Alan in Belfast

Midwinter Break – an overly gentle exploration of exile and trauma (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 20 March)

2026-03-18T12:53:00.048+00:00

A pregnant woman was caught up in gunfire during the Troubles in what she euphemistically refers to as “as accident” in Belfast. Her baby was saved, but the not-long-married couple quickly quit Northern Ireland for a safer life in Scotland. This cinematic adaptation of Bernard MacLaverty’s novel Midwinter Break catches up Stella (Lesley Manville) and Gerry (Ciarán Hinds) in later life as they head off on a citybreak to Amsterdam and finally confront each other’s needs and coping mechanisms.

Midwinter Break becomes a film about unfulfilled promises that were made with the best of intentions . Stella continues to carry the physical and mental scars of her and her child’s escape from serious injury. (Julie Lamberton makes fleeting appearances as the young Stella.)

Her faith has been a cornerstone to coping with what happened. But this out-of-character weekend in Amsterdam quickly becomes a point of inflection in her life. Early on in the film, a Catholic priest aptly quotes from James 4 v14: “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, Hinds’ Gerry is sullen and withdrawn. His veins are part blood, part whiskey. His signs of affection towards Stella can be replaced with gruff dismissals of her desires. When the pair repeat their refrain of “You and me” / “Me and you” it’s clear that they’re no longer referring to “us” but are really two separate travellers whose lives aren’t as entwined as they once were.

Hinds’ gets to deliver a monologue about Gerry’s backstory to a Derry barman in an Irish pub in Amsterdam. The words he is given to say are flat and unmoving. In sharp contrast, Manville’s equivalent scenes, exploring what’s going on in her head, are so much more stirring and Stella remains the real emotional focus of the story throughout. Although Hinds does get the funniest line in the film when he sums up the state of their relationship by uttering “Cake?!”

The film’s script maintains much of the novel’s familiar texture, but squeezes the essential plot and character journeys into 90 minutes. There’s a lot of atmosphere but the character development – particularly of Gerry – is a bit too subtle. The final scene also lacks the heft to be believable.

Midwinter Break unpacks some of the enduring trauma that people still carry from the Troubles, and also zeroes in on what triggers us to flee certain situations. The unravelling rapport between the two lead characters is well balanced by director Polly Findlay. It’s definitely a film to watch from a comfy seat in a cinema: the opening scenes are so gentle, you’d be tempted to switch channel or get up off the sofa to make a cup of tea if you were watching at home. Midwinter Break is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 20 March.

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Front & Centre / Dangerous Play / Poached (6-8 March in The Playhouse)

2026-03-08T00:45:00.006+00:00

Back in November 2015, the #WakingTheFeminists campaign erupted in the realisation of a dearth of women’s voices and female creatives in the ‘Waking the Nation’ programme launched by Dublin’s Abbey Theatre.

Academic research backed up the real-life experience of Irish theatremakers. In general, the more funding an organisation received, the lower the female presence in the work. Significant gender pay disparities were revealed.

Focussing on ten of the top (Irish) Arts Council-funded organisations that produced or presented theatre in Ireland, research found that between 2006 and 2015 women who make up a little over 50% of the Irish population were less visible in

42% of cast/actors
40% of set designers
37% of directors
34% of lighting designers
28% of authors/playwrights
9% of sound designers.

In contrast, 79% of costume designers were women.

There’s evidence that some progress was made in addressing the imbalances in the years that followed. The act of measuring or observing sometime can often changes behaviour: the Hawthorne effect.

In the five years that followed, there was more than a doubling of female representation of directors (20% to 46%) and writers (17% to 34%) at the Abbey Theatre. However, male actors continued to outnumber female actors cast in productions despite 57% of students at the Lir Academy being female (2016-2020).

The situation in Northern Ireland largely mirrors what was, and is still, happening south of the border. The inaugural Front & Centre symposium ran in Belfast in May 2025, hosted in QUB’s Brian Friel Theatre, shining a spotlight on new ways of collaborating and creating space for female and non-binary playwriting in Northern Ireland.

A series of panels and workshops explored statistics, drivers, barriers and opportunities, with rehearsed readings bringing work to life in different stages of development.

Front & Centre is back for a second year, this time based up in The Playhouse in Derry. I was there on Friday and heard Olwen Dawe’s analysis of the landscape that was quickly backed up with examples and reflections from Gemma Walker-Farren (one half of MakeyUppers) and Soso Ní Cheallaigh (who creates provocative disability-led work in English and Irish).

Statistics from Thrive (NI’s research and evaluate organisation for arts and heritage) pointed out big differences in how north-west communities consume their arts. In short: less often, but spending more when they do, and often as a whole family experience rather than solo or couple attendance.

Patterns of last-minute bookings (a practice that can lead to touring shows cancelling shows due to low sales) were said to be reflective of the precarity of people’s employment (uncertain rotas, needing to keep available for work, lower regional wages) that then cause precarity in the cultural sector.

Gemma reiterated that audiences were all around and the work – not necessarily labelled as ‘theatre’ – can find people where they live. Less traditional spaces can support all kinds of work. Soso pointed to the loyalty of disability audiences and the foolishness of relying on mainstreaming to adequately capture the need and demand for work in their sectors.

Going out needed to be guaranteed to be fun. Theatre might need to see itself as the pre-drinks for a long evening of entertainment. For many, being asked to sit in the dark and face one direction (towards a stage) for two or three hours cab be both ableist and alienating.

A fascinating discussion emerged about what a matriarchal model would look like in the cultural space. Answers included that it would be built for community, and be reciprocal in terms of how audiences, creatives and venues all benefitted. There was also mention of subscription models and the need to bundle multiple activities together: theatre could come with yoga classes and vice versa.

Friday’s programme finished with two rehearsed readings.

Dangerous Play is a new work by Amanda Verlaque charting the swell and wane of interest in women’s football. She looks through the eyes of two historical players (Lily Parr and Molly Seaton played by Maeve Connelly and Orla Mullen) whose performance and results deserve much greater reputation and recognition. They look on as a couple of today’s players (Nicky/Rachel Harley and Jodie/Leanne Devlin) try and catch the eye of a scout, falling into the trap of battling with each other and forgetting that they can never stop working as a team.

Unintentionally – unless Verlaque was being devilish! – some of the dialogue screams into the Front & Centre narrative as much as into the sporting story where obstacles need to be tackled despite little money and a lack of media interest.

“It’s hard to put up a fight when no one knows you’re there.”

“Limited resources mean hard choices”

The rehearsed reading finished with a Orla Mullan bursting into song, throwing a whole new light on Verlaque’s ambition for Dangerous Play that feels like it can comfortably sit as a contemporary companion that doesn’t compete with Tara Lynne O’Neill’s 2021 Rough Girls.

Poached by Alice Malseed and Catherine Rees was a read through of what felt like a pretty finished script. A prime ministerial figure steps up to announce plans to control conception as part of a new Population Limitation policy. A ‘child consideration’ process will vet mothers. Maud (read by Rees) doesn’t score well when the state inquisitors (read by Shannen McNeice and Malseed) pose their pointed questions. Other coworkers (including those read by Orla Graham and Vicky Allen) suggest ways of gaming the system.

The satire is rich yet beautifully understated. Women alone are judged for their suitability to conceive and bring up a child. Children have become a value-laden commodity in The Great Egg Race (without Heinz Wolff and his mad 1980’s contraptions). The state stretches its hands into career paths while holding eggs as ransom. Despite being a rehearsed reading, Vicky Allen’s eyes lit up as she morphed into a new evil cyber genius who might have a way to beat the system without scrambling the conception opportunities for the women of Northern Ireland.

Thanks to Karis Kelly for the opportunity to attend Friday’s Front & Centre. If my work schedule had been different this weekend, I’d have stayed in Derry to see Carley Magee’s Growing Pains on Saturday evening (20:30), and take in the always mind-blowing scratch performances (Sunday 14:30) and the extract reading of the hotly anticipated Hello Charlie by Caoimhe Farren (Sunday 19:30). Tickets available for the workshops and performances on The Playhouse website.

Some quick reflections …

With funding levels that are so far below England, Scotland, Wales and Republic of Ireland, every area of the sector has been living under sustained pressure for more than a decade. Producers can only take so many risks. Venues need bums on seats (and drinks bought in bars) to keep the lights on. Creative decisions are clearly compromised. The familiar is rehashed. The reliable is dusted off and needs to be a blazing success in order to cover any loss-leading work that is commissioned. No matter your gender, (dis)ability or sexuality, it’s hard to get new work developed and staged. That it took five years for the award-winning script Consumed by Lyric writer-in-residence Karis Kelly (and one of the driving forces behind Front & Centre) to make it onto a Belfast stage is staggering. And her experience is just one of many.

A drive up to Derry is always worthwhile. There’s a directness that imparts local wisdom in a way that lands and doesn’t skirt around sensibilities. The nuances of audiences in the north west also speak into my stomping ground around greater Belfast.

Taking theatre into unconventional venues is already quite common in west Belfast. I’ve learned the way up to The Roddy’s on the Glen Road, most recently to see Julie (which brings to life a piece of local history in a way that connects with so many in the local audience). But to hear this weekend that Gina Donnelly’s play Anthem for Dissatisfaction – which premiered up in The Roddy’s – is being the funded (on the back of being scouted at Edinburgh Fringe Festival) to tour internationally is amazing news. Vibrant work telling stories that are both universal but also deeply rooted in this place. Pray for the subtitler!

Staging The People’s Panto in the acoustically harsh and wingless-staged St Comgall’s community space is a technical challenge for the team at Brassneck. But the quality of Neil Keery’s scripts, the committed performances, direction that neatly works around the venue’s limitations, and the rock bottom £10 ticket price means it deserves to be packed out with every seat sold.

Talk of a subscription model for theatre isn’t totally without precedent. The Grand Opera House (Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum) and the Lyric Theatre (Ensemble/Players/Principals/Directors Circle) membership tiers swap up-front payment for 2-for-1 tickets, discounts and advance booking (GOH only). The stream of familiar faces I recognise when reviewing shows on opening nights suggests that the schemes are well supported.

Away from theatre, Queen’s Film Theatre’s membership scheme offers a number of free tickets, discounts and loyalty points). Omniplex Cinemas’ MyOmniPass a free ticket for every movie being screened in exchange for a monthly membership fee. Though due to the seemingly inevitable creeping process of enshittification – my interview with the term’s creator Cory Doctorow at last year’s Imagine! Festival can still be viewed online – a monthly price rise was soon followed by seats being restricted to the rows where you’d prefer not to sit.

The bundling of different leisure activities would work better if existing arts organisations didn’t already have distinct physical footprints. There’s a parallel universe in which the Lyric’s theatre and rehearsal spaces together with MAC’s gallery, social and event spaces were collocated with the Crescent Arts’ thriving programme of courses and workshops. Though there’s nothing to stop a golden ticket scheme being run across multiple commercial venues or multiple producers.

