Alan in Belfast

High Society – A swellegant night of song and pleasing farce (Grand Opera House until Saturday 15 August)

2026-08-13T01:22:29.356+01:00

Cole Porter really knew how to write a song. And the stage musical version of the 1956 film (Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra), that premiered three decades after Porter’s death, is ever so ‘swellegant’ with his backbone of music that stitches High Society together.

On the eve of Tracy’s marriage to dull accountant George, the glamorous Long Island socialite finds herself being orbited by three wooing satellites: her fiancé, her now teetotal ex-husband Dexter, and an undercover tabloid reporter Mike. Meanwhile, the bride’s mother must face up to the unexpected arrival of her philandering husband. Young sister Dinah is the single truthteller of the family.

Arthur Kopit’s book is stacked full of truisms and creates plenty of farcical moments (mistaken identities and a Jenga-sized tower of lies) that director Rachel Kavanaugh leans into with slapstick moments. The dialogue is riddled with insults, mostly aimed at “forgettable” George, though he has the measure of “the shallow elite”.

Tom Rogers’ hefty mansion set design has mirrored staircases leading up to a balcony. If the swimming pool with rippling water light effect impresses in act one, just wait until act two when the action steps out into the garden and a giant tree appears. (Though its troublesome ascent back into the fly tower caused a brief but perfectly handled show stop on Wednesday evening.)

Helen George’s Tracy (“money isn’t everything … so I’m told”) maintains a modicum of grace even when drunk on champagne. Understudy George Bray was delightfully clumsy as fiancé George, his wedding guest welcome stand-up routine getting plenty of laughs from this maths graduate in row K, and his growing animation in the hungover morning after his bride’s boozy night of skinny dipping was superb to watch. Unfortunately, the story’s requirement (spoiler!) for him to flounce off into the sunset dispatches the character with a brutal swiftness.

Tracy and George’s chemistry always feels forced (though that’s rather the point) while Dexter (Julian Ovenden who proves to be a gifted jazz pianist in his own right) makes Tracy’s eyes light up from the moment he steps on stage. The most interesting pairing though is the two reporters, Liz (played by Carly Mercedes Dyer with sarcasm that could cut through a champagne glass) and Mike (Freddie Fox who turns full lush in the pool scene) whose long-time professional relationship drops early hints that there could be something more. Liz’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin (sung to Dexter pretending to be Mike) showed off Dyer’s great vocals.

While the lyrics of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire are clever, the first act builds up to arguably the sweetest tune of the show, the True Love duet between Dexter and Tracy. Bray and Ovenden’s Well Did You Evah! is a superb set piece with the choreography evoking the cinematic heritage. Naomi Pacquette brings a keen wit to Tracy’s younger sister Dinah, although her character is relegated to the sidelines in act two.

Nothing about High Society is small scale. A dozen musicians fill the orchestra pit with six popping up on stage for a jazz number backing Uncle Willie (Nigel Lindsay in top form) before the curtain comes down for the interval. The 14-strong ensemble add rich vocals to numbers like Let’s Do It and the droll reprise by the household staff of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. There’s an amazing set of wigs worn by the cast to pin the action in posh post-war America. Whether measured by the size of the cast, crew or the trucks required to tour the production around Britain and Ireland, this must be one of the largest – and most expensive to run – shows in recent years.

High Society’s storyline of privilege and glamour is dated but very well executed in this touring production. The cast’s commitment to frivolity together with the jazz soundtrack keeps the audience amused. But it’s Cole Porter’s music and the cast’s ability to bring it to life that make the musical work.

You can catch High Society on stage in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 15 August. PS: the line (taken from the film) “It’s like Grand Central Station … Is it full of drunks?” deserved a much bigger laugh in Belfast. Make an effort if you’re in the audience later this week!

Photo credit: Pamela Raith Photography

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Lady – mid-life crisis as a lonely aristocrat descends into nothingness (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 14 August)

2026-08-12T00:42:15.175+01:00

Lady Isabella is a woman of a certain age who knows that her public profile – even as a low-level aristocrat – is fading fast. She cuts a lonely figure, rattling around a stately home set on a huge rural estate. Her husband is awol. A housekeeper cooks and cleans but companionship isn’t in her job description.

In a vain attempt to restore her relevance, Lady Isabella hatches a nonsensical plan to win a contest. And she’s hired a documentary team, under false pretences, to profile her attempt at gaining the top prize.

The film Lady begins with director Sam (Laurie Kynaston) arriving up the long driveway to greet Lady Isabella (Sian Clifford, Fleabag’s older sister). The audience watch what’s happening through the documentary’s crew’s camera angles, picking up audio from the lady of the manor and the director who have almost forgotten that they are both micced up. So much of the Lady’s day is spent pouring and slurping alcoholic beverages: soon we’re running through rooms like Anneka Rice on an ice bucket challenge.

Over the 95-minute film, there’s never a moment that Lady Isabella is on screen and she isn’t acting up to the camera. Clifford portrays an exhausted woman who is at her wit’s end. She’s manic and creatively unrestrained, though somewhat unexpectedly, given the large abode, financial worries aren’t on her list of woes. Can her passionate attempt to be seen to matter pay off? And at what cost?

I’ll not spoil the surprise, but a physical manifestation of Lady’s identity concerns soon reveals itself. Samuel Abraham’s feature debut screams out like a giant metaphor but the movie veers off course and explodes without properly hitting this ambitious target.

With Lady Isabella losing her grip on reality, thinly-written director Sam is becoming obsessed with the strain that this vanity documentary project is placing on his reputation. The director’s bonce is permanently adorned with a woolly hat. We quickly learn that it’s keeping his woolly head warm.

As we’re frequently reminded, he was Bafta-nominated but didn’t win. Chronically shy, Sam mostly communicates with his agent via irritating voice notes. The crew’s esprit de corps wears thin and they begin to turn their cameras to capture Sam’s unravelling in parallel with the Lady’s. And it’s hard to feel any empathy towards this second troubled character.

