Jane Hardy

Copy link I was curious to see Rose + Bud, Rose Coogan’s new play, having interviewed her for The Sunday Times a couple of years ago. It was a brave exercise but weirdly undramatic, even though the raw material is full of drama. This is first person central theatre, an account of Coogan’s trans journey towards womanhood and pulls no punches. There were difficult moments, moments of complex decision making – to fumble with Conor, the fancied next door neighbour or not, the throwing up in the Ladies loo – but often the tone was comic with rapid changes of gear. Audience members near me laughed quite a bit as Ballynahinch came in for its share of giggling, also Derry where Coogan goes to study for a drama degree.

Copy link The sheer intensity of Yerma’s childless pllght, and sorrow, shone through Tinderbox’s version of Lorca’s 1930s drama at the Lyric Theatre. She howled, repeatedly asked why she couldn’t bear a child, heard babies crying in her head. Caoimhe Farren was remarkable, believable when she gets drunk and somewhat aggressive as the wicked godmother at a family christening. The scene where the baby unravels to reveal an empty shawl and cotton wool in her arms was touching in the extreme.

Copy link Although not strictly one of Priestley’s so called time plays, An Inspector Calls pretty much qualifies as the playwright plays with our sense of linear time in a magnificent twist in the tale. The play, a bit of a socialist call to arms, details the worst night in the life of the affluent, complacent Birling family around 1912. Yet the atmosphere recalls the 1940s, in cinematic style and with air raid sirens sounding, which is when the play was written. Stephen Daldry’s brilliantly designed production captivated a full Grand Opera House last night. The set is intriguing, involving a suspended grand house that opens out like a doll’s house and eventually collapses, indicating the rise and fall of this example of the upper classes.

Copy link The problem with naming Aurora, Prime Cut’s new drama from Dominic Montague, a ‘modern myth’ is that expectations will be as big as the problem addressed, ie the desecration of the planet. In the end, this was simply the tale of 90s eco warrior Swampy updated with our tree hugger and saviour Cass (Meghan Tyler) adding in some magic for good measure. The plot dealt with a Donegal village where a gold mine was presenting material temptation to half the populace, while threatening the landscape and greenery which didn’t please the other half. We didn’t get to meet the villagers in this four hander, but there was a touch of Local Hero about the reports of protests from primal screamers, bikers and an orgiastic group which sounded interesting.

A cross the Middle East, there has been a strong tradition of women's resistance and activism against imperialism for more than a century.

Copy link Listening to Rachmaninov; all-night Vigil at the Cappella Caeciliana concert on Sunday, you gained a different sense of the romantic Russian composer. The Vespers are written in Russian Orthodox musical language, based on religious chants, with the recognisable colour and control. What links the two, religious and romantic, is high emotion and it’s revealing that Rachmaninov aid this was one of his favourite compositions. It was written quickly, in two weeks, yet has been described as ‘one of the last great crowning achievement of Russian Orthodox choral music’,

Copy link Imagine a world where men, rather than women, are seen as sex objects first and foremost, with six packs more important than brain power or banter. Where male beauty is routinely commented on. It already exists and you can enter it via a ticket to Dreamboys, the premier UK male stripper outfit which toured on a Baltic night to Belfast’s Waterfront Hall on Thursday. They didn’t disappoint although this was a Stripped back outing, so no full frontal nudity apart from a naughty teasing sequence with Ryan (apparently the best endowed dreamboy) at the end.

Copy link Transporting the story of Wilma Creith, the first Northern Irish trans bus driver, onto an actual stationary bus via the Greek myth of our last journey was a clever move in Kabosh Theatre’s production Suspect Device.Playwright Raphael Amahl Kouri has moved the Lagan to the Styx and the result is a tale told by the dead about the living. It enables us to understand Wilma’s tough choice as a matter of life and death. It is of course a story of prejudice against difference, but also generosity, and was compelling in the show premiering this week in the narrow theatre.

Copy link A Christmas Carol, shown at the Lyric Theatre last night, was a dickens of a show even though it had been adapted by the excellent Marie Jones. It remained true to Charles Dickens, who wrote it in 1843, and it was dark. Dark in two senses, literally for much of the drama and psychologically as Ebenezer Scrooge grappled with his skinflint soul for redemption. Set designer Stuart Marshall had borrowed inspiration from Belfast’s dark Victorian entries, but also from illustrators Phiz and Cruikshank in terms of mood. The sepia set looked Victorian.

The Out to Lunch 20th anniversary festival has already had some star turns, notably the Donegal country blues singer Muireann Bradley who wowed a packed house at the Black Box at the weekend. The same energy levels weren’t felt in actor and comedian Terry O’Neill’s account of James Joyce’s 1905 short story Grace. One of the tales in The Dubliners, it is, according to one critic “as subversive as any Dubliners contains” and one which the Catholic church should have fulminated against. It’s promising material, with Tom Kernan drinking and falling, both senses, at the start. He’s scooped up by a friend, one of a clutch of characters who try to redeem him and end up as minor figures in Ulysses. But we were being read at rather than carried along on the brilliant characterisation of Mr Joyce.