Outside of Belfast, councils own and operate the majority of the main traditional regional theatre spaces. (There are some significant exceptions.) This has merits (closeness to the funder) and demerits (risk-averse and can become very inflexible). Amateur dramatic societies continue to thrive in some areas. There are almost too many youth theatre programmes to count, each creating a niche for itself with passionate freelancers delivering training and encouragement week after week for little financial reward.

The opportunities for getting new work in front of an audience are very limited. Belfast Playwrights’ 10-Minute Play festival fills a gap left by the old Pick’n’Mix festival. The new writing rehearsed readings have vanished from recent Belfast International Arts Festival programmes. Dramaturgs and literary managers no longer seem to be employed by theatres. Accidental Theatre’s 24-hour scratch play events haven’t run for a while. Though check out Amadan Ensemble’s evening of Quickfire Plays on Saturday 28 March as part of Imagine! Festival. Update - And Tinderbox’s INCUBATE festival (with ten half-hour presentations of new work) is coming up in The MAC on 18 April.

Other than stand-up comedy, only a minority of small-to-medium sized work staged in Belfast seems to tour around the rest of Northern Ireland. The big productions about Derry don’t tour to Belfast. The exchange of work between Belfast, Derry and Dublin is shockingly small. (The poor public transport links between the cities also prevent popping up or down to another city to see a show and get home the same day despite the relatatively short distances involved.)

There’s no single silver bullet. And the sector’s structural challenges quickly distract (me) from Front & Centre desire to see an even playing field that makes space for a range of voices in front of and behind the scenes … no matter the traditional/untraditional venue or whether the artistic event is sold as theatre or a jolly good time.

But it does seem that trying to make work that is more accessible, more transportable, and faster to restage when opportunities arise will benefit some theatremakers and expand audiences.

Writing new work that reflects the existential issues of today/tomorrow (and situations from the past) can appeal to audiences. Seeing yourself or your ancestors on stage is powerful. Holding truth to power on a stage can be as effective as writing a consultation response to an Assembly committee or an Executive department. There should always be room for great entertainment. But what is funny and gripping can also contain a sense of questioning and challenge.

Structurally, Northern Ireland needs

a mix of differently sized (and differently heated) rehearsal spaces;
small-medium-large performance spaces, some based in bars and old churches, and some without the word theatre anywhere to be seen;
pathways to try out work in smaller venues and allow successful productions to switch to larger stages (while other shows may go back to the drawing board);
ways of finding accommodation to support touring productions;
organisations willing to commission new work with a financial cushion to live with the occasional failure;
a lot more opportunities for new work to be read, developed and rehearsed.

Front & Centre will hopefully return. It needs to. The structural challenges are not going to disappear without a sustained push. Other arts/cultural campaigns over the next year may be able to pick up on F&C’s statistics that can show low funding levels in NI are disadvantaging vital voices.

Listening to different regional voices also challenges easy thinking. Improving opportunities for the groups targeted by Front & Centre will benefit the whole sector. Representation of disabilities could switch from being a rare success in mainstream productions to something that happens as a matter of course. Stories from newcomer communities are largely missing from NI stages at the moment: being open to voices who are currently ignored will help everyone. Counting the number of people in categories will change the sector.

I want to find out what happens in the football match after Amanda Verlaque’s cliff hanger. I want to see how the satirical look at government poached eggs can be refined and sharpen further its great concepts. But I’d also love to see Vittoria Caffola’s Bloodlines (who could forget the tale of a vegetarian butcher needing an injection of high quality sperm into her ovaries and her lesbian sister studying genetics set against the 1911 Belfast Eugenics Society!) get a full production along with so many more rehearsed readings and excepts that have stuck in my mind over the years. And pray that someone puts Abbie Spallen on stage performing her play Strandline in a Northern Ireland theatre.

Consumed – soup is taken while intergenerational trauma comes back to bite four generations of women (Lyric Theatre until Sunday 8 March, then Park Theatre in London)

2026-02-28T00:48:00.001+00:00

Do we pass on trauma from the Troubles and even as far back as the Irish Famine from one generation to the next as easily as we learn to repeat the poor patterns of our parents’ behaviour? Consumed watches what happens when Jenny (Caoimhe Farren) and 14-year-old Muireann (Muireann Ní Fhaogáin) fly over from London to celebrate Great Granny’s 90th birthday. They find that matriarchal Eileen (Julia Dearden) hears more than her speaking-slowly-and-loudly-while-flapping-around daughter Gilly (Andrea Irvine) will acknowledge.

Between each generation of this family lies a series of secrets whose concealment has been rehearsed. Blame is always directed upwards and never towards the men in their lives. But it’s the very absence of men, together with the almost unfiltered connection between Great Granny Eileen’s mind and her mouth, that nags away at the veneer that pretends all is well, digging up deeper and deeper surprises from the present and the past. And that’s before Eileen dives down the rabbit hole of identity and delivers one of the biggest laughs of the evening (ahead of a couple of much more sobering revelations).

By extending the more common three generation family tree to four, playwright Karis Kelly cleverly allows the audience to glimpse a much broader view through the window of history. With three generations of women failing to own and address the trauma they are carrying, is the 14-year-old neurodivergent ‘English’ girl the best equipped of the four to draw a line in the sand and lead the family out of their dark exile?

Lily Arnold’s set uses a peculiar perspective to explode the kitchen while retaining a view of a hall cupboard and a rising staircase. An archway – so large it shouts out that it is a proscenium arch – suggests that great drama is afoot. Guy Hoare’s flickering lights on top of Beth Duke’s unnerving sound design drop heavy hints – a little too unsubtly for my liking – that proceedings will take a darker and more psychologically-raw and yet also physical twist before the conclusion when the family can no longer keep their secrets buried.

Dearden’s Eileen knows which side of the border she wants to live on. She’s sweary and direct, in sharp contrast with Irvine’s fussy Gilly who incessantly tidies the kitchen table while forgetting that there’s a steaming pot on the stove that may be beyond rescue. Farren plays Caoimhe as a woman who escaped Northern Ireland and her ‘melt’ of a mother (who believes hairy legs need must be covered) for London but has kept her Irish roots and many of its vices.

Muireann is believably penned as a young woman who is overwhelmed by issues of climate, agriculture, food and wellbeing. We watch her address her anxieties by pushing her chair further and further away from the rest of the family, one time escaping upstairs and another hiding under the table. And when the pressure can no longer be contained, Ní Fhaogáin (making her assured professional debut) allows Muireann’s valve to blow, exploding with articulate and passionate arguments that nearly always fall on the deaf ears of the rest of her family. If they could only listen to this troubled soul, they might learn to address their own demons.

Director Katie Posner keeps things moving over the 80-minute one-act performance. Soup is heated, spilt, and scoffed. Arguments give way to joy before old hurts return. The darkness of Kelly’s award-winning script – together with lashings of local idiom and sensibility – feed into waves of belly laughs with Belfast audiences finding no cow too sacred to become amusing. I can’t help wondering how many references (like the nuance of Ballyholme vs Bangor) will have flown over the heads of London, Sheffield, Coventry and Edinburgh audiences for whom the references are abstract rather than woven into the fabric of life?

The fact that Karis Kelly’s finely tuned script which won the Women’s Prize for Playwriting back in 2022 (while writer-in-residence at the Lyric) is only making it to a stage in Belfast in 2026 speaks of both the lack of opportunity to mount new work and the slow speed of staging work that does make it onto the production conveyor belt. Let’s hope it’s not so long before a second work will be staged.

Consumed continues its run in the Lyric Theatre, Belfast until 8 March before transferring to Park Theatre in London (18 March–18 April) in a remount presented by Paines Plough, Park Theatre and the Lyric Belfast.

Photo credit: Pamela Raith Photography

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Animal Farm – modern day protesters give their take on Orwell’s classic tale (Tinderbox Theatre at The MAC until 28 February)

2026-02-21T21:23:00.002+00:00

Four stellar performances anchor Tinderbox’s adaptation of Animal Farm. A group of women have been placed in a distressed holding cell that looks like it had long been abandoned until a large number of people were arrested at a protest and suddenly needed to be held, just part of a wider state crackdown. In an act of solidarity, they each declare “I am George Orwell” and from that point the four refuse to say anything other than recite sections of the famous book.

They work their way through the main beats of the story: the overthrow of the humans, the seven commandments of animalism, the plans for a windmill (brought to life with a precarious stack of chairs), moving back into the farmhouse, making deals with the humans, and turning on each other.

You need to suspend disbelief – though this is a Tinderbox production so that very much comes with the territory – that anyone, even fervent anti-totalitarian protesters, could quote huge chunks from Orwell’s allegory which celebrated its 80th publication birthday last summer. (Wearing a different hat, I produced an episode of BBC Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence devoted to the anniversary, and the interview with the director of the Orwell Foundation Jean Seaton, and the Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov (whom Seaton says is a modern day Orwell) can still be heard if you’re on the UK side of the BBC’s geoblock wall.)

The protesters’ Animal Farm excerpts are interrupted by tannoy announcements from an unseen guard who warns that their behaviour is crime and will not be tolerated. In my head, the voice through the speaker on the wall was going to end up narrating a smaller contemporary story that would be neatly woven around the familiar Animal Farm tale. However, Tinderbox had their own ideas and the guard’s admonitions merely grow steadily more severe and increase the fervour of the women’s literary protest.

Tracey Lindsay’s set consists of a cell with metal-legged tables and chairs. The grimy concrete back wall (with its convenient white board) is raised up from the MAC’s floor. The gap beneath enables a rather effective special effect as the women’s behaviour finally tips the authorities to react with more than words.

The whole production could perhaps also be viewed through the lens of a fever dream, inspired by the increasingly totalitarian behaviour of some actual governments – and particularly some political leaders – as a vision of how people could fight back by holding a mirror of Orwell’s analysis up to state perpetrators who seem to be skidding towards repeating some very regrettable history.

No matter how you choose to analyse how Tinderbox have set the story, Orwell’s concepts are made to feel very contemporary. History is being rewritten. Former allies are being turned into enemies of the state. Power is being seen to corrupt. Fighting back is being crushed with violence and oppression. Old enemies are becoming strange bedfellows.

So much of the movement on stage and the use of props has clearly been devised during the rehearsal process. The simple chairs become attack dogs. Rosie McClelland’s costumes combined with the actors’ twisted bodies, stance and gait transform them into pigs, horses, a cat, and rather brilliantly, chickens.

Like Boxer, one of the book’s many characters that she plays, Clare McMahon is a workhorse who carries some of the crucial parts of the story, starting with Old Major’s idealistic speech that has to be so well anchored for the subsequent creeping rewriting of history to be effective. Clare also has the ignominy of playing the greatest number of characters that come to a grisly end.

Catriona McFeely is amazing throughout, with her animated hen one of the strongest and funniest moments of the play as she flicks through a range of emotions. Her physicality rarely pauses, bounces up on top of tables, transforming into a flirty cat, playing the pig Snowball as well as the farmer Mr Jones.

Susan Hoffman’s whiteboard marker-sniffing Squealer delivers believable missives to the other animals that misdirect them from the truth.