Samuel Abrahams’ script leaves little room for housekeeper Becky (Juliet Cowan, Nikki in This Life) to interrupt the otherwise two-handed scenes between Lady Isabella and her film director muse. Which is a great pity. Meanwhile Ricky the Raven watches over everything that’s happening at Ravenhyde Hall. His presence seems laden with a significance that is never exploited.

The film ends up being an exhausting not-quite-mockumentary rather than a poignant satire about a mid-life crisis. As a piece of cinematic art, Lady is saved by the quality of Clifford’s portrayal of a deranged woman who is not getting the professional help she needs and deserves, and her ability to make you giggle despite the farfetched on-screen hokum.

Lady is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 14 August.

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Tony – a queasy insight into Anthony Bourdain’s entry into chefdom cooking a soufflé of lies (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 14 August)

2026-08-10T22:53:12.023+01:00

A new film from Matt Johnson, Tony, charts how 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain spent the summer of 1975. Telling his parents and anyone else who asks that he has won a writing fellowship, the clumsy, lying, penniless, disrespectful fantasist travels to the Provincetown, Massachusetts summer resort in pursuit of Nancy, an out-of-his-league girl in the year above him at college.

What follows is a very troubling coming of age tale.

A continuing act of grace – or gullibility – by a Brazilian fish restaurant owner (played by a magnificent Antonio Banderas) lifts young Tony (Dominic Sess, The Holdovers) out off immediate destitution. The big chef takes Tony under his wing and makes him wash dishes in the busy diner. But it places Tony – nicknamed ‘flaco’ (skinny) – in a kitchen of misfits, including drugged-up sex pest Sal (Leo Woodall). As the summer progresses, the newest recruit cooks up a soufflé of lies that threaten to come crashing down.

All the while, Tony chases after Nancy (Emilia Jones) who is portrayed as superficially clean cut with the hint of an edgy undertone. “I want you to take my photo because I like the way you look at me” is just one of a number of lines of dialogue which feel like they could have been directly lifted from Bourdain’s early memoir.

All of this leads up to a climatic evening of fleeting honesty when the heat gets too much in the kitchen, and Tony faces up to the people who have given him a second chance.

In real life, Anthony Bourdain went on to become a famous chef with a significant TV career in the US. He died by suicide in 2018, aged 61.

The feeling that some parts of this posthumous biopic might be true left me feeling like I’d eaten a bad oyster. It’s deeply troubling in terms of Tony’s actions and those around him in the kitchen. (Spoiler alert: while some elements have been rearranged to better suit the flow of the film – the scene with the bride is really the head chef and not Sal – much of it is based on his public recollections of his first summer of two in Provincetown.)

Ultimately, one lad’s lack of self-esteem and unfamiliarity with the truth causes injury – physical, financial and emotional – to so many people, that it feels almost unethical to celebrate or commemorate his entry onto the path to becoming a talented chef. Yet the romanticisation is still enormously watchable.

Tony is being screened at Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 14 August. Avoid eating oysters beforehand! (It’s also this week’s Baby Picture screening on Friday morning!)

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The Ballad of Johnny & June – ambitious musical goes behind the scenes of country music power couple (Grand Opera House until Saturday 8 August)

2026-08-05T00:23:41.643+01:00

The only son of Country music legends June Carter and Johnny Cash narrates the story of his parent’s journey through the music business, into each other’s arms, and into their graves. Along the way we meet family members, divorced spouses, record producers and band members, all played by a six-strong ensemble.

The Ballad of Johnny & June is far more complex than the simple label of jukebox musical would suggest, with as many narrative-led songs as big numbers that the audience can’t help sing and clap along to.

The tale of showbiz success, marriage failures, and a coming together of the Carter and Cash families is told by son John (Ryan O’Donnell) from the side of the stage, with a neat sequence of first act flashbacks filling in older family details. O’Donnell is an accomplished guitar player and holds the show together. His regular breaking of the fourth wall increases the intimacy of the account he’s telling.

Christopher Ryan Grant has perfected Johnny Cash’s mannerisms, his gait, the shoe shuffle, as well as the way he holds and strums his guitar. His deep voice powers through the songs. Johnny’s string of affairs make a mockery of the lyrics to his first number one song I Walk The Line. But it’s his drug addiction that threatens his health.

Christina Bianco is a fire rocket on stage, demonstrating mighty breath control, and capturing the lust and love June had for Johnny along with the accompanying trials and tribulations. Acting beside Grant, Bianco flits between being cheeky, flirty, angry and distressed.

The show’s opening number quickly establishes that the actors are also musicians, with song after song showing off their skill at close harmonies. Given the ease with which the audience join in the songs – mostly when they are invited to – much of the storyline sticks to the facts, with the narrator even acknowledging when one scene has taken particular license. Elvis is name-checked, along with a fun mention of Patsy Cline. With so much packed into the dense script, for the cast it must be like stepping onto a roller-coaster, with very little time to breath, but they never flinch or hesitate, taking the non-stop action in their stride.

The long first half feels like it will climax with Ring of Fire (after alluding to the song’s ambiguous and contested genesis), but keeps going, taking in a divorce or two, and a rather coercive marriage proposal, before finally breaking.

After the interval, a full rendition of A Boy Named Sue resets the energy levels, and a frenzied version of I’ve Been Everywhere gets the largest applause of the evening from the Grand Opera House audience. We witness the destructive behaviour on both sides of the marriage. And we watch as John challenges his mother about her own use of amphetamines. June saves Johnny, but can anyone save her?

Tragedies mount as the story concludes. It’s at this late point that director Des McAnuff and Robert Cary’s book feels like it almost veers off the road. Unless some of the dialogue went over my head, the explanations of the couple’s deaths are perhaps the least canonical aspects of the musical. While the transition from sadness to a song is logical, the execution feels clumsy and the production’s well-oiled gears are almost stripped in what unexpectedly turns out to be the best duet of the show, an emotionally charged rendition of Always On My Mind (though I’m not sure Johnny ever sang this with June in real life).

