Reviews

Only in New Orleans will you hear 'Summertime' played at a funeral. Vitali Vitaliev finds hope, optimism and joie de vivre in abundance

Sean O'Tuathail encounters inhospitable terrain but hospitable people on his journey across Europe and through the Middle East

If you're not familiar with the band Keane then, suffice to say, they are about as far from being the rock star equivalents of their highly-charged footballing namesake as it is possible to be. Gazing out from the cover of December's issue of Q Magazine, it seems, for all the world, as though the irredeemably dull trio have just been informed that their prize turnips have been commended at a local gardening contest.

Vedado is coated in gloom. All Havana is cast in a hard darkness and the black smoke of the ancient taxis is periodically visible under the one dim lamp on the street. The roots of the dripping trees rise up through the cracked pavements and dogs make their homes under them while the locals walk on the rubble-strewn roads for fear of tripping.

When we performers talk about the dreaded 'C' word, we don't mean Christmas, we mean 'corporates'. (If columns had sound effects you would now hear a crack of thunder.) Those wonderful gigs where you start off thinking "this one's going to be different, they're going to listen, laugh uproariously, finish with a standing ovation and maybe I'll sign a few autographs afterwards."

Although still closer to the world of theatre than art Billy Leahy finds the exhibition of costume and stage design at IMMA worthy of attention

The well-worn tourist trail that leads from Bangkok to the islands is best avoided in place of the wonder of Kanchantaburi says Emma Browne

Through the eyes of the country's children, Billy Leahy learns that art is not all about rules, concepts, abstractions and justifications

Harshly reviewed in these pages for his production of Death of a Salesman, Joe Dowling takes on the critics with a review of Fintan O'Toole's collection of theatre criticism