EVENT: PHIZZFEST
We're big fans of this voluntary community and arts festival, set up back in 2009 with the aim of bringing people together, and opening them up to ideas, music, activities, the arts and generally to have a good time locally. This year's shindig includes a back-to-back filmic tribute to Enda O'Brien, featuring a double-bill of the 1964 screen version of her novel Girl with the Green Eyes, followed by Sinead O'Shea's documentary Blue Road - the Edna O'Brien Story, and a Q&A with director O'Shea, all in the novel surrounds of the Mater Hospital's Pillar Centre (Various venues, Phisboro and surrounding environs, 9th - 11th May)
POETRY: MIKE GARRY
Mancunian wordsmith Mike Garry was a librarian for 15 years before becoming a poet, and regular touring companion of fellow cult hero John Cooper Clarke; over the years he's collaborated with the likes of New Order, Philip Glass and most recently Orbital and David Holmes. Mike's mother was from South Armagh and his father from Kilskyre, County Meath and much of his work reflects on life growing up in an Irish house in an English city. For this Irish tour, he's accompanied by The Cassia String Quartet for special shows in Dublin, Cork and Derry; venues include Pearse St Library, Dublin (May 14th), Crane Lane Theatre, Cork (May 15th), Levis' Ballydehob (May 16th), Seamus Heaney's HomePlace, Bellaghy (May 17th) and Workman's Club, Dublin (May 19th)
BOOK: TO AVENGE A DEAD GLACIER
We do love a good short story collection... Winner of the RTÉ Francis McManus Short Story Prize and the John McGahern Award, Shane Tivenan is a literary talent to watch. Throughout the stories in his debut collection, Tivenan explores the lives of rural Irish outsiders. His characters are artists, sean-nós singers, members of the queer community, the gifted, the neurodivergent, the environmentally concerned, people with memory problems, the spiritual people, the non-human... The author has expressed an interest in 'people who veer away from the norm' - this moving book celebrates them (Out now, Lilliput Press)
FILM: THE SURFER
We'll make a strong case for the recent run of movies the ever-prolific Nicolas Cage has starred in (from Mandy and Dream Scenario, to Pig and Longlegs) as a vivid showcase for cinema's most versatile and unpredictable talent at the height of his powers - now he stars in Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan's cinematic fever dream, as a man who plans to surf at an idyllic beach with his son but becomes thwarted and tormented by the locals - with increasingly demented results (Cinemas nationwide)
EVENT: DUBLIN DANCE FESTIVAL
Community, chaos and ritual will be celebrated with two weeks of daring and exhilarating dance at DDF's 21st edition; highlights include choreographer Oona Doherty's new show, Specky Clark; Re:INCARNATION by QDance Company, immersing audiences in Nigerian culture past and present; Scorched Earth by DDF's current Artist in Residence Luke Murphy, a haunting tale of ambition, land and legacy inspired by John B. Keane's The Field; a major new revival of Matthew Bourne's legendary production of Swan Lake; and Luail - Ireland's National Dance Company, which opens the festival with Chora, a triple bill of new dance works by acclaimed choreographers Liz Roche, Mufutau Yusuf, and Maria Campos and Guy Nader - Liz talks to RTÉ Arena below (Various venues, Dublin, 13th - 24th May)
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