Performed in a heavy wooden set (designed by Robert Brill) with most of the stage lighting (Amanda Zieve) hidden in the rafters, the house band hide up high at the back, with trumpeter Morgan Rees enriching many of the arrangements. By the close, I’m still not sure why the set is a barn, and even less certain why a rocking chair has been lurking all this time on a shelf stage left.

The Ballad of Johnny & June continues its run at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 8 August. It’s a hugely ambitious musical that confidently paints a picture of two hugely successful country music stars.

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

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The Summer Book – grief(s) observed and anticipated (Queens Film Theatre from 7 August)

2026-08-03T23:20:56.985+01:00

Fans of Tove Jansson will be aware that her writing extends beyond the Moonins. Her novel The Summer Book has been adapted into a film by Robert Jones and directed by Charlie McDowell.

Three surviving generations of a family have decamped to a wooden holiday hut on the shore of a Finnish island. They are mourning. A daughter (Sophia played by Emily Matthews) grieving for her mum. A recently widowed husband and father (Anders Danielsen Lie) throwing himself into his work as an illustrator. A grandmother (hunched-over fragile Glenn Close with dentures) is also coming to terms with her memories slipping away.

The tranquillity provides space to grieve. But the inner pain each person is experiencing is almost deafening in the silence. A gentle sepia tone places the action in the 1970s. Red clothing contrasts with the beige rocks and dark seaweed. Knitted cardigans add cosiness. When the father sits in front of a broken weathervane, it’s as if an arrow has pierced his heart. We learn that even the moss can die.

Sophia longs to rediscover some semblance of security through the adults. Her grandmother wants to grasp hold of important moments from the past. The father is struggling to process his feelings and support the emotional needs of his daughter. While the story is framed around Matthews’ Sophia, Close’s masterful portrayal of an increasingly frail grandmother provides the most stunning moments. The island idyll is their first opportunity to reconnect with each other.

It’s a gentle film – perhaps too gentle – with the landscape given long sequences to speak without the interference of characters’ dialogue (which is all in English rather than Finnish … even a wooden sign on a neighbouring island is rendered in English).

Grief is observed. Further types of loss are anticipated. But there’s also healing. Though if they keep watering that poplar tree with salt water, they’ll be holding a funeral for it too.

The Summer Book honours the original text though the process of condensing the story into 90 minutes takes away some of the thrills and spills. Instead, we watch great acting matched by superb cinematography (Sturla Brandth Grøvlen) and a score that supports but never overwhelms (Hania Rani). It’s being screened at Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 7 August.

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Waitress – serving up an empowering slice of slapstick pie (Grand Opera House until Saturday 1 August)

2026-07-29T00:14:25.380+01:00

Joe’s Pie Diner serves up delicious savoury and sweet pies, all baked by Jenna. Work is her daily distraction from an abusive husband. An unexpected pregnancy means that the walls close in on Jenna’s wellbeing. She saves up her tips to be able to enter a regional pie-making contest with a large prize fund. But can trying to win the contest really save her from misery and distress?

Fear not: if all that sounds a bit negative, the stage musical Waitress – which celebrated its tenth anniversary earlier this year – is a comedy delight as Jenna and her work mates Becky and Dawn navigate new relationships, figure out how to deal with their menfolk (or lack thereof), and watch each other’s backs.

Carrie Hope Fletcher plays Jenna, navigating the emotional ups and downs of the character arc, and really demonstrates her huge vocal range and impressive control during the second act She Used To Be Mine, with a delicate start building to a powerful crescendo as the wings slide back to open up the sky and physically reflect Jenna’s possible escape route from her thoroughly evil husband Earl (Mark Willshire).

Evie Hoskins and Sandra Marvin from the 2022 tour (reviewed) have returned to the roles of waitresses Dawn and Becky. Sniggering Dawn is a ditzy klutz who hooks up with an even more socially awkward historical reenactment fan Ogie (watch out for Mark Anderson’s exit stage right with a cartwheel) while caregiver Becky’s cheeky banter with diner manager Cal (Dan O’Brien) disguises the real friction they’re generating in the kitchen after hours. Less well cast is the diner’s owner Joe, played by an underpowered Les Dennis who fails to deliver the punchy potential of the crucial second act song Take It From An Old Man. [Update - Feedback suggests I’m the only person in the world to have ever bothered about Take It From An Old Man ... but it was a stand out moment in the previous tour!]

Performative baking with ingredients strewn all over the floor. An on stage cello (Siobhan Wilson) which adds gorgeous mellow tones to It Only Takes A Taste as part of the house band (led by Francesca Warren) who live in the corner of diner (and don tricorn hats at a historically appropriate moment). A flirty gynaecologist (Dan Partridge) who perhaps most hams up the slapstick physicality of the production. So many witty lines in Jessie Nelson’s dialogue and Sara Bareilles lyrics. There’s a lot to like in this confident and fan favourite show.

Waitress continues to serve up its empowering slices of musical pie at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 1 August. The standard of singing is is high, though the emotional heft is flatter than the previous touring production. But spare a thought for the stage management team prepping all the pastry dough and ingredients that get used every night!

Photo credits: Matt Crockett and Johan Persson

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Legally Blonde – a classy production that lets the story shine through the pinkness (Grand Opera House until Saturday 25 July)

2026-07-22T02:30:31.041+01:00

When UCLA student and sorority president Elle Woods is unexpectedly dumped by her boyfriend for what he perceives to be her lack of seriousness, she studies her socks off and successfully applies to the same course at Harvard Law School. Her fondness of pink and lack of gravitas impress neither her professor nor most of the other students. But her improving albeit rudimentary knowledge of law combined with her street smarts begin to impact people who need legal help.

The screen-to-stage musical Legally Blonde begins with a shrill riot of excitement and never really lets up. A previous UK tour in 2018 massively leaned into the pinkness and hammed up the more outrageous aspects of the story. This new touring production directed by Nikoali Foster has dialled back the craziness and is all the better for it with the strong backbone of empowerment and sisterhood allowed to hold the show together in a classy way without quite so much garish distraction and “trashy carrying on”.

