We're mixing it up a little with the Culture 5 this week - we've selected a quintet of 2025's cultural highlights thus far, giving you the chance to catch up...
STREAMING: A REAL PAIN
Succession's Kieran Culkin won a deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in writer-director-star Jesse Eisenberg's quietly moving buddy comedy - the duo play mismatched cousins on a tour of Poland to pay respects to their recently departed grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. A small, perfectly formed character piece - that last shot will remain with us for the forseeable (Now streaming on Disney+)
BOOK: NESTING
On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe... Urgent, timely and compelling, Roisín O'Donnell's debut novel kicked off what is already shaping up to be an outstanding year in must-read Irish fiction with a bang - she cats to Miriam O'Callaghan below (Scribner, out now)
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FILM: BLUE ROAD
In Sinead O'Shea's must-see documentary, a well-deserved hit at the Irish box-office 93-year-old Irish literary icon Edna O'Brien recounts her controversial life, novels, love affairs, and stardom through personal journals, as read by Oscar-nominated actress Jesse Buckley. It's a formidable portrait of an incomparable talent - Sinead O'Shea talks to Miriam O'Callaghan below (Still screening at selected cinemas nationwide)
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TV: THE WHITE LOTUS
The action moved to Thailand for the third season of writer/director Mike White's acclaimed HBO black comedy, as the ensemble anthology series took the leap from critical darling to cultural phenomenon, thanks in no small part to a peerless ensemble cast that included Walton Goggins, Parker Posey, Carrie Coon, Jason Issacs and a surprise appearance from an Oscar-winning actor that nearly (nearly) stole the show. We're pitching West Cork for the next instalment (Available to stream via Sky & NOW TV)
MUSIC: ADRIAN CROWLEY
Measure Of Joy is the latest album from the Irish singer-songwriter, much-loved for his dark and brooding vignettes of life, love and the tiny epiphanies of daily existence, delivered as ever with a wry twinkle and a gravelly baritone that holds its own with late period Leonard Cohen; produced by PJ Harvey cohort John Parish, it's an absolutely delight from start to finish - is that a Bossanova element we detect? (Now Streaming)
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BONUS - PODCAST: YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS
In her podcast exploring the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century, Karina Longworth deconstructs the industry's myths without losing sight of its magic. The podcast's latest season, The Old Man Is Still Alive, might just be its finest to date explores the often-bizarre late-career work of major directors who got their start around the midcentury, amongst them Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra, Billy Wilder and John Huston (All podcast platforms)
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Hear the Culture 5 every Friday on Aedín in the Afternoon on RTÉ lyric fm, from 1 pm - listen back here.