Jo Donnelly is no stranger to playing political tyrants, and her stare-eyed take on Napolean is fearsome, doubling down on those questioning the logic of what is happening, rewriting history with an iron fist, and letting others do his dirty work until he eventually gets blood on his hands.

In recent years, Tinderbox have excelled at putting a contemporary spin on classic tales. Shifting Rhino into the world of gaming and screens was genius. Switching Yerma from Spain to rural Ireland rooted the playwrights message in the local.

This adaptation of Animal Farm is a fine retelling of much of the tale and the production’s lens of protest certainly accentuates the contemporary resonances. Napoleon announcing that the windmill will be known as Napoleon’s Windmill has an eerie echo of arts centres and airports being named after presidents. The fact that it’s humans rather than cartoon animations playing the animals and speaking the pigs’ perfidious dialogue adds power to the message. But the fine animal characterisations and the energy on stage still seem to be lacking something that would more substantially glue the reciting protesters to their fulsome knowledge of Orwell’s text and the manner of their protest.

Animal Farm continues at The MAC until 28 February.

Photo credit: Carrie Davenport

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The Barber of Seville – a finger-picking and financially-wise Figaro engineers romance (Lyric Opera Ireland at Grand Opera House until Saturday 21 February)

2026-02-18T19:53:00.007+00:00

Figaro can fix your love life as well as spruce up your barnet. The barber helps a poor student Lindoro to enter the Seville home of a beautiful woman to woo her. (Nothing remotely suss about that!!) But her grumpy guardian Bartolo has plans to marry Rosina. Cue multiple disguises, cunning plans being rumbled, a true identity being revealed, and an opera-sized heart to end Gioachino Rossini’s comedy masterpiece (with libretto by Cesare Sterbini).

Lyric Opera Ireland’s director and designer Cav. Vivian J Coates has conjured up a modest but colourful production of The Barber of Seville which puts the characters at the heart of the performance without using flashy sets or gimmicks (other than a gorgeous cloud that floats down). After some curtain twitching fun during the very hummable overture, the opening scenes don’t really impose a sense that the show will be comic until Figaro properly bursts onto the stage bringing a warmth and a physical buffoonery that lights up the mischievous wordplay in Sterbini’s lyrics.

The paper programme instructs audience members to “please refrain from unwrapping sweets during the performance”. One gentleman near me with a noisy bag of even noisier individually wrapped sweets competed with the 29-piece orchestra (under the baton of Carmen Santoro) and the cast until being tapped on the shoulder. With neither the singers nor the majority of the orchestra being amplified, the volume levels are lower than you might expect, so distractions are particularly unwelcome. (At Tuesday evening’s performance a mobile phone rang out at the exact moment Fiorello was crooning about “No one is around to interrupt our singing”!)

Morgan Pearse’s finger-picking and financially-wise Figaro plays a mean guitar and is the stand-out presence on stage with a great set of gestures and a winning vitality. His baritone voice cuts through the technically complex Largo al factotum with its rapid-fire lyrics like a hot knife through butter.

With Rosina much talked about but little heard in the first act, it’s only after the interval that we get to hear more of Sarah Richmond’s rich and powerful mezzo soprano voice. Rossini’s women are underwritten and somewhat two-dimensional. So it’s immensely pleasing that soprano Sandra Oman delivers a star turn as Bartolo’s feather-dusting maid Berta who sums up the dysfunction that surrounds her household in the song Il vecchiotto cerca moglie.

Matteo Torcaso manages to look silly but sing very seriously with a big blob of shaving cream on Bartolo’s nose. The character (first introduced as) Lindoro is played by Randall Bills and becomes a man of many disguises whose tenor voice blends so well with Pearse and Richmond.

Wearing maroon berets, the male chorus are the very model of a tuneful paramilitary force, including local lads Dessie Havlin (a regular in the NI Opera chorus) and Harrison Gordon (who only a few years ago was starring in the Belvoir Players panto and a youth theatre production of Footloose).

At times Coates shows great playfulness, allowing lyrics like “quick let’s get going” to become a prolonged joke, getting Figaro to shave off a beard to the delight of the audience, and orchestrating a case of rapid onset Scarlet Fever. Coates has a fine sense of farce and is unafraid to use large props to ridicule a scene or create a very modern-looking (but not too anachronistic) Instagram moment for the finale. Some choreography is less surefooted with no one standing remotely close to the character singing the line “don’t touch me” in the first act.

Heavy, menacing marble columns are made to glide around the stage by the female chorus. Sometimes their reconfiguration adds to the tension in a scene; sometimes the movement becomes a distraction. Large TV monitors for the cast to see the conductor at the side of the stage (rather than their usual location mounted on the front of the grand circle) block sight lines for some of the audience in the stalls.

Sung in its original Italian, English surtitles are displayed above the centre of the stage. Tuesday evening’s performance finished after half past ten, so bear that in mind as some people had to leave early to catch the last bus or train home.

Operas have large casts and require sizeable orchestras. They’re bold, brash and make big statements. Nothing is too ostentatious or outlandish in the world of opera. Everything is magnified … including the costs to design, rehearse and stage. Working within these constraints, Lyric Opera Ireland’s The Barber of Seville is a pleasing no-nonsense production of a classic opera. The costumes are colourful but traditional. The story-telling stays true to classical expectations. The performances are strong, although the compact nature of the cast meant that the final anthem, Amor e fede eterna, si vegga in noi regnar, lacked a bit of oomph and would have benefitted from a greater crescendo.

The Barber of Seville continues its short run at the Grand Opera House on Wednesday 18, Friday 20 and Saturday 21 February. Alongside the annual production from NI Opera (down from two a year to one), it’s great to see a second company bringing opera to a Belfast stage.

Photo credit: Federica Ferrieri (top) & Neil Harrison Photography (all the others)

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The Human Voice – truth, lies, betrayal and a forlorn sense of hopelessness (Prime Cut Productions at Lyric Theatre until Saturday 28 February)

2026-02-14T14:32:00.002+00:00

A day later and I’m still haunted by just over an hour spent in the life of the woman at the heart of The Human Voice. She’s a professional working in a health and social care role, and instinctively walks through a therapeutic technique for the man at the end of a long phone call she wishes would never end. But there’s no one to offer similar help to address her own distressed state.

The untidy bedsit mirrors her state of mind. The dishevelled bed clothes speak of restlessness rather than passion. The record player that’s still spinning with the needle stuck in a grove feels emblematic of the woman’s condition. The packed bag at the door is a symbol of the imminent removal of the evidence of past joy. She looks out through a curtain and the audience can see real cars passing on Ridgeway Street (only the second time I’ve seen that window integrated into a production). There is a world outside, but she has trapped herself in a flat that is now empty of love and almost devoid of hope.

Jean Cocteau’s 1930 monologue La Voix Humaine (The Human Voice) has been adapted by Darren Murphy and is set within a half mile radius of the Lyric Theatre. It’s a case study in muted theatre, with no room of showy hysterics. Ciaran Bagnall’s lighting states gently caress his blue walled set. Rosie McClelland’s costume design extends from painted toenails, through jogging bottoms, and up to a gorgeous mop of copper auburn hair. Conor Mitchell’s soundtrack uses pizzicato cello sequences that periodically touch the action before fading away. The woman’s reverie – she has a name but it’s only revealed towards the end – is only interrupted by her work phone (she’s insistent that she’s not on the rota to be on call) and her personal mobile (longing to speak again to her departing lover).

Seating banks surround three sides of the bedsit, the audience almost hugging the troubled figure who claims to be “a young-ish woman of independent means who follows her heart”. There is much talk of telling nothing but the truth, with some lies thrown in for good measure. Closure seems to be far out of reach.

After a pleasingly unexpected entrance, Nicky Harley pads rather than prowls around the flat. She steers her forlorn character between being somnolent, morose, agitated, resigned and defeated. Emma Jordan’s delicate direction is unhurried, and Murphy’s script drip feeds details about the situation we are watching unfold. Piecing together the elements of the puzzle – and I’m being careful not to reveal too much of the jigsaw in this review as that process is the almost the point of this piece of theatre – there are moments when I wonder whether the woman is experiencing a psychotic episode or something supernatural is at play.

Yet the pendulum of reality swings back towards a more painful certainty that she has been badly wronged and is struggling to come to terms with what is happening. The final scene sees the woman interrupted once more by her work phone and Harley’s changed tone and mood shifts, suggesting that this broken woman may still be ready and willing to help another person at risk.

Harley ably joins a long and hallowed list of incredible actors who have taken on the challenge of this role on stage and in film. She’s no stranger to monodramas, and lauded for her (tragi-)comedy roles. Like a previous collaboration with Jordan (The Beauty Queen of Leeann), Harley brings her A-game to a serious story dotted with a few episodes of gentle humour. While the plot is almost deliberately absent of big moments of drama, the intricate detail of this extended phone call carries the unravelling story of devastation and betrayal.

The Human Voice is a Prime Cut Production and is being staged at the Lyric Theatre until Saturday 28 February.

Photo credit: Ciaran Bagnall, featuring Nicky Harley

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Expösed – a titan of fashion’s personal standing is seen to flag (Baby Lamb Productions at Accidental Theatre until Saturday 7 February and then London)

2026-02-06T23:13:00.000+00:00

Some of the freshest theatre comes from companies formed from young actors who’ve trained together and graduated from drama courses and colleges. It can be raw and rough around the edges, but it puts training into practice and is full of an urgency to create.

Founded by alumni from The Oxford School of Drama, Baby Lamb Productions has brought Expösed, its comedic take on The Emperor’s New Clothes to Belfast this weekend.

Hans Christian Andersen’s folktale is a well-known story about vanity trumping common sense and pride coming before well sign-posted humiliation. Baby Lamb whisks the audience’s imagination over the Berlin Fashion Week where Ze Emperor’s latest collection has bombed. New thinking is required to rescue the reputation of his underwhelming brand, and more importantly, boost his flagging personal standing. Out of the ‘ideas stream’ jumps a collaboration with the creators of Nücloth.

Jacob Baird’s delusional Emperor (whose private philosophy is based on his fondness for The Lion King) is clad in white from top to tie, mimicking the blank canvas of his mind. His court includes the uber-cool Johan (a very believable Nicholas Alexander) who turns to contemporary dance when words fail him, and commercially savvy Yanik (Ashok Gupta dressed in Steve Jobs’ uniform). Nisha Emich plays the competent, straight-talking but totally overlooked aide Maureen with great empathy. Two ‘French’ designers offer an exclusive deal to show off their cutting-edge fabric: confident snake oil saleswoman Bree (Hannah McLeod who also directs the show) and her bumbling sidekick Oche (Kiera Murray).

The original five-minute fairy tale is satisfyingly stretched out to create a 70 minute long show with lots of visual humour, clever dialogue, slow motion sequences, puns, carefully placed sound effects, a pumping and very cheesy soundtrack, and very knowing acknowledgements of the doubling of parts across the cast of six. The ensemble mostly makes sense of the mélange of comedy styles and techniques thrown at the elongated story. The mentions of fast fashion and body positivity are mainly there for the story’s punchline, but hint at threads that could have been more fully woven into the fabric of the script.