Amber Davies’ musical theatre background and pedigree is proven with strong vocals, sharp dancing and a portrayal of Elle that commands attention every time she bursts onto in a scene and sashays her way downstage. A Greek chorus (trio) encourages Elle in her moments of self-doubt, though after their first entrance there’s always some confusion whether they’re still imagined or there in person in subsequent entrances.

Boyfriend-soon-ex-boyfriend Warner (Jamie Chatterton) is ambitious to the point of self-importance. His new love interest Vivienne (the early villain until she witnesses a sexual assault and stands up for her ‘sister’ intern) is played by Annabelle Terry who gets many of the best melodies of the show and uses her impressive vocals to brilliantly lift the show’s finale. Uncool teaching assistant Emmet (George Crawford) falls into Elle’s orbit when he offers her advice and is himself soon being groomed for success, in the courtroom and with an eye to his fashion choices.

A first act highlight is when hairdresser Paulette opens up to Elle about her dreams. While this production’s version of Ireland shuns the exaggerated ‘Oirish’ buffoonery of 2018 – there’s no hilariously large tricolour and the nods to Riverdance are really toned down – Karen Mavundukure’s performance of the narrative-setting song tees her character up to be loved every time she comes back on stage. This pays dividends when ‘hot’ UPS courier Kyle (Ty-Reece Stewart) delivers a parcel to the salon. After the interval, it’s a hop, a skip, and a lot of jumping as Jocasta Almgill (playing fitness influencer Brooke who’s in court accused of murder) sings while skipping without missing a beat or sounding breathless.

Everything stops the first time that Sprout comes on stage as Elle’s dog, Bruiser Woods. (His wardrobe of costumes is a glorious detail in Elle’s college bedroom.) Later in the show, it’s the turn of another canine cast member – treat-guzzling Rocco, playing Rufus – to dander on stage and show off to the adoring crowd.

Colin Richmond’s curved set with Ben Cracknell’s neatly embedded window lighting focuses the audience attention on the centre of the stage while walls fly down to transform the space into Elle’s classroom and the hair salon. Following a politically incorrect but very fond rendition of There! Right There! (“Gay or European?”), the second act quick set change between elevated courtroom and a witness’s bathroom is visually hilarious.

Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin’s score isn’t particularly hummable. But their lyrics – unusually for many modern musicals – really drive the story forward (rather than just remarking on the mood or situation) along with Heather Hach’s snappy dialogue. The confident cast deliver an energetic tale of empowerment, confidence-building, and friendship.

Legally Blonde continues its run in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 25 July.

Photo credit: Matt Crockett

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Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – huge cast prove that ‘teamwork can make a dream work’ (Grand Opera House Trust summer youth production until Saturday 18 July)

2026-07-17T14:22:40.140+01:00

An old racing car in bad nick but with an intriguing backstory of sabotage is found in a junk yard. Two excitable children and their eccentric inventor dad who is a grieving widower. Camp spies sent from the far away land of Vulgaria by an evil leader and his lecherous wife. The daughter of a candy tycoon. And a scary childcatcher.

This year’s Grand Opera House Trust summer youth production is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Two years ago, at the end of July 2024, the UK touring production landed on the Grand Opera House Stage. This week, it’s the turn of the 122 young people who have spent the last two weeks under the tutelage of director Tony Finnegan, choreographer Rebecca Leonard and musical supremo Wilson Shields. And they’ve achieved a lot in a fortnight.

The two lead roles are a great advert for Belvoir Players Academy, with Meghan McSorley back playing Truly Scrumptious (Sandy in last summer’s production of Grease) and Ronan McGoldrick as Caractacus Potts. With a warm tenor voice, McGoldrick’s charismatic presence on stage makes him a believable fixer of problems (with just a hint of twinkly eyed Dick Van Dyke) while McSorley’s solid soprano vocals bring a richness to many of the show’s songs. Young Jemima and Jeremy Potts were played on opening night by Sophia Travers and Finley Bell (alternating with Anna Mitchell and Matthew Loughrey).

Comedic input comes in the form of Granda Potts (~~spoon~~ spanner-playing Toby Ferguson who steals the second act with The Roses of Success performed alongside the brilliantly Tefal egg-headed engineers), the man-child tantrum-throwing sexually-ambiguous Baron (Liam Johnson) and the flirtatious paedophobic Baroness (Emma McLean who totally owns Chu-Chi Face and gets a great laugh from the adults in the audience when she quips “I never should have allowed toys into the marriage”). Hats off to the choreographer for her work to get the ensemble to burst into life for the toe-tapping Bombie Samba.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a story which has stamped its cultural footprint over generations of children and parents through the much-loved 1968 film. The musical legacy of the Sherman Brothers lives on with a big song that every child who’s been in a primary school choir will remember being trained to spit the words out with good diction. But there’s more to the score and lyrics than one ear worm of a song. The overture hints at a sizeable orchestra down in the pit – fourteen in total – with the oboe (Bryan Barr) regularly featuring in songs (notably in You Two) and a strong percussion section. Toot Sweets brings the full cast – visibly – on stage for the first time with a well animated scene in The Scrumptious Sweet Company.

Two bumbling Vulgarian spies (Colby Scott-Baillie and Jude McClelland with Germanic accents) only get one first act song to introduce their characters – Act English which sends up English eccentricities – but bring much mirth to later scenes. A victim of mistaken identity, Grandpa memorably shouts “Help! I'm being abducted by foreigners”: a line that could have been written for 2026 sensibilities but is straight out of the 1968 film.

Neal Mullan’s childcatcher (with winklepickers almost as long as his youngster-sniffing nose) is dark and immediately evil, but the part is woefully underwritten in the original script. Similarly, the Toymaker (Charlie Adams) is quickly relegated to guiding Caractacus and Truly through the castle. And let’s not get started on the book’s convenient off-stage rescue of a Grandpa and his grandchildren to hurry along the finale!

