to a girl and have the guts to stand up to that clown of a teacher or the smartass classmates who were the bane of your life.Yeah. I might have thought about it once or twice. Sadly, I don’t have a time machine. Or a magic jacuzzi. Unlike the heroes of this movie – Adam (Cusack), Nick (Robinson) and Lou (Corddry), …

IT seems the summer schedule has come early with very few shows of interest on the television. I feel as if everything has been around for ages and that really there is nothing new at all to watch.Everywhere I turn there is Gleemania and it seems for us non-Gleeks – the apparently dwindling number who don’t watch Glee – this means that television no longer holds our interest in a kind of escapist way. No, I am not a particular fan. I like the start of the programme and the first season was okay but, as I have written on more than one occasion, these new teen dramas lack the punch and swagger of the dramas we grew up with. They may have the fast-pace and wide-ranging vocabulary of Dawson’s Creek but they do not, nor will they ever, have the poignant dreariness of My So Called Life. So, alas, I will not be tuning in no matter how boring …

Concern rippled through the movie world the day Guy Ritchie announced he was doing a Sherlock Holmes film. Was one of the greatest crime characters going to get the “apples and pears” mockney London treatment that had earned the former Mr Madonna both a lucrative career and, following the massive failure of Revolver, his follow-up to Lock Stock… and Snatch, a tarnished reputation as a filmmaker?As it turns out, no. The result of Ritchie’s Holmes reboot was a sort of Victorian buddy cop movie that showed all of the director’s best capabilities – snappy dialogue, good action scenes and keeping large, starry casts in line- without a hint of the self-indulgence that could’ve made the flick a whodunnit version of Eastenders.The film takes from aspects of different Homes stories, as Baker Street’s most famous son takes on the case of death, misdirection and treason in pursuit of the evil Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), a man who may or may not …

PARTS of the story of balladmaker, songwriter, musician and circus entertainer, Johnny Francis Patterson, will be relived in Glór next week.Johnny Francis Patterson – The Singing Irish Clown by Little John Nee and Barrabas Productions is a new show paying homage to the forgotten genius and extraordinary life the Clare circus performer had died in 1889 at 49 years of age. Although his story may have been forgotten, many of his hit songs can still be heard today such as The Garden Where the Praties Grow, Goodbye Johnny Dear or The Stone Outside Dan Murphy’s Door. A spokeswoman for Glór said the show brings Little John Nee’s characteristically easy mix of humour, poignancy and lyricism to this new show, throwing light on the captivating magic and the harsh reality of a life devoted to performance and entertainment.As a very young boy, Johnny Patterson already displayed an interest in music and at 14 years of age, his uncle enrolled him as …

CLARE Arts Office is calling on the public to support Bealtaine, the national festival organised by Age and Opportunity, celebrating creativity in older age.