Given that the Emperor cannot comprehend that his servant Alexa isn’t a robot, it’s no surprise that the voice of reason at his side, Maureen, is almost invisible to him. Jacob Baird’s natural Belfast accent makes the Emperor’s moment of honesty speaking truth to his own soul rather profound for the home audience. The quick costumes changes are effective, and the final crocheted outfit is certainly worth the wait.

Leaving aside very established companies like the amazing Bruiser, the Northern Ireland theatre scene doesn’t have many indigenous outfits in its pipeline like Baby Lamb with a talented ensemble of young performers creating new work that is primarily comedic in nature (and not solely focused on Norn Iron or Troubles stories). So it was a joy to sit down and enjoy the craic as the six versatile visiting performers took on ten roles and jumped from one skit to another with this witty show. It’s a great showcase for their talent, and long may their ingenuity and energy feed their ability to stage fun theatre.

You can catch the final performance of Expösed in Accidental Theatre on Saturday 7 February before their UK tour whisks them away to Lion & Unicorn Theatre in London later this month.

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Maggie’s Menopause – another stage of life but no less eye-wateringly funny (Grand Opera House until Saturday 7 February and NI tour)

2026-02-05T22:52:00.001+00:00

Maggie Muff is older, but is she any wiser? The east Belfast woman’s escapades began in book form before Leesa Harker translated Maggie to stage with comic actor Caroline Curran bringing the titular character to life along with her entire colourful friendship group.

Back in 2022, I was somewhat bemused when I joined their adventures in Benidorm in episode 3: Maggie’s Fag Run. Last January, there was a fond and raucous recap of the first four tales. And this year, her story once again jumps forward to Maggie’s Menopause.

The ‘change’ means Maggie is now flushed and sweating profusely, though her vaginal dryness means her sex-life is all but a collection of fun (and not so fun) memories. Big Sally Ann continues to be the one driving much of the story. With a cry of ‘no surrender’, she’s on a one-woman crusade to find a ‘cure’ for the menopause. Old friend Sinead the Greener is having a hen-do and it’ll definitely involve strippers. Greta Grotbags hasn’t gone away. Curran’s physicality transforms and her gestures clarify each new character before we hear them speak. Husband Billy is there too, quietly lurking in his bedroom. (There’s space amongst the menopausal mirth to pause to usefully consider the impact it’s having on Billy … which also sets up a later plot point.)

Fervent fans no longer wear Maggie Muff-branded white knickers over the top of their jeans at performances. Paper fans might have sold well at a merch stall for this new run. The set revolves around two stretched out leopard print fans, providing Curran with a concealed entrance for the penile prop which gets one of the largest laughs of the night, almost stalling the action for 30 seconds as waves of merriment ripple around the auditorium a mere ten minutes into the show. Well-timed sound effects add greatly to the levity of key moments. Director Andrea Montgomery has the measure of the loyal audience and Curran is never behind the door in her committed delivery of lines that will raise the roof.

Even though Maggie’s going through a dry phase, there are plenty of throwbacks to historic hookups. Right from the start, the language is even more coarse, crude and sustained than the stage version of Trainspotting Live. But no one in the sold-out Grand Opera House audience seems remotely offended and finds the whole production eye-wateringly funny. While younger Maggie’s tales of BDSM and debauchery may have stirred up a sense of fantasy and escapism in the majority female audience, the power of this latest instalment is more about recognition. The show creates two hours were there is no need for embarrassment, no need to worry about sniggering at a joke that you could only share privately with a best friend, no need to worry that a man won’t understand. Harker, Montgomery and Curran create a safe space.

Various therapies are explored and at one point Maggie’s ‘muffalo’ begins to talk. (Even though it doesn’t really sound that like the figure being impersonated, neither in terms of accent nor the kind of suggestive comments he used to make, this recurring element of the show gets a lot of laughs.) There are fresh insights into vol-au-vents, bladder control, a ring of fire, and plenty of making whoopee. Despite Sally Ann’s best efforts, it’s not until she steers ‘Maggot’ down another more medical path that the show hits its fulcrum, the giggling is subdued, and Curran skilfully leads the audience into another side to Maggie’s inner world.

Fans of Harker’s grown-up wild-child are very much in love with the foul-mouthed character. The lyrics written by Johnny Cash’s (soon-to-be) second-wife June Carter come to mind: “The taste of love is sweet / When hearts like ours meet / I fell for you like a child / Oh, but the fire went wild”. There’s plenty more mileage in the Maggie franchise. Becoming a grandparent? Cancer treatment? Supporting a friend like Sally Ann with dementia? A nursing home romance to the annoyance of staff and family? I’d imagine that Maggie and her colourful muff will be back on stage before too long.

Just a handful of single tickets remain for the last two performances of Maggie’s Menopause at the Grand Opera House. Next week the show moves to Newtownabbey’s Theatre at the Mill (Monday 9 and Wednesday 11), Lisburn’s Island Arts Centre (Tuesday 10), Down Arts Centre (Thursday 12 and Friday 13) and Cookstown’s Burnavon Theatre (Saturday 14).

Photo credit: Melissa Gordon, Gorgeous Photography

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Melania – my takeaways from the elegant film that everyone is talking about but few have seen (currently playing in Cineworld and Odeon Belfast)

2026-02-03T08:00:00.019+00:00

The film Melania identifies as a documentary and covers the twenty days up to and including President Trump’s second inauguration. Melania’s husband only plays a minor role in the film which keeps her in frame and in focus throughout.

What did I takeaway from the film?

Melania gives good hugs and is happy to be blessed. She’s very comfortable with silence but can still do small talk.

She’s fond of being caught on camera doing the actions to YMCA. Her favourite song is Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean. It keeps popping up during the film. She can lip-sync to it, describing the singer as “very sweet, very nice”.

There isn’t a scene in this film in which she’s not wearing high heel shoes or boots with a large heel.

She rotates between the White House, the New York apartment, and the family home in Mar-a-Lago (where she has a whole drawer for sunglasses in the same way a rich male billionaire might have a drawer of expensive watches).

Melania seems totally unconcerned at the dissonance between her wealthy lifestyle and the threadbare wallets of less well-off US voters.

Barron Trump is very tall and is seen in this film to have been brought up with good manners. The moment at the end of the inauguration when he reaches over to shake hands with President Biden and Vice President Harris is included in the footage.

The underground car park in Trump Towers needs spruced up as it’s very dowdy compared to the glitz and mirrored glamour up above.

In a similar vein, screen 3 in the Odyssey Cineworld in Belfast is very dirty. The screen the film is projected onto, not the floor and seats which are pristine! Even worse that some of the distractingly filthy Lisburn Omniplex screens.

Secret Service agents look very uncomfortable wearing ill-fitting bow ties and better fitting tuxedos.

Melania’s modelling background is obvious in scenes where she patiently allows her designer Hervé Pierre and his team intimately poke and prod, pin and tuck to take account of Melania’s feedback on the cut of new fashion creations. At no point does is she seen critiquing the fit of her husband’s clothes.

FLOTUS is very hands on when it comes to style and design. Given the opportunity, she can chip in to improve her husband’s speeches (his reference to being “peacemaker and unifier” is her suggested flourish).

Her extraordinary and unending eye for detail means that it is unlikely to be an accident that this 104-minute Amazon Prime documentary of which she had editorial control (and was paid millions of dollars to take part in) keeps highlighting the value of people who have immigrated to the US (including herself – “my journey as an immigrant” – her fashion designer and her interior designer).

Given her presumed level of say in the shooting and editing, it feels of note that Elon Musk is prominent in the pre-inauguration dinner scenes (sitting directly opposite President Trump) and is the only person in the whole film to be seen with a woman sitting on his lap. There’s no attempt to rewrite history and downplay Musk’s role in DOGE.

And there’s a strong sense that love trumps hatred … in contrast with her husband’s actions as commander in chief.

Brett Ratner’s film would be improved if Melania’s narration was simply removed: the pictures would tell their own story. But the client might not have approved of that change. The scenes shot with old cameras on film stock are a constant nod to the First Lady’s father but the transitions are jarring and the footage is unnecessary. The verbose end credits outlining Melania’s contributions to the Trump administration lay it on far too thick.

Part music video, part pitch to be a lifestyle goddess, by the end of the so-called documentary, Melania is still an elegant enigma wrapped up in a very stylish overcoat with beautifully proportioned lapels. A huge question looms over the film. Why did the usually reclusive Melania (who contradicts reality by saying her role as FLOTUS will be “a very public life”) agree to be immortalised and showcased in a puff piece documentary?

It’s hard to believe that mere vanity would be a sufficient driver. The answer may be that her control of this largely propaganda piece means that she can differentiate her legacy from her husband’s. And the alleged multi-million paycheque for taking part could be a useful financial cushion if circumstances change, or a slush fund to invest in new post-White House opportunities as a high-end influencer.

For a Monday evening in a small screen, Cineworld will have been delighted with tonight’s attendance. It’s not a difficult film to watch, but it left me with more questions than answers.

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The Importance of Being Earnest – even more giddy, flirty and flighty than last year (Lyric Theatre until Sunday 22 February)

2026-02-03T00:18:00.000+00:00

The Lyric Theatre’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest has been revived and returned to its main stage over the weekend. The sense of satisfying exaggeration is maintained, perhaps dialled up to eleven, with the duplicitous men outshone by the brilliantly flirty, flighty and – ultimately – flexible women.

My June 2025 review stands true.

Jimmy Fay’s vision for the classic satire is vibrant and allows every department to go wild. Big statement bows are back in vogue, but the pink polka dot one atop Cecily’s head deserves have its own postcode. Gwendolen’s floating hat remains a masterpiece. Wet Leg’s Chaise Longue pumps out at the end: an anachronism, yet as utterly fitting as the unexpected musical interlude in the second act.

Christina Nelson brings a real sense of hysteria to her portrayal of Miss Prism. Not just a few, but a mountain of cucumber sandwiches are demolished by Algy (Conor O’Donnell). Neil Keery’s Lane is hasty back stage but slow and deliberate with his entrances and exits. Later, his Merriman benefits from being more demonstrably drôle and less poker-faced than 2025.

The Importance of Being Earnest is a joy to experience. It’s confident, supremely over the top, and playing in the Lyric Theatre until Sunday 22 February. Enjoy the wild ride from an ensemble cast who are firing on all cylinders.

Photo credit: Carrie Davenport

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Here & Now: The STEPS Musical – a gloriously silly production, a riot of colour, familiar tunes, and a jukebox story that engages as well as entertains (Grand Opera House until 31 January)

2026-01-29T17:31:00.001+00:00

The brash cyan and pink supermarket costumes in the opening scene of Here & Now: The STEPS Musical hint that the full STEPS sensibility is on show. The story follows a group of supermarket workers who veer between being unlucky in love and unsure in romance.