While there are few emotional hooks in the story, there are big political themes at play in Jeremy Sams’ stage version of Ken Hughes’ and Roald Dahl’s screenplay based on Ian Fleming’s novel. The Potts family must face up to the capitalism of the junk yard owner Coggins and Lord Scrumptious. A toy-obsessed self-indulgent Baron is running a Nazi-adjacent country with forced juvenile labour. But none of that is important to the audience’s love of the story! What we really care about is an heiress-in-waiting falling for a hard-working and ingenious inventor … and a car that flies.

One of the dangers of any Chitty Chitty Bang Bang production is that the elaborate props overshadow the characters. Full scale touring productions tend to use hydraulics and controlled lighting to (spoiler alert) make the eponymous car appear to fly as it drives off a cliff at the end of act one. And it turns out that ambitious engineering is also available to less well financed productions. Thankfully, the effort to make the magic happen doesn’t overly slow down the action, though the huge number of bodies on stage does constrain the car’s lateral movement in its final scenes. Another complex prop disappoints with Truly’s motorbike making several underwhelming entrances onto the stage, while Caractacus’ interactions with some of his elaborate machines will hopefully become less hesitant and more charming as the run progresses.

Costuming, chaperoning, line-running, song-teaching, choreographing, blocking, set-building … the list of work to be completed in such a short time is breathtaking. While the principal cast members had a three-day start, the ensemble only began rehearsals on Saturday 4 July! Those leading the production must have nerves of steel.

Since 2011, the Grand Opera House’s summer youth production has been a great testbed for emerging talent. For a period there were even two summer schemes – junior and senior – though in recent years it’s just been a single all-age show. The rehearsals and performances form an important part of the venue’s outreach and investment in the people who make the theatre of tomorrow. Hurray for getting the youth musicians and tech crew on stage to join the cast for the curtain call bows.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang continues in the Grand Opera House until Saturday 18 July with matinee and evening performances on both days. Note that the evening performances begin at 7pm and not the venue’s usual 7.30pm.

Photo credit: Neil Harrison Photography

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Steel Magnolias – a warm welcome and a listening ear for the regulars in Truvy’s salon sanctuary every Saturday morning (Lyric Theatre until Friday 10 July)

2026-06-27T21:26:00.098+01:00

Hair salons can be a bit of a go to setting in theatre for safe ‘third’ spaces where women can gather and support each other. They’re places of community, of conversation and pampering aimed at boosting wellbeing across the sisterhood.

In Robert Harling’s 1987 play Steel Magnolias, chatty Truvy opens up the Louisiana salon attached to her home every Saturday morning, a precious time reserved for just her most regular customers. The audience watch six women spend four mornings in each other’s company.

The chairs in Truvy’s salon create a confessional environment, and she can sense what’s written in your heart by staring at your scalp, although the hairdresser offers polished nails and well-coiffed hair rather than psychoanalysis. Orla Mullan brings warmth and wit to the stylish mother hen whose own family have detached themselves from her love, Truvy’s heart has space for everyone’s complicated lives, particularly if she detects a whiff of romance.

The door onto the street opens and in walks M’Lynn who is long past even trying to temper the activities of her gun-toting husband. She pours all her concern into wanting the best for her daughter Shelby. The mental health counsellor carries so many people’s secrets and weaknesses. Janet Moran plays the character who most externalises her emotions with a quiet dignity and gravitas.

Pink-obsessed but never Barbie-like, Shelby is in her mid-20s. She lives with type 1 diabetes and is reluctant to let it dictate her life choices. Her first entrance into the salon is on the morning of her wedding. She’s finally on the cusp of cutting ties and claiming her independent. Simone Collins gives Shelby grit and determination as she lives with the consequences of her actions.

Meanwhile, town grandee Clairee is searching for meaning and identity amongst the busyness of life following the death of her husband who was the Mayor. Marion O’Dwyer’s Clairee lounges on the salon’s sofa and throws pithy one-liners into the mix, breaking up tension with hilarity.

Ouiser is never first on the scene but the twice-married moaning widow disrupts whatever’s happening anytime she storms through the salon door. Carol Moore is almost (and quite perfectly) typecast in this outspoken role, a spirited presence on stage when playwright Harling finally deems it necessary to deploy the unfiltered Ouiser into a scene. At times, the interactions between Clairee and Ouiser feel like something out of The Golden Girls, a US TV series that playwright Harling could well have been familiar with.

New to the town, Annelle is hired as a junior stylist and Truvy quickly adopts her almost as a daughter. Annelle’s reticence to talk about herself is gradually replaced with a boldness to speak about her flourishing faith as she tries to turn her life around. Early on in the play, Truvy opines to Clairee about Annelle “I think there’s a story here” remarks” … seeding a complete red herring in the dramatic thrust of the piece! Eímhear Jackson blends the slight Annelle into the background as she washes the hair and sets the rollers of customers before Annelle’s confidence rises and she starts sharing her uncompromising opinions.

Costume designer Catherine Kodicek has had great fun dressing the characters in bright colours and busy patterns. There’s a consistency to the Southern accents drilled into the cast by dialect coach Megan McDonnell. While working scissors are out of the question for a show that plays eight times a week, Mullan and Jackson confidently wash and style the salon’s customers in real time as the drama unfolds. Set designer Ronán Duffy sneaks in a couple of levels to the car port extension, using steps up to doors to give characters’ entrances a bit of a lift.

Walking into the main theatre, it was heartening to spot two fans gently spinning above the salon set. Outside the Lyric Theatre, the wind had finally picked up and the temperature noticeably dropped from a very muggy afternoon spent in its café celebrating the launch of arts critic Jane Coyle’s new book – A Better Locksmith – revisiting productions, personalities and turning points that have shaped stages across Northern Ireland.

Steel Magnolias is the latest in what has almost become a 2026 season of shows about strong women – The Human Voice (Prime Cut), Consumed (Paines Plough), Tea In A China Cup, Bold Girls (Centre Stage) – that will finish with a revival of 2024’s Little Women returning to the Lyric stage over Christmas. (Kabosh’s Cuckoo-Land, Tinderbox’s Animal Farm (both in The MAC) and Kabosh’s Mary Ann, The Forgotten Sister which returned recently over at Clifton House also deserve nods.)

