Reviews

There's a leading international playwright premiering work at the Peacock, while €750,000 is being spent redesigning the Abbey. Colin Murphy reports on goings-on at the national theatre

Superbly acted and beautifully shot, The Lives of Others is a tale of rebellion against the crushing fist of the state, while The Good German is as good a neo-noir as Chinatown, says Declan Burke

Theatre production in Ireland has come on in leaps and bounds since the turn of the millennium. The last few years have seen an upsurge in independent studios producing high-quality work in smaller theatres. One such independent company which has been developing plays since the early-1990s is Rough Magic.

Known internationally for its productions of Samuel Beckett's searing works, Dublin's Gate theatre has also tied itself closely to those of Oscar Wilde, regularly producing faithful period versions and modern retellings of some of his greatest plays. It was with much promise and tremendous anticipation that the Gate once again joined forces with Alan Stanford to produce Oscar Wilde's Salome. Unsurprisingly it was a resounding success.

By Maggie Gerrity
Think of a famous philosopher. Does Aristotle come to mind? Friedrich Nietzsche, perhaps? What about Bono?

U2 has established itself as a band with both style and substance. Fans have spent decades debating the meaning of lyrics and watching as the band has crusaded against poverty, AIDS, and other social causes. But does U2 really matter outside the realm of popular music?

Matt Damon unswayingly defends the American way despite the corruption and betrayal that surrounds him, while in Letters from Iwo Jima, Japanese troops sell their lives for one more day of freedom. By Declan Burke

Kate O'Toole writes about her father, Oscar nominee Peter O'Toole

The Bull provoked outrage when it was first staged two years ago. Colin Murphy visits its creator, Michael Keegan-Dolan, as he prepares to take the show to London

A collaborative project between IMMA's department of education and community and Focus Ireland, a charity fighting homelessness. Together, they have selected 16 works from the museum's collection to mark the 21st anniversary of Focus Ireland. With the historical experience of Ireland as a place of mass emigration and, more recently, its experience as a country of migration, the exhibition examines our shifting concept of the ‘home' as not only a place of shelter, but as a sense of belonging to a community and a culture.

Filmmaker Paul Callanan speaks to Village on the highlights of the upcoming Cork French Film Festival. Callanan is the curator of this years festival, which celebrates the 60th anniversary of the founding of Alliance Francaise in Cork with a showing of the Cocteau film La Belle et La Bette, also of the same vintage.