Caz’s marriage is wobbling right at the point adoption seems like a possibility. Vel’s relationship has been on the end-of-line shelf for so long it’s rotting. Robbie’s struggling to find more than a one-night stand. And Neeta’s too shy to tell Ben how she feels. An upcoming 50th birthday sets a deadline for everyone to sort themselves out for a perfect summer of love. Until an existential curveball is thrown and the staff at Better Best Bargains face a very uncertain future and multiple tragedies.

Part of the success of Here & Now is its full and knowing embrace of the jukebox format. Snippets of lyrics are liberally dropped into the dialogue. Shoehorning the techno-country number 5,6,7,8 into a STEPS musical feels like it should be a challenge, but Shaun Kitchener’s book and Rachel Kavanagh’s direction manage to totally integrate the honky-tonk banger into the cut-price supermarket story.

With more shock twists than a special episode of Coronation Street, at various points in the plot, there are almost handbrake turns as a character turns around, makes a surprising revelation and then launches into a song. In a lesser quality production, the show could lose its sure footing. But in Here & Now, there’s a solid confidence that pulls off the unexpected with a peculiar panache.

Lara Denning is bright and bubbly as the shop floor mother figure Caz with a particularly emotive rendition of Heartbeat and a gorgeous trio with the vocally capable Jacqui Debois (Vel) and Rosie Singha (Neeta) in Scared of the Dark. One of the standout voices is Blake Patrick Anderson (Robbie) who shares a heartfelt duet Story of a Heart with River Medway … playing a drag queen who later sings astride a fleet of washing machines with built in glitter balls, though the dancers’ ICE-emblazoned shirts take a new twist given events in the US. The store manager is probably the most cliched character, though Sally Ann Matthews’ dead pan delivery of the faux French phrases Patricia is très fond of never fails to get a laugh.

Some songs start in a low key that doesn’t suit the register of cast members’ voices, but after a few mandatory modulations, everything comes right again. Throw in a running gag about the pineapple of destiny, dynamically choreographed dance numbers, and a string of well-known and well-performed less familiar songs, and Here & Now is a great success.

While the on-stage performers are giving it their all, musical director Georgia Rawlins in the pit is also giving her all, conducting the cast in and out of their parts, and gamely donning a stetson for 5,6,7,8 before jettisoning it in a beat between songs. Manolo Polidario’s guitar finger picking often cuts through and deserves a mention along with Katy Trigger’s very solid bass line that drives the poppy beat.

Other than the megamix at the end, this is not a STEPS concert. But the storyline and the deliberately cheesy use of the band’s back catalogue creates something very pleasing. It’s a gloriously silly production, a riot of colour, with familiar tunes and a jukebox story that engages as well as entertains. Here & Now: The STEPS Musical continues at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 31 January.

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

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Nouvelle Vague – a satisfying dive into the world of early French New Wave cinema (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 30 January)

2026-01-29T06:30:00.001+00:00

As the last of his coterie of pals to make the dive into directing, film critic Jean-Luc Godard believes that it’s long past time to bring his own vision of cinema to the silver screen. Over 106 minutes we watch Godard persuade and cajole producer Georges de Beauregard to take a chance on him and then witness the disorganised process of shooting his debut feature.

With only a short film under his belt, Godard (played by Guillaume Marbeck) seeks out advice from numerous established directors, allowing us to see a hint of the genesis of his style of using the first or second take, letting his actors find inspiration in the moment, not overly worrying about continuity, filming guerilla style with passers-by becoming unwitting extras, throwing in jump cuts and liberally crossing the line with camera angles that will never match up in the edit.

While Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) works as a standalone film, for the princely sum of £3.50 any number of streaming services will allow you to watch the 1960 classic À bout de souffle (Breathless) beforehand, or in my case very soon afterwards. It’s widely regarded as a treasure of the early French New Wave movement.

Godard’s vision – if it is even as developed as that – is sustained by the craft of his cinematographer Raoul Coutard (Matthieu Penchinat), a war photographer with a flare for documentary-style shooting. Yet watch out for the fine details, like reflections in an actor’s sunglasses that bring a quality to the storytelling (and match scenes from the original film). The recreated scenes are a fine match for the original.

Aubry Dullin portrays actor Jean-Paul Belmondo who played the petty criminal and accidental cop killer Michel Poiccard in the original. Zoey Deutch stars as Jean Seberg, the actress who played Patricia Franchini, a student journalist selling copies of the New York Herald Tribune on the streets of Paris, and the romantic interest of Poiccard who he wants to join him in running away to start a new life.

Shot in moody black and white in Academy ratio to match the original film, Nouvelle Vague’s jazz soundtrack adds to the spontaneity of director Godard as he stumbles through an increasingly anarchic shooting schedule (“That’s all for today, I’m out of ideas!”) to assemble the parts necessary to make a film that has a few pages of treatment but no complete script.

Just as Marbeck captures the infuriating nature of the unphased director, Deutch depicts the exasperation of an actress bobbing about in a sea of chaos and reputational risk. Rising like a pillar of calm and preparation, assistant director Pierre Rissient (Benjamin Clery) emerges as the man who creates some of the beautiful touches that make the original film shine.

One character asks the question that is on the tip of every audience member’s tongue: “Are you making up how to direct as you go along?”

It’s only when you watch the original film that it becomes apparent that the crucial choice of hand-held camera and lack of sound synchronisation freed Godard to rearrange scenes and dub the dialogue on afterwards to create a cogent narrative.

Modern day director Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague is a fond look back at a pivotal moment in French cinema that changed so much and made it possible to break so many rules in the name of creating better art. It is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 30 January.

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No Other Choice – a redundant worker spirals down a chute of catastrophe in a bid to regain employment (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 23 January)

2026-01-22T08:00:00.001+00:00

When Man-su is fired from the Korean paper mill, the former award-winning “pulp man of the year” is sure he’ll be back in work within three months. Park Chan-wook’s latest feature No Other Choice documents Man-su spiralling down a chute of catastrophe.

Feeling humiliated (at being out of work, heading in to mortgage arrears, and his wife (Mi-ri played by Son Ye-jin) needing to go back to work), Man-su’s desperation leads to him taking ever darker and more violent action to eliminate potential competitors from a job he’s chasing.

This dark satire celebrates the weirdness of job interviews, the virtuosity of his neurodivergent cello-playing daughter, the ineptness of police detectives, and tripping people up on their own bad karma. Two dogs and an endless sequence of well-sculpted scenes will surely make this another classic example of Korean cinema.

The send-up of capitalism easily sustains its tenor over 139 minutes with the satisfying but unpredictable dispatch of colleagues in the paper industry. By the end, we’re aware that while Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) has been depleting the available workforce, mechanisation and robotics are less dramatically human head count required to do the work he once so ably managed.

No Other Choice will be screened in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 23 January.

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The Voice of Hind Rajab – an urgent reminder about a real-life tragedy that should not be forgotten (Queen’s Film Theatre until Wednesday 28 January)

2026-01-17T20:47:00.000+00:00

Omar, a call handler at the Red Crescent office in the West Bank, receives an emergency request from a car in northern Gaza. There are few survivors in a car full of family who were fleeing their home in an area that Israeli forces had ordered to be evacuating. Ultimately a five-year-old girl is kept on the line while another Red Crescent official tries to negotiate a safe rescue mission. Tempers flare. Risks mount.

The Voice of Hind Rajab is Kaouther Ben Hania’s dramatisation of the real-life incident that weaves original audio from the recorded calls (with mother’s consent) – and later in the film, video captured in the Red Crescent office during a rescue attempt – to heighten the authenticity.

Motaz Malhees picks up the with empathy that Omar is consumed by as he tries to comfort and help the child in peril. Hind first suggests that the others in her car – her aunt, uncle and cousins – are “asleep” before admitting that she knows that they are dead. As day turns to evening, the girl tells the Red Crescent operators that “It will be dark soon, I’m scared”. Those are the child’s real words.

Over time, we realise that a cumbersome protocol’s ‘guarantee’ of safe passage – organised through the International Red Cross in Geneva talking to an Israeli Ministry who in turn make arrangements with the troops on the ground – has too frequently turned into a dangerous game of ‘Chinese whispers’ which has resulted in the deliberate or accidental death of rescuers.

Omar’s distress and frustration with the “coward hiding behind his desk” who can’t order an ambulance to make the eight-minute trip to the car is matched by the agonisingly slow manner of coordinator Mahdi (Amer Hlehel) who carries the guilt of previous failed missions.

The film never shies away from the reality questions of why the military would attack a civilian vehicle leaving an area as instructed. Why would anyone fire more than three hundred bullets into a car? Who would have the firepower to annihilate an ambulance? The ethics of the Red Crescent having to get Israeli permission and protection to rescue someone who had been attached by the Israeli military are also explored.

The Voice of Hind Rajab is one of a number of cinematic tributes to a five-year-old girl who is emblematic of so many other undocumented children and adult deaths in Gaza. It is not an easy film to watch. But in a month that features cinematic treats like Hamnet, Marty Surprise, Saipan and Sentimental Value, this is an urgent reminder about a real-life tragedy that should not be forgotten.

(Eighteen hours before watching a preview of this film, I’d watched on social media as friends of Renee Good reacted to her being fatally shot by ICE agents in Minneapolis. Subsequent reporting suggests that bystanders were prevented from giving medical assistance to Renee. Senior political figures continue to deny and contradict what video evidence depicts. The Israel Defence Forces denied having troops within firing range of the car; satellite imagery, along with the actual attack on the car and ambulance, challenges that claim.)

The Voice of Hind Rajab honours and memorialises the last hours of a child in Gaza. It’s being screened at Queen’s Film Theatre until Wednesday 28 January.

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Sleeping Beauty – a community of talent brings this traditional tale to life on stage (Belvoir Players until Saturday 3 January)

2025-12-24T13:35:00.001+00:00

A new arrival in the court of Queen Marigold and King Cactus is cursed by the evil Witch Hazel. While good Fairy Lilac adapts the deadliest part of the spell, the now 16-year-old Princess Rose still ends up falling asleep for a hundred years before being woken up (not kissed!) by a prince.

Mark McClean and assistant Katie-Rose Spence have directed this year’s Belvoir Players’ pantomime Sleeping Beauty (written by Alan P Frayn) which follows a fairly traditional story arc, with Nurse Hattie and Muddles providing a lot of the comedy, and local posties Carrie and Fetch joining in with some clowning and setting up a topical joke at the expense of Evri.

It’s always a joy to visit Belvoir Studio Theatre at Christmas, and encouraging to see amateur dramatic society stalwarts joined on stage by new talent (young and old). Colourful cloth backdrops along with sound/light effects bring the action to life. Wilson Shields and his band create the pumping live soundtrack (albeit louder than the vocals in some songs) with covers of Stevie Wonder, Lewis Capaldi, Blondie, The Boo Radleys and Kylie Minogue. The audience are never far from the action, with lots of shouting and booing. Anyone sitting in the front rows can expect to be gently picked on. The children sitting in my row were rapt with everything going on.

Alongside the expected fart sound effects and use of a Super Soaker, there’s the inevitable 6-7 mention, a wee dig at Keir Starmer, and plenty of gentle double entendres that easily fly over the head of younger audience members. The dame pulls a suppository gag out of nowhere, and Muddles revels in an almost endless supply of cracker-worthy jokes.