After decades of men dominating writing, directing and acting the big roles, it’s good to see a rebalancing. Women in last night’s audience outnumbered men by about 10 to 1 which makes me wonder about whether audiences are driving programming or vice versa. Is the reliance on well-recognised titles (there’s a starry 1989 film version of Steel Magnolias) and dipping into the back catalogue of female playwrights’ older work about bringing commercially viable audiences into theatres? Contemporary theatre seems to be taking an even bigger back seat in these challenging times. Is this the new reality of theatregoing for larger venues in Northern Ireland?

What does an evening spent in a Louisiana hairdressers offer with six white women, talk of shrimp boils (the fishy equivalent of a meaty BBQ), and no mention of racial tensions? There’s a lot of references to acceptance in the play’s second act but the types of diversity are limited.

To be sure, after lots of per-interval exposition, and post-interval jeopardy, the final scene is an emotional roller-coaster that had ugly tears streaming down my face as the women form deeper perspectives on each other’s lives. Hats off to director Emily Foran for avoiding the earlier opportunities to introduce hysteria into the simmering ensemble and only letting things go properly wild at the denouement.

These six women rely on their inner steel to overcome personal and family adversity. They have learned that they can lean on each other through thick and thin. The relationships that they built in Truvy’s salon are not delicate. Once inducted into the Saturday morning club, they’re sure of companionship throughout any storms that hit their lives.

Steel Magnolias continues at the Lyric Theatre until Friday 10 July.

Photo credit: Carrie Davenport

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The Last Viking – Mads Mikkelsen delights in this brutal comedy Nordic noir (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 26 June)

2026-06-25T06:00:00.000+01:00

Part horror, part comedy, part Nordic noir, The Last Viking is a hard to pigeonhole film from Danish screenwriter and director Anders Thomas Jensen.

The premise is that when Anker (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) gets parole after 15 years in prison for his part in a heist, he takes his dognapping younger brother Manfred (brilliantly played by Mads Mikkelsen) back to the family’s old rural home to dig up the loot. The property is now run as an AirBnB by Margrethe (Sofie Gråbøl minus her Sarah Lund sweater) and her insufferable jazz bore husband Werner (Søren Malling). But an old gang member (an abruptly menacing Nicolas Bro) is willing to torture anyone who gets in his way of getting his hands on the missing money.

On-screen violence veers between cartoonish and horrifying. Anker’s spotless white shirts are inevitable ruined by blood. Then there’s the part where the Beatles is reformed by Anker’s new associate (Lars Brygmann), and some great ABBA covers are thrown in for good measure.

The cast is a Who’s Who of Danish acting royalty. A short opening animation with its tale of false equality sets the bloody tone for the rest of the film. Despite many characters having serious mental health problems – you’ll be an expert in dissociative identity disorder by the end of this two-hour film – no one is as “stupid” as they’re made out to be by the others.

The delightful script casually explores the notion that “everyone is entitled to their unique identity”. It sometimes asks how far any of us would go to protect someone. But mostly it lights a blazing fire and then throws fuel on it in the shape of trauma and greed to see who will get scorched.

There’s a reason that Jensen keeps returning to work with some of these actors: they aren’t afraid to fully immerse themselves in his madness. This will be one of the most memorable films you’ll see in 2026! The Last Viking is being screened at Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 26 June.

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Heart of Hamelin – a well-told musical lesson about paying the piper or else he’ll call the tune (Market Place Theatre until Wednesday 24 June)

2026-06-24T14:22:12.441+01:00

The tale of the colourfully dressed piper who lures the rats away from an infested town and then takes revenge when the town renege on their promise to pay him is well known and no stranger to theatrical adaptations. Belfast Ensemble’s operatic take on the Pied Piper of Hamelin with The Musician during Belfast Children’s Festival in 2019 stands out as a good example.

Another new musical version has hit the stage in the form of Heart of Hamelin. Down in Armagh this week, writer/director Pamela Cassells-Totton and composer Jonny McGuinness take audiences back to 1284 with a talented youth cast who sing and act out the tale of local government mismanagement and child kidnapping.

The staging is simple but effective, with good use of widescreen projected backdrops and props that wheel on in swift scene changes that never slow down the storytelling. Pushing some of the sound effects and the piper’s melodies through speakers at the back of the auditorium gives a creepy, other-worldly feel to the emerging nightmare, alongside the long-tailed velvety rat costumes. The ensemble’s collective eyeline is used to steer the audience to focus on areas of stage.

A clever modern epilogue asks if we still find ourselves caught in the snare of the piper … although the contemporary snake oil salesman feels less likely to deliver on his expensive promises than the 1284 rat catcher.

There are strong performances across the talented cast. Eamonn Fleming is a commanding presence as the domineering Mayor, overruling a minority of council colleagues – particularly Elena (Katy Hazard) – who sense that not paying the rat catcher will be a mistake. The council meetings are passionate, and the machine gun dialogue has great rhythm. The townsfolk are suitably weary, then celebratory, then distraught as the rats vanish and an unexpected penalty is paid. Sam Anderson narrates (spoken and sung) aspects of the show playing the old man who can tell a suspiciously good tale!

Musical highlights include Mayor Jacob, wife Miriam (Emma McLean) and wanderlusting daughter Eliza (Sofia Cassells) singing Three World’s Apart. Hans and Ada (Shea Fox and Sarah Reynolds) are a great pairing, offering warm harmonies and joyful choreography in the first act Together and then Nothing Left to Say after the interval. Lame Tomas (Aodhan Fleming) and his mother Adele (Sophie McCullough) are well matched in The Memory Bench which feeds an earlier loss into the growing sense of doom.

“We need to act now to protect our town and our townspeople.”

Reviewing the performance on the tenth anniversary of the EU Referendum vote, there was more than a hint of Brexit woven through the script. Maybe my strong memories of a long sultry night at the Titanic count centre mean that I’m seeing something that isn’t intentionally there. But lines like “we’re always stronger when we’re together” echo campaign slogans. And picking out some snippets from an exchange in a fraught council chamber do sum up some people’s views of the referendum and what followed: “I warned you … no one could have predicted that … I predicted this … we hadn’t signed a contract .. can’t you see this is all of our faults … punishing us to teach us a lesson.”

