Tag Archives: entertainment

Ennis actress Denise Gough has been named Best Actress in this year’s Olivier Awards for her critically acclaimed role in the play People, Places and Things. The actress from College Green was the bookies favourite to take the award where she was up against actresses including Nicole Kidman, Gemma Arterton, Janet McTeer and Lia Williams. Denise used her acceptance speech in London’s Royal Opera House to voice concern about the lack of diversity. The Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys TD, has described Denise as “an ever rising star of stage and screen” as she congratulated both the Clare actress and other Irish winners. The Minister added, “When we see Irish successes on this scale at ceremonies such as the Olivier Awards, it underlines the importance, and indeed the benefits, of providing funding to Culture Ireland, which helps Irish artists to bring their work overseas and helps to showcase Irish talent internationally.” Critics have been raving about …

THERE is a widespread spiritual longing in Irish life, Michael Harding believes, and he feels that may account for the popularity of his own search for meaning. That is the theme that brought him fame, through his book, Staring at Lakes, and his Irish Times columns, while his latest book and show, Hanging With The Elephant, takes another good look at life and death. Harding said the decline of Irish Catholicism has led to a void around the topics he goes after. “The whole religious thing collapsed suddenly and people are still trying to figure that out. What do they do with their own isolation? What do they do with their own anxiety? As an individual, as you get older, you start thinking about what is the meaning of life, is there another life – all those deep questions. Irish people have powerful faith and I don’t think it’s gone away. I think it’s just in a process of transformation. …

MULLAGH’S own Marty Morrissey is now playing a major part in Mario Rosenstock’s show. Speaking about RTÉ’s GAA correspondent, Rosenstock says, “Marty Morrissey has a huge part in this show, it’s at the beginning of act two. His thing in the audience is to find the most beautiful girl in the audience and to shift her. That’s basically what I do, seek out the most beautiful girl I can find, bring her up on stage. We do several seductive dances on stage together, before I try and shift her!” Rosenstock’s Marty has an enviable record over the last few months, he adds. “I’ve done it 29 times. Marty Morrissey has had 29 different shifts!” It’s hardly surprising that there are sometimes problems with that segment of the show. “There have been varying degrees of success. Some women are not okay with it and some women go mad for it. It really depends on the Marty obsession factor in the audience,” …

PEMBERLEY Productions and the Lime Tree Theatre are bringing the one man off-Broadway production of In Acting Shakespeare on an Irish tour this month, with dates in Clare, Limerick and Galway. The tour gives Irish audiences a rare chance to see an off-Broadway production on their doorsteps and it comes off the back of a two-month, sold-out run in New York City. In Acting Shakespeare is a funny, touching and uplifting story of one man’s discovery of Shakespeare, acting and language. Freely adapted, with permission, from Sir Ian McKellen’s Acting Shakespeare, James De Vita tells his own story of a young fisherman searching for a new career. This fun, fervent tribute to one man’s personal journey, deftly weaves some of Shakespeare’s most famous monologues with James’ days as a Long Island fisherman and his nights as a classical actor. Speaking to The Clare Champion, Tim Smith, who is producing the play, which is written by and stars Wisconsin native De Vita, …

Having played together for over 20 years, Kíla are one of the country’s most innovative groups, having created their own style of music and winning endorsements from the likes of Bono and Sinead O’Connor. Speaking about the group’s sound, musician Colm Ó Snodaigh said; “It’s an eight piece band, so it’s a big band, a big sound. In the last few years we’ve taken in a new member who’s exclusively a drummer, it’s the first time. We’ve always had drums on stage but they were only used for one or two tracks, but is the first time we’ve had that kind of sound all the way through it. There’s fiddle, flute, pipes, bodhrán, drums, mandolin, guitar, bass guitar, it’s kind of a big sound. It suits the festival stage in a way and it’s very dance-y music.” He said that he loves seeing people moving to the music at their shows. “It’s great fun to be honest with you. Probably …

A FLASHMOB at Shannon Airport has become an internet sensation, with over 165,000 views on Wednesday afternoon. The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance were behind the Flashmob, which was organised to mark the start of Shannon’s summer season, which sees the airport’s biggest number of new routes for a decade. It can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv96XV2oOp4

CLARE Music Maker’s will host their 15th non-competitive festival in the Temple Gate Hotel this weekend. This event gives all Clare Music Maker’s students an opportunity to perform for families, friends and an adjudicator. Each student receives a certificate from the adjudicator. The festival, on Sunday, welcomes violinist Áine Kelly as adjudicator this year. Over her 20 years as a teacher and performer Áine has created, developed and directed two children’s orchestras, one of which received a national award during the children’s Orchestra Music Festival held annually in the National Concert Hall, Dublin. Áine is now based in Galway and performs on a regular basis with her String Quartet “Strings Serenade” and she also works as a deputy player with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and Con Tempo, the Galway Music in Residency String Quartet. All members of the public are invited to ‘drop in’ to the Temple Gate at any time during the festival and hear the talented children perform. …

TOM Crean is a name that has worked its way into people’s consciousness over the last 15 years. The Kerry explorer’s story is fairly well known now, in part because of Aidan Dooley, who has brought his one-man show, Tom Crean – Antarctic Explorer, around the country for the last 10 years. A Galway man, Aidan has lived in England for years and it was there that he discovered the Crean story. “I came across Crean for the first time when I was asked to perform a museum theatre piece in England in about 2001. I had never heard of him before that. I did an awful lot of research on the expeditions themselves because there was very little written about him. This was before Michael Smith’s book, Unsung Hero, was published. He was in the process of writing the book while I was in the process of finding out more about Tom Crean from a theatrical perspective and that’s …