What makes a show like Sleeping Beauty special is the strong sense of community. Two or three actors rotate through the main roles, with three forty-strong youth choruses flooding the tiny stage for some of scenes. Hats off to the chaperones backstage who keep the cast and venue safe. No two shows share the same cast. And the show must always go on, no matter what happens. With both Princess Rose actors indisposed this weekend, Rainbow Fairy Julia Hamilton stepped up with minimal notice and delivered Princess Rose’s dialogue, dance and songs with aplomb as if she was made for the role and had been rehearsing for weeks.

Belvoir Players may not be able to fly a plane over the heads of the audience or have indoor pyrotechnics announce the arrival of the villain on stage, but they can entertain the two hundred audience members packed into the theatre for each performance with solid singing, good direction, and a joyful spirit. Sleeping Beauty was a lovely way to finish my mammoth trek around eleven Belfast festive productions. Apologies to the other shows which offered a ticket to review that I had to decline, and best wishes to everyone who will be back on stage, or back of house, after Christmas Day!

Sleeping Beauty continues at Belvoir Studio Theatre until Saturday 3 January. Only a handful of seats remain at some of the remaining performances, with most completely sold out.

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Baby It’s Cold Outside – bringing a Black Mountain lesbian comedy into the heart of East Belfast (Bright Umbrella at The Sanctuary Theatre until Sunday 4 January)

2025-12-18T00:13:00.003+00:00

Just when you think you’ve seen every variety of Christmas show, Baby It’s Cold Outside makes a comeback. West Belfast playwright Brenda Murphy’s 2013 play is being produced by Bright Umbrella in The Sanctuary Theatre.

In a nutshell, straight white bricklayer Joe from Ballymurphy calls in to check on his pregnant childhood friend who now lives with two other lesbians in an isolated cottage up Black Mountain. The surrounding landscape is about to be smothered in snow. The Christmas tree is up, and soon the mercury is rising as Joe (Brian Markey) comes storming in with his ignorance about ‘queers’ (to use the phrase he oft repeats) and his possessive feelings towards Patsy’s baby.

There’s certainly a lot of social commentary. But there’s also a lot of crass stereotyping and – for most of the first act – the audience around me were largely laughing along with Joe’s inappropriate musings rather than siding with the misunderstood and maligned women. At times the atmosphere felt quite demeaning and dismissive of the LGBT community, even though that’s not the script’s intention.

Markey veers from being cock of the walk to fleeting moments of realising his witlessness, before finally taking control of a tense situation.

Mary McGurk acts her socks off (and her character’s knickers) as Patsy. With two weeks to go until her due date, she lumbers around the cottage’s sitting room, taking no cheek from Joe and spilling his tea … right until he reveals a detail about his actions as the sperm donor for Patsy’s baby. An impressive McGurk stops emotionally strong Patsy from ever being drawn as simply ‘highly strung’.

Michelle Wiggins plays Sally, a butch woman who can lag pipes and gos out of her way to help older neighbours. US student Madison (Jade O’Neill) barely has to bat her eyelids to have Joe fawning over her. Her character is the least well written, and Joe’s warm rapport with Madison totally eclipses the fact he’s still meant to be so sweet on Patsy that he’s braved the bad weather to visit her.

For a play that’s focussed on a lesbian relationship – the couple’s desire to have a family, and what stands in the way – it feels odd that much of the play is seen through the straight eyes of Joe. I’m not sure whether that’s a legacy of the Murphy’s script, Michael Quinn’s decisions as director, or a result of producing a play steeped with very west Belfast humour over in the east.

While some music accompanies scene changes, it’s a shame there was no sound of howling wind or a few flakes of confetti thrown whenever the front door of PJ Davey’s set is opened to give a greater sense of the worsening snowpocalypse. The second act is less secure and some of the plot’s revelations are quite hard to swallow. But in the end, Baby It’s Cold Outside delivers a strong dramatic farcical finish that befits a comedy show (it’s never a hospital drama seeking to be authenticate about medical details).

The coarse and adult nature of Baby It’s Cold Outside is certainly a departure from last year’s family-friendly production of The Magician’s Nephew (based on the CS Lewis book) in The Sanctuary Theatre. Some aspects of the play feel very pertinent. Yet I found the overall tone taken to be challenging: both Joe and some in the audience get an education of sorts, but it seems to come at the cost of diluting the message of advocacy for gay wannabe mums.

Baby It’s Cold Outside continues its run until Sunday 4 January (link to tickets before and after 22 December).

Photo credit: Emma Dawson

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The Secret Bookshop – an other-worldly celebration of stories and reading (Cahoots NI at Cityside Retail Park until Wednesday 24 December)

2025-12-15T19:21:00.002+00:00

Bookshops are magical places at the best of times. Shelves full of treasured stories. But step inside the unmarked door in Cityside shopping centre and walk down the long entrance corridor with its flickering lights, and you’ll find yourself in an immersive and spell-binding celebration of books and storytelling: The Secret Bookshop.

We first meet Silas, his daughter Araminta and her boyfriend Thaddeus in the Archive, a room surrounded by stacks of flight cases, guarded by Nigel, the comically plain-named head of security. Inside the cases are objects from familiar tales. Soon we’re stepping through a portal into the actual bookstore where objects will float, doors will open and close by themselves, and can it be true that stories the audience chose before entering the building are randomly coming to life in front of our eyes!

Accompanied by the jazzy fingers and smooth vocals of Octavian Pedal (Kyron Burke), we join Silas (John Paul Connolly) on his quest. He’s a driven man on a mission, who is dismissive of “sensitive” Thaddeus (Hugh Brown, playing the kind of guy who doesn’t panic and would be good in an emergency). Christina Nelson’s Araminta is eager and infectiously enthusiastic. Nigel (Declan King) is kept at arm’s length, an outside who is definitely not part of the family. Throughout the performance we’ll also see the work and eventually the presence of Orla Gormley (who, without giving away the final part of the show, provides a very cool and monochromatic juxtaposition to the warm bookshop workers).

Writer Charles Way’s imagination is teamed up with illusions designed by Guy Barrett and Katie Wade and giant sleights of hand directed by Paul Bosco Mc Eneaney. Diana Ennis has created a steam-punk set for the archive – inspired by the characters’ oft-repeated mantra of “gas, steam, electricity, music and magic” – with lots of practical special effects, and a very warm book-lined room with hidden doors for the main show. Cahoots’ partnership with The Deluxe Group has really added to the scale of the visual experience. There’s nothing flimsy about the solid structures that enclose the action.

Throw in oaths of allegiance, audience participation, puppetry, and the fine level of control of the theatre environment that a Cahoots show always enjoys, and you have an hour-long visit to an other-worldly celebration of stories and reading that throws in a moral message about recognising other people’s worth, as well as a hint that reading under the bed covers could be a worthwhile pursuit.

There’s no other show in Belfast this Christmas that will make a member of the audience disappear and induct you into a secret society. The Secret Bookshop continues with up to performance shows a day in Cahoots NI’s base in Cityside Retail Park until 24 December. With space limited at each show, many shows are selling out.

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The Elf Inspectors – can the young inspectors help the elves restore the magic of Christmas? (Replay Theatre at The MAC until Christmas Eve)

2025-12-09T23:43:00.001+00:00

Replay Theatre Company put children at the heart of their work. Right in the centre. They are the most important audience members. Yes, the ~~adults~~ bigger children in the room may also love what happens and particularly appreciate the meaning of some aspects, but the story and the atmosphere is built around the littlest audience members.

Walking into The Elf Inspectors is like stepping into another world. A room I’ve previously live-streamed conferences from on the top floor of the MAC has been turned into a circular glade surrounded by Christmas trees. Elves – you can tell they’re elves by their ears – greet everyone and speak with in a distinctive elvish dialect of English, cutely mixing up some consonants and emphasising syllables in unusual ways. Soft shag rugs can be sat on if an upright chair isn’t your thing. Gentle music calms heartrates that may have been racing due to that morning’s blockage on the Westlink. It’s all very comfy and wholesome. Even the stage management team – shout out to a busy Jordan Nelson and Rick Paine – are in costume.

While everyone gathers, some of the youngest visitors wander around the exciting environment while their frustrated parents try to get them to pose for photographs. There is much to see, and a lot of freedom to explore, even before the show gets underway with its bubbles and snow and so much more.

Soon Nice Elf and Helpful step onto the central dias to remind us that we’re all here as part of an inspection team checking out the rumours that there’s been a decline in the quality of the Christmas magic at this site. The elves’ generator has been on the fritz for quite some time.

Nice Elf (Catriona McFeely) is prone to outbursts brought on by frustration with the others around her. Helpful Elf (Ashley Montgomery) is responsible for maintenance but the generator’s crisis soon proves to be more existential than a simple repair will fix. The pair argue and bicker like sisters. As they rack their brains for solutions, even trying to use the sprinkle train – a very popular moment with the young inspectors – proves insufficient to sooth the generator and restart the magic.

Later we meet Wise Elf (Carol Moore) who spins a yarn while we cosy up in the shade of our family tree. The appearance of Rascal Elf (a superb piece of typecasting of Keith Singleton) adds even more humour. Is he truly naughty – the dreaded N word – or just misunderstood?

Some audience members are caught up in marvelling at the multi-sensory set: the trees, the texture of the rugs and the ‘sprinkle train’, being able to pull a fabric cracker, observing the detailing in the colourful costumes (designed by Susan Scott). Others get to grips with the emotional journey of the story as the four elves get to the root cause of the generator’s malaise.

Nice Elf’s song rounds up the 50-minute show with a catchy chorus (written by sound designer Garth McConaghie) that I found myself singing along to. Leaving the theatre and heading back into a blustery world, I share ‘wiggly wishes’ with someone who wasn’t at the show. They probably thought I was an eejit!

Janice Kernoghan-Reid wrote and directed The Elf Inspectors. The gradual build-up from two to three and finally four elves on stage is likely a deliberate decision given the age of the target audience (2-5 years old), but it does mean that the calming granny-like figure of Moore and the magnetic presence of Singleton are only on stage for part of the performance.

One of the joys of Replay’s work is that the actors adapt the story – how and in what positions it is told – based on the audience. So a wandering child or an aside that someone shouts out will be instantly and quite seamlessly woven into the scene. Nothing induces panic. And much of the time, the warm embrace of the lighting, the set and the props perfectly steers the attention of the littlest elf inspectors.

A £31 family ticket secures four places at a Christmas tree (larger parties can contact the box office as up to two more places may be available for an extra £5 an elf inspector).

The Elf Inspectors runs at The MAC until Christmas Eve. (Weekend shows are selling very fast with more availability on weekdays.)