The well-constructed plotting of the central family groups and council meetings, together with Jonny’s McGuinness’s collection of catchy and lamentful tunes, and the confident cast of 36 drawn from the Pamela Cassells School of Performance (now in its 25th year) who make it look almost effortless, all contribute to making Heart of Hamelin a production that achieves high standards. Heart of Hamelin premiered at Theatre at the Mill back in March, and is being performed in Armagh’s Market Place Theatre until Wednesday 24 June.

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Cutting Through Rocks – an emancipating hustler who tries to push back against the stifling patriarchy (Docs Ireland at Queen’s Film Theatre)

2026-06-22T19:07:12.989+01:00

The village councillor elected with the most votes traditionally holds the official stamp to notarise paperwork. That’s the rule in this rural region of Iran. But when a women stands for election for the first time, and tops the poll, the men suddenly insist that the oldest elected councillor – a man – should wield the stamp, not the most popular. Nonsense says Sara Shahverdi.

She’s the sixth child – the sixth daughter – in her family, and her father treated her like the son he longed for. She was taught to ride a motorbike, how to use tools, and to dress as it suited her. Sara was 16 when her father died: her older sisters were already married, and she became the breadwinner for her mother and her three younger brothers.

Cutting Through Rocks is a documentary by directors Mohammadreza Eyni and Sara Khaki that offers a rare glimpse of life in rural Iran. The narrative arc quickly establishes that women almost unthinkingly acquiesce to even the flimsiest suggestions of the men around them. Sara stands up to her younger brothers when they try to rob her sisters of their inheritance. She’s a divorced midwife who pleads with girls in the local school to pledge to get an education and achieve their dreams of being doctors and teachers rather than being forced to get married so young.

Fereshteh was one of the 400 or more babies Sara delivered. When she hears that Fereshteh, who was married at 12, is now seeking a divorce, but if successful faces her parents marrying her off for a second time, Sara mediates and gets the parents’ permission for the teenager to live with her. But as the film has already shown in a much more minor matter, parental choice won’t stop other relatives knowing best and violently intervening.

“When you’re ready, release the gas without fear,” Sara tells Fereshteh as she teaches her to ride on wasteland.

While Sara appears to be as strongminded as she is unorthodox – wearing trousers, a hat and scarf to cover herself up and still be able to ride a motorbike – the film shows that the vindictive behaviour of men takes a heavy toll. Overruling her plans for a circular playpark and (re)marking out the land in a square is petty. Rather than attack how she uses her power as a councillor, they instead crudely complain to a judge about her very identity and sexuality. The emancipating hustler who can convince ordinary people to veer from tradition to vote for her, to sign half their property over to their wives, to allow their children to go for a bike ride in public … has limits.

Like so many judicial and quasi-judicial processes at home and abroad, there’s no comeback or jeopardy for those making vexatious complaints and false allegations. A judge suggests that single Sara needs to “get married soon” and “stop helping women as much”.

“To do something unconventional, you have to expect consequences” she muses when a girl is slapped by her uncle for daring to be out on a motorbike. Several times during the 95-minute documentary, Sara allows older men to win arguments over the actions of younger girls. It’s as if even Sara can’t stand up to that tradition.

In the end, facing exhaustion from round after round of push back and attack, her Dad’s empowering influence and hard-learned patience may help Sara accept baby steps over the huge leaps she wants to see in her community.

Cutting Through Rocks is a powerful documentary shown as part of Docs Ireland. Hopefully it will return to the Queen’s Film Theatre in the coming months.

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Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That's the Weight of the World) – the story of how Maurice White steered the band (Docs Ireland at Queen’s Film Theatre)

2026-06-22T12:47:20.090+01:00

Maurice White was a kalimba-playing drummer, a lead singer, a songwriter, a producer, and the man who controlled the always vibrant yet quite eclectic genre-spanning sound of the Earth, Wind & Fire band over many decades. Having set sail with a vision for a nine-piece band, he steered their recordings through rough waters of personnel changes, tacking to catch the wind of disco and electronic as audience preferences drifted away from the band’s original sound (which one early reviewer tried to sum up as “Afro-gospel-jazz-blues-rock”).

As well as charting the band’s chart and touring prowess, new documentary Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That's the Weight of the World) focuses on White’s contribution to their successes … and failures. His concepts overruled the other band members. His financial reward seems to have outweighed their more modest pay packets. His vision for elaborate stage shows and costumes meant that their extensive tours operated at a deficit. And his on the road philandering fathered at least two children that his wife wasn’t aware of. His ego swelled, yet the band had to go to ever more extreme lengths to reinvent themselves as the music market changed around them.

White’s story arc begins with his tough upbringing in Memphis and links his “abandonment” as a child (when his mother left him behind with a friend and moved state to get work … and a whole new family in Chicago) with his decision to abruptly put the band into a three-year hiatus from 1984–1987. His darker character traits are fulsomely acknowledged, though kept clear from the final scenes which allow the band’s legacy to be gloriously celebrated.

Directed by Questlove (Ahmir Khalib Thompson), the talking heads of band members and contemporary artists are accompanied by extensive footage from tours, and (far too) prominently bookmarked by contributions from superfans former President Barack and Michelle Obama: EWF were the first band to perform in the White House after Obama took office, playing at the Governors’ Dinner.

Some of the best moments come when fellow artists critique why EWF’s sound was so distinctive. Lionel Richie summed it up: “The funk was the funk, but the chords were jazz, classical. Meanwhile, it’s sitting on this tribal African beat.”

The editing is sharp, intercutting different performances of the same song to add sparkle and energy to less dynamic footage. Though perhaps more groundwork is laid than absolutely necessary in the first third of this two-hour long film that sometimes risks being led by the set list over the story. Maurice White reckoned that “music saved me” from his Memphis experience of poverty and brutality at the hands of the (white) police. This new documentary certainly captures his spirit and his drive. I look forward to a week when Radio Ulster’s Steven Rainey showcases Earth, Wind & Fire on his Sunday afternoon Long Player programme.

Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That's the Weight of the World) was screened in Queen’s Film Theatre on Sunday 21 June as part of the Docs Ireland festival. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t seem to be getting a wider cinema release and will instead be available on the small screen on HBO Max. Turn your volume up loud if you’re watching it at home!

ABCD

Enough is Enough (Trop C’est Trop) – exposing the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo to global audiences (Docs Ireland at Queen’s Film Theatre)

2026-06-20T13:36:49.498+01:00

“A window on the world” was how a former radio editor used to describe the Sunday morning slots when I’d find a valid excuse to bring the situation in an oft-forgotten place in the world to the attention of local listeners. Sometimes it was Lebanon (with its fractious confessional political system, failed financial sector, and a much-stalled judge-led inquiry into the port blast) or South Sudan (where it’s estimated that over 80% of the population need humanitarian assistance) or the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the second largest country in Africa and the second or third most populous nation in the continent, the scene of conflict for many decades, and a rich source of valuable minerals).

There are parts of the world where major news organisations don’t always have a permanent bureau and correspondents don’t often pass through. I remember searching for a journalist who could help us cover the fall of the eastern city of Goma from government and UN forces to the M23 rebels last year. English-speaking national newspapers might mention DRC a handful of times each year. The country will usually only merit a couple of sentences in radio news bulletins.

Elisé Sawasawa was born in 1994 and has grown up knowing only conflict in his country. His first feature-length documentary Enough Is Enough (Trop C’est Trop) explains that “after walking more than 30 kilometres to escape the horrors, my mother gave birth to me in the forest. The crackle of bullets is part of the music that welcomed me to this earth.”

The film is centred around the city of Goma where he lives. Scenes are sustained long enough that audiences can up a sense of the pattern of what they’re seeing: for example, people approaching on foot and bicycle carrying as many possessions and livestock as they can muster, while armoured military vehicles begin to drive against the human flow.

There’s a very large UN mission in the city. That didn’t stop the M23 rebels taking over the area last year. We watch as civilians protest: against blue-bereted UN peacekeepers (who have been accused of not protecting civilians), Rwanda (whose forces provided military support to the M23 movement), as well as general armed forces and police on the street.

It’s often confusing, and quite possibly contradictory, but when no one’s on your side, everyone becomes a target. The film captures dancers, poets and a performance artist: despite the aggression and oppression, people continue to use art and culture to express their feelings.

Around 7 million people in DRC are internally displaced (out of a total population that exceeds 105 million), with several large refugee camps around Goma. Cholera is common. Since the documentary was completed, Ebola has joined the infectious diseases threatening the population.

DRC mines feed into the supply chain global technology and vehicle/battery companies. But the rich (locally and international) are profiting, not the everyday citizens.

Frustration and anger are rife.

Sawasawa documents with handheld footage that is in the throng rather than looking from a distance. Enough is Enough is his raw perspective on experincing the constant conflict that has dominated his life. It’s an eye-opening insight into a city and a country that is so hard to follow from afar.

Enough is Enough was screened in Queen’s Film Theatre as part of Docs Ireland documentary film festival which runs until Sunday 21 June. (links to my festival preview and the full programme)

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American Doctor – three US medics expose the conditions inside and outside Gaza’s Nasser Hospital (Docs Ireland at Queen’s Film Theatre on 17 June and then UK/Ireland release from 25 September)

2026-06-17T09:45:16.085+01:00

Three American-born doctors travel to Gaza during a 2025 ceasefire to work in the Nasser Hospital hospital. This isn’t their first rodeo and while they’re comfortable leaving their cosy lives in the US behind to work in a warzone, they’re still shocked by the environment in which their patients are living and undergoing treatment.

Hand surgeon Mark Perlmutter is a Jewish American. He’s outspoken, calling Israel’s action “a genocide”. He wonders if his tax-dollars have paid for the munitions that are injuring the children he’s treating. Trauma surgeon Feroze Sidwa was born the US to Pakistani parents who belong to the non-Muslim Parsi minority. Emergency medicine physician Thaer Ahmad is a Palestian American, born in the US. At first, he is refused entry to Gaza: not all American doctors are treated equally.

Right from the outset, American Doctor pitches itself as an examination of morality. Whether it’s a medic arguing with filmmaker Poh Si Teng about why the bodies of dead children shouldn’t be pixelated, critiquing US news networks who push back on their lived experience of the conflict, or questioning why hospitals – including the one they volunteer in – are targeted by Israeli forces.

Following the three men around the hospital in operating theatres, hospital corridors, and phone calls home builds up a sense of the crazy normal of the Nasser Hospital. Pain medicine is in short supply. Gaza’s health infrastructure has been decimated. Equipment that would offer better patient outcomes simply isn’t available. An ambulance riddled with bullet holes sits around the back of the hospital near a mound of earth on the site of a mass grave burying the dead from a previous attack in the vicinity.

While the camera follows the three Americans (who mostly fail to fall into the “white saviour” stereotype) it lingers on the patients – children and adults – and the local staff who have to live all year around in a region that is under attack.

With foreign journalists banned from entering Gaza, the doctors are happy to talk to the media to relay what they’ve seen and experienced. They face presenters on the big US networks who default to an IDF-believing/Palestinian-sceptical stance. Everything the doctors say is questioned and challenged. Yet everything Israeli sources state in press releases seems to be taken as gospel. Senior American politicians receive the doctors politely in Washington DC corridors of power, but don’t seem to be sympathetic to their perspectives.

The doctors question why civilian hospitals are being attacked in what they see as a breach of Geneva Conventions. They see no evidence of secret tunnels under the buildings in which they work. When Israeli forces break the ceasefire and bomb the hospital’s second-floor male surgical ward (justified as targeting someone on the ward who is deemed to be a terrorist), one doctor is forced to operate again on a patient he’s already treated.

Some audiences will swerve this film, believing that the IDF are totally justified in targeting Hamas terrorists and that nearby innocent civilians, medical staff and facilