Comedian Kevin Gildea, journalist Edel Coffey and Irish Times Online Editor Hugh Linehan.

Directed by Lone Scherfig, 'An Education' is based on a memoir by the journalist Lynn Barber - adapted here for the screen by Nick Hornby. All eyes are on the movie's star, newcomer Carey Mulligan who is being hailed as the new Hepburn, and is a very hot tip for an Oscar. She plays Jenny, a young student in London in the early Sixties who is studying and hoping to go to Oxford but when she meets David - an older man about town played by Peter Sarsgaard - a love affair and a glamorous new life seem possible. Could it be that David is just a little too good to be true? 'An Education' is on general release.

You've seen the movie, you may well have read the short story by Daphne du Maurier but now along comes Conor McPherson with his stage version of 'The Birds'. Now on at the Gate Theatre, it stars Ciarán Hinds, Sinéad Cusack and Denise Gough as strangers marooned, thanks to the deadly birds, in an abandoned house with no real knowledge of what's going on in the outside world. Based on the short story, it quickly becomes clear that whatever does remain of the human race it poses at least as great a threat as killer birds. 'The Birds' continues at the Gate Theatre until 21 November.

'Lustrum' is the new novel from Robert Harris, the bestselling author of 'Imperium'. Here he returns to ancient Rome for a political tale of ambition and corruption, beginning on the eve of Cicero's inauguration as consul. The story is told by Tiro, Cicero's personal secretary and slave, who takes us through the complexities of assorted power struggles as Cicero finds himself defending, as only he can, the Republic itself against villains, crooks, would-be dictators and all manner of political animals roaming Rome around 63BC.

Now on at The Science Gallery in Dublin, 'WHAT IF' is an exhibition which asks that very question. What if clouds were modified to snow ice cream? What if we lived in a society where our every thought was public? Curated by designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, the exhibition hopes to explore how designers marry science and art to ask questions about the future. Visitors are asked to imagine future scenarios that just may come about. 'WHAT IF' runs at the Science Gallery at Trinity College until mid-December (the exhibition is not suitable for young children).

This coming Thursday, as part of the 2009 DEAF Festival, Judith Mok will joined by Javid Afsari Rad, Nick Roth, Oleg Ponomarev, Cora Venus Lunny, Francesco Turissi and Simon Jermyn for 'My Heart Is in the East' - an evening of 15th and 16th century Sephardic and Persian Music. That'll be in the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, but they're with us in studio with 'Morena me Llamanto'.