Photo credit: Neil Harrison

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Robin Hood: The Panto – a show that successfully delights its young audiences (Yellow Jumper Productions at Theatre at the Mill until Saturday 3 January)

2025-12-07T15:30:00.000+00:00

The diminutive Sheriff of Nothingman (Aaron Ferguson) is searching for the charismatic hooded one (Tiarnán McCarron) who is hiding in the forest. The extent is his ‘merry men’ has been somewhat exaggerated – Dame Little Joan (Lennin Nelson-McClure) is one of his few mates – but fear not as Maid Martini (Laura Francisca Shaw) is keen to break away from the coercive control of the Sheriff and wants to join Robin Hood’s posse. Will it all end in tears … or in prison? Will anyone slide into Dame Joan’s DMs? Can Robin outsmart the fearsome Sherriff and his faceless henchmen.

Right from the start of Robin Hood: The Panto there’s constant audience participation, booing the nasty Sheriff, feeding Robin’s ego, doing the actions when Maid Martini is mentioned. The set – boxes of wrapped Christmas presents (shared with the venue’s adult offering Belfast Actually 2) – makes a great multi-level playground for chasing characters. There are fart jokes, a bit of tickling, a mention of Ozempic, some CPR, a very creepy Trump (“quiet piggy”), and inflatable baubles thrown into the audience. And that’s before children burst into song when Raining Tacos returns for a second year. Willing audience members are brought up on stage and gamely join in the action. The actors move into the auditorium in the second act. It’s organised chaos and great, great fun.

To be honest I was all at sixes and sevens and feeling my age trying to place some of the cultural references. (Rizzler, not Rizla the rolling paper, aha!) But writer, director and producer Sarah Lyle is clearly down with the kids as the young audience members around me were totally in the zone and following every song, meme and mention. Doechii’s Anxiety is apt during incarceration though it’s Jailhouse Rock that has all the adults humming along to McCarron’s excellent Elvis impersonation.

While parts of the boo-tastic opening scene felt a bit forced, Ferguson is soon comfortable as the villain and never disappoints during his songs, his rap or his big Riverdance moment. Shaw’s singing voice soars throughout and her Maid Martini oozes warm confidence and inner steel, not to mention a lorra, lorra laughs in a blind dating scene. McClure’s falsetto helps create a big sound for the snowy pre-interval Underneath the Tree.

An ensemble is populated by a volunteer community cast who join in with dance routines and appear as Merry Men and the Sheriff’s sinister faceless underlings.

McClure impressed with his silk work in Cinderella last Christmas, but casting him as the dame this year is a stroke of genius. Even without the sound effects, he makes good use of Dame Joan’s curvy assets, though dangling upside-down from a rope above the stage almost causes a wardrobe malfunction. He has a really comfortable rapport with the audience that always gets the last laugh without anyone being humiliated. This shouldn’t be the last time McClure works as a dame.

As the curtain came down for the last time, one youngster sitting behind me proclaimed “That. Was. Amaaaaaazing.” And that’s the voice of an expert you should be listening too. Parents also commented that the ticket prices were substantially less expensive than city centre productions and the drinks and snacks were a lot cheaper.

Theatre at the Mill has a long history of quality festive entertainment and Yellow Jumper’s Robin Hood is no exception. The show runs until Saturday 3 January.

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Belfast Actually 2 – serving up chivalry, compromise and stacks of Christmas cheese (Theatre At The Mill until Saturday 3 January)

2025-12-06T00:03:00.000+00:00

Walking out of a Christmas show with a smile on your face should almost be the aim of producers. Leesa Harker and Andrea Montgomery are back in Theatre at the Mill with a follow-up to last year’s gem.

Belfast Actually 2 isn’t afraid to acknowledge that not everyone has a perfect life or has two beans to rub together. Right from the start, the bawdy jokes earn hearty laughs from the audience as The Farmer Wants a Wife Christmas Festival gets underway. Montgomery emphasises the tough situations everyone is facing before sprinkling liberal quantities of Christmas cheese over the story.

The first half flies as we get to know the main characters.

Mary (Jo Donnelly) has come to the wife-grabbing contest with a secret agenda. Farmer Jack (Patrick McBrearty) thinks he knows what he’s looking for but meets his match as he progresses through the rounds. In and out of court Lola (Eimear Bailie) is street smart and book smart. Her new probation officer Max (Adam Gillian) recognises huge potential, but Lola doesn’t want to be ‘fixed’ by this ‘melter’ of a man. Established romantic fiction writer Georgina (Emma Little-Lawless) has an overdue book contract, a pushy publisher, a gammy wrist, and no ideas left for the sweltering sex scenes her readers demand. When younger Kimberley (Matthew O’Leary) shows up on the doorstep to help, her idea of what kind of assistance she needs is turned upside down.

Harker knows her audience and makes them giggle with a song about Viagra, a snowy East 17 cover at the interval (mostly for the craic rather than the plot!), and a book reading that had the third row in conniptions.

Lots of secondary characters come and go as the cast of six’s main parts drift towards possible coupledom. The appearance of a puppet influencer is quite left field, but McBrearty’s reprise of older widow Alison from last year’s show proves to be the returning audience members’ favourite. Scenes regularly break into song, with a aptly localised version of Fairytale of New York (The Pogues) impressing along with an 11 o’clock rendition of You’re The One That I Want (Grease).

Adam Gillian’s first act performance of Maria (West Side Story) is electrifying and shows off his tenor voice. (Hoobastank’s The Reason in the second act is too slow and ponderous and threatens to drain energy from the otherwise well-paced storytelling.) His duet with Lola also gives Bailie a chance to shine. (Back in 2019 she memorably played Tony Macaulay’s love interest Sharon Burgess in BYMT’s Paperboy.)

David Craig’s set from 2024 is ‘regifted’ in fresh wrapping paper. Snow falls. A glitterball sparkles. Chivalry isn’t dead. Self-belief is fragile. Some people can find it in themselves to compromise. Lots of local references tickle the audience. By the time the finale arrives, people are shouting out encouragement to the men on stage who may be about to be swept off their feet by strong women.

Belfast Actually 2 runs until Saturday 3 January in the Theatre At The Mill.

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Pinocchio – spectacle triumphs over story in this glitzy pantomime (Grand Opera House until Sunday 11 January)

2025-12-05T23:33:00.002+00:00

The Grand Opera House pantomime is certainly a big show in town. Veteran performer May McFettridge is serenaded onto the stage (for the 35th year) with her own song. This year she’s playing the toymaker May Geppetto, creator of the Pinocchio puppet who has turned into a real boy (Adam C Booth). Together with Jiminy Cricket (Paddy Jenkins in his 20th year in a row with May) and the Blue Faerie (Jayme-Lee Zanoncelli), they must help the boy “look for the small voice inside to tell right from wrong” or else face turning back into a puppet.

They’re up against The Great Stromboli (Jolene O’Hara again revelling in the role of the baddie) and her two animal sidekicks – Kitty the Cat (Maeve Byrne) and Phyllis the Fox (Philippa O’Hara) – who plan to kidnap the boy who is economic with the truth and take him to Fantasy Island. (While the script is heavily localised, this watery destination doesn’t cue up any Stephen Nolan jokes, and other shows would have thrown in a Hope Street reference for Jenkins.)

It’s big and brash. Lots of special effects and props are used for a minute or two (sometimes a lot less) and then retired. Pinocchio flies upside down over the heads of the front rows of the audience. A pyrotechnic flash marks every entrance Zanoncelli makes from stage right. There are plenty of fart noises, musical lyric puns, and unfinished risqué sentences.

Although the plot takes a very deliberate jump forward in time over the interval, the story is understood by all to be secondary to the spectacle. A brief cameo by what could pass for the Gallagher brothers is brilliantly staged even though its relevance to the plot is lost in the laughter.

Jenkins’ glittery green outfit shimmers (though sadly his top hat and antennae are too quickly ditched). O’Hara’s Stromboli costume enjoys enormous split shoulders and a whip. Pinocchio’s extending nose could literally put someone’s eye out. The ensemble have taller feathers and so many more of them than NI Opera’s recent Follies.

‘Uncle’ Phil Shute in the orchestra pit with his live band of four pump out an excruciatingly loud soundtrack throughout. Well known songs are rewritten (eg, Achy Breaky Heart). Classics like In The Navy and YMCA are repurposed. A second act rendition of Don’t Stop Me Now is the musical highlight, showcasing the powerful voices of the O’Hara sisters and Byrne.

While the variety act (like Flawless that might have flown in from Britain’s Got Talent) has been dropped in recent years, they’re not really missed. The audience are there for the glamour and the glitz. Booth’s zany comedy and endless energy add sparkle to every scene he’s in. (Though what’s with those pockets in his waistcoat?!)

But as the cast take their bows and head to the wings, it is McFettridge/Linehan who lingers on stage, as if basking in the warmth of the audience to recharge his batteries for the next performance. It’s a brutal schedule with 12 shows a week.

Pinocchio runs at the Grand Opera House until Sunday 11 January.

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Belfast Boy – baring his soul on a bare stage (Kat Woods at Lyric Theatre until 29 November)

2025-11-30T14:23:00.002+00:00

Jamie can’t sleep and his London GP would prefer to get to the root cause rather than send his patient out with tablets. Belfast Boy is a confessional piece of theatre that listens in on Jamie’s first session with his ‘head doctor’.

Conor Cupples steps on stage as Jamie, a hesitant figure entering the office and taking the empty seat. When he’s full of stimulants, Jamie can be an extrovert, a night club diva with all the moves. But faced with a psychologist, he’s a nervous individual, at times blurting out almost unfiltered thoughts, and psyching himself up to make what he feels are some of the more major admissions about his coming of age.

His Protestant family grew up in Belfast but were forced out and moved to England. While nothing in his life jumps out to Jamie as being cause for his insomnolence, the audience quickly lose count of the traumatic events and stressful experiences that he has survived.

The set consists of a simple white chair. There are no props. Cupples’ gift of rapidly shifting into and out of different accents is aided by the effective overhead lighting to quickly move in and out of asides and memorable incidents. (His brother Vinto receiving orders from the UVF is accompanied by a neat red, white and blue wash.) Sound effects blast in when phones ring or Jamie plays a video on his phone, but Massive Attack’s Teardrop is one of the few moments when incidental music plays to enhance the mood of a scene rather than being mentioned in the dialogue.

I’ve seen two productions of another (later) Kat Woods play – Wasted (Pintsized Productions and Bruiser) – a two handed show that I described at the time as “a sweaty and sweary examination of consensual sex within the context of a one-night stand and binge drinking culture”. Belfast Boy is no less deftly written, but the pace is deliberately much slower and the overall energy remains more subdued.

Issues of consent are also present in Belfast Boy, along with an exploration of sexuality, assault, sectarian hate, domestic violence and the perils of half inching other people’s property. Cupples brings it all to life with a confident performance that never lets go of Jamie’s diffidence as he processes his life and times.

Previously performed at the Edinburgh Fringe by Declan Perring, the former ‘Belfast Boy’ has to explain concepts from his troubled life back home (like the UVF and The Falls) to a ‘mainland’ practitioner unfamiliar with Norn Iron affairs. By the end of the hour-long session, the layers of protection and memory have begun to be stripped off, and Jamie – along with the audience acting as the psychologist – realise that plenty more remains to be revealed over the next five visits.

Belfast Boy was performed in the Lyric Theatre’s Naughton Studio on 28 and 29 November.

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Pillion – Harry Lighton’s strong directorial debut with a tale of biker bondage (QFT and others from Friday 28 November)

2025-11-29T18:58:00.001+00:00

Peggy would like her son to settle down with a nice fella before her cancer catches up with her. So she doesn’t complain when Colin goes out on a date on Christmas night. Probably best she never realises about the festive fellatio out the back of Primark that marks the beginning of her sweet Colin learning about his love of submission over dominance. Soon he’s wearing a padlock and chain around his neck while the sullen and mysterious Ray keeps the key on his own finer necklace.

Screenwriter and director Harry Lighton walks a tightrope of portrayal in Pillion. Colin (Harry Melling) works as a traffic war and performs in a barbershop quartet. He’s made out to be square and boring, although never in a cartoonish manner. But it contributes to making Colin’s willing exploration of BDSM so much more shocking.

Alexander Skarsgård’s Ray is tall, rugged, aggressive and a man of few words. Adopting a domineering attitude towards Colin isn’t an act of roleplay. It’s real, dismissive and reeks of coercive control. (Adam Mars-Jones’ original novel Box Hill is apparently even more troubled at the start of their kink-driven situationship.) Ray stubbornly remains an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in biking leathers.

Ultimately, Pillion becomes dark love story – a ‘dom-com’ according to some reviews – about Colin’s understanding of what brings him pleasure (does he really have “an aptitude for obedience”?), and the audience being forced to decide whether there’s a willing or unwilling power imbalance in this degrading relationship. When Ray finally comes over for Sunday dinner with Colin’s family, Peggy makes it quite clear whose side she’s on!

Lighton’s extraordinary directorial debut finds room for laughter alongside the abuse. Skarsgård and Melling achieve an on-screen intensity that sizzles. Watch out for a memorable prosthetic with a ‘Prince Albert’ piercing. A final rendition of Smile Though Your Heart is Breaking neatly mirrors the tuneful opening scene and helps the audience escape from the bondage back into a less fraught world.

Pillion is being screened in the Queen’s Film Theatre. Amazingly, it’s also playing in Cineworld Belfast and some Omniplex cinemas.

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Jack and the Beanstalk – rags and riches, poverty and privilege, a cow, some beans and a silent chicken (GBL Productions at Waterfront, extended until Sunday 11 January)

2025-11-28T22:21:00.001+00:00

Jack is the boy who dares to dream. His widowed mother, Dame Polly Ester, runs a dress ‘shap’. Milkshake the cow zooms across the stage on a scooter, later inviting us all to be part of ‘the Moo Crew’. Jack’s taken with a girl called Jill who might be hiding her privilege. Her dad is also single and looking for love. This year’s Waterfront panto – Jack and the Beanstalk – has rags and riches, a subtle smattering of teenage hormones, a cow that should really be traded for cash, and a beanstalk climbing up towards the heavens.

Into this familiar world strides Swindleworth, with a pot belly and black and white striped trousers. The audience, young and old, know to boo before being told.

Jay Hutchinson gives off a whiff of haughty criminality – “as trustworthy as a Translink timetable” – with his character commanded to steal gold by his boss, the great Giant Causeway. Hutchinson milks every scene and becomes a real audience favourite.

Warren McCook has springs on the soles of his feet as he bounces around the stage like a teenager hooked on Monster. Sé Carr’s Milkshake is relentlessly upbeat. Meabh Quinn’s King Fluster is possessive of his child but mellows to become a warm character on stage.

Johanna Johnston matches McCook’s energy with an endearingly shrill performance as Jack’s coy and giddy best friend forever. They effortlessly duet, with an early sign of their talent their cover of Die With a Smile (“If the world was ending I'd wanna be next to you”).

No Waterfront pantomime would be complete without copious opportunities to run through the auditorium, and a chance for the villain to use a super soaker on the audience.

The cartoonish set matches the brashly coloured costumes. The choreography is boppy. Lighting effects are synced with sound effects and Jack’s dream of being a hero. I’d love to be able to name the creative team, but other than director Chris Robinson, details weren’t provided. (Update - set and costume design by Diana Ennis, lighting design by Conleth White, and music by Katie Richardson music.)

Ciaran Haggerty’s script revels in Hope Street jokes, audience participation, and clever wordplay. While adults in the audience might not recognise where they’ve heard some of the tunes before, anyone of primary school age recognises snatches of KPop Demon Hunters and may even jump up to do the actions unasked.

So far so good. The key ingredients of a great pantomime are all present. Aspects of the production are really well tuned to the target clientele. Yet what comes out of the oven is unevenly cooked.

If opening night (following a few days of previews) is typical, the show is too long, with a half-hearted audience singalong eeking out the runtime even further. Relegated to the end, the competitive singing is normally a filler while the rest of the cast would be off getting changed into their wedding finery (except budgets don’t extend to having new costumes for the final number). This year’s singalong could usefully be ditched.

The inclusion of a wordless chicken Nugget (played by Niamh Canning) who lays unseen golden eggs is a total mystery. It takes a long time before the titular beans arrive and grow into a beanstalk. With a brutal schedule of “three shows a day” as we were too oft reminded, the Dame’s threadbare banter with the audience has a lot of opportunity to mature and improve. More salty comments across more people in the first few rows would definitely help cement the pantomime spirit.

Jack and the Beanstalk is produced by GBL Productions and its run has been extended at the Waterfront Studio until Sunday 11 January.

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Jack Frost – stunning production design brings the ambition of opera to a frozen world of lore (The MAC until Thursday 1 January 2026)

2025-11-28T20:32:00.002+00:00

Jack Frost is an ambitious new show that creates a snowy adventure full of peril by weaving together strands of disparate mythology and festive lore with bright music and stunning production design. The MAC’s main Christmas show – one of three that will be running in the building – takes the figure of ‘old man winter’ and injects it with Allison Harding’s rich imagination. Soon the master of cold is joined by friend Neve, an owl (Hoot), a snowman (knowingly named Jon Snow) and eventually St Nicholas to fight back against the dark plans of Cailleach and Krampus.

I’ve been attending and reviewing Christmas shows for a long time, and Jack Frost is almost uniquely difficult to categorise. At this time of the year, many shows aim to leave you with a big warm hug. This one entertains and surprises while keeping the festive cheer to a minimum and shunning schmaltz. The design and musicality are very operatic: no huge surprise given NI Opera’s chief executive is the director, and his hand is all over the sumptuous detailing of the multi-layered costumes and elaborate headpieces. A number of his regular creative collaborators from the opera world contribute to this show.

Niall McKeever’s monochromatic set is a bold gamble that pays off. An intricate miniature village lights up to give a sense that Jack Frost and his friends are sitting outside humanity. White pyramids with sleek lines zoom across the stage on castors. An enormous snow globe – technically some kind of spherical bell – hangs over the stage, doubling up as a screen for interjections by King Alban (Richard Croxford) and Queen Thaloria (Colette Lennon). The chilly look is later warmed up by the appearance of the more colourful Saint Nicholas.

This is a dark tale of menace, anxiety, fatal blows and the chance that the hidden village of Lunareth, and indeed the whole world, is about to change forever. The first ten minutes comprise of a long voice-over followed by a snowball fight while dancing and singing in harmony. Only then do we witness the first conversation and hear the character voices of Jack and Neve. But once they start talking, there’s no stopping them. Parts of the dialogue in the first half wouldn’t be amiss in the form of a soliloquy on stage at The Globe. Turn the snowman into a fellow with a mid-life crisis and the owl into a psychologist, and it could nearly pass for a French baroque tragedy.

After the interval – which gloriously, yet pertaining to little or nothing in the plot, begins with Hoot the owl getting a moment in the spotlight and losing his snark to turn into a strigine version of Shirley Bassey – the pace picks up as the gang of five help Jack Frost quickly work his way through a riddle, a choice and a challenge, and reach the final facedown to save winter from relative disaster. The puppetry extends its ambition from a single owl to include large scale shadow figures.

Jennifer Rooney’s rich choreography is demanding, particularly in some of the musical numbers. Katie Richardson’s brilliant score brings drums to the fore when peril is at its height and throws in sleigh bells for the slightly too cheesy final number. The cast continue singing while taking their bows which seemed to impede last night’s audience from feeling it was time to applaud. The committed cast deserve a longer moment to bask in the gratitude for a job well done.

Allison Harding finds space in her script and lyrics (there’s a great verse that rhymes “chaos” with “delicious”) to take fun jibes at performance art and adult concerns for structural integrity and dignity. But the darkness soon returns with ominous lines: “soon the children will wake screaming in the night”.

As an adult I found myself leaning into the world-building and the unfolding mythology that was very unfamiliar. (If, like me, winter folklore was skipped over in your primary school, Cailleach is a Celtic crone and Krampus is a half goat/half demon from Alpine traditions.) A bit too much concentration required. The occasional video appearances by the Queen and King seemed superfluous.

While the modern cinematic approach of cutting scenes sooner than expected (“arrive late, leave early”) and allowing the audience to fill in the gaps or live with ambiguity doesn’t quite translate to stage, there’s an element of over-explaining that slows down the first act. Jack Frost is a show that’s can’t easily be left to wash over you. Children in the audience seemed to be fascinated by Jonathan M Daley’s dramatic lighting and McKeever’s playful set, and some even sang along with the chorus of the original songs. A lot of younger weans ended up sitting on an adult’s knee, a place of comfort and safety from which to watch this tale of uncertainly unfold. At times this show looks more fun to act in than to watch.

Conor Quinn’s Jack Frost has lots of energy and a good rapport with Eimear Fearon’s Neve who gives off big sister energy coaching Jack through his fears and lack of self-confidence. Together they share a sweet duet in the second act. Darren Franklin once again proves his versatility playing Jon Snow, beginning as an actual snowman with twig arms and fingers, and then as a reformed figure (“no longer made of snow … a fully formed bloke”) who spends much of the first act talking to himself until others take over his existential angst after the interval. (Watch out for the ‘farty’ sound effect when Jon Snow moves.) Mark Dugdale joyously brings to life the puntastic and sardonic owl who feels “bird-ened with responsibility”. Sean Kearns’ St Nicholas is immediately a figure who can be trusted, accessorised with demi-lune glasses, a red cardigan and slippers.

Nine years ago, Rosie Barry was stomping around the MAC stage as Primrose, a sulky teenager with a 3DS (can anyone remember those!), returning the next Christmas as Gretel in a reimagined fairy tale that ended with her closing the show seated at a teary piano. Now she’s back as a baddie, the villainous Cailleach, dressed in dark icy layers and a vicious fringe that would perfect for late night partying on Hill Street. Her expansive vocals rock Richardson’s melodies and turn them into power ballads, blending so well with Jack Watson’s baritone voice (Krampus) giving the two baddies great presence on stage.

Jack Frost is produced by the MAC and continues its run until Thursday 1 January.

Photo credit: Carrie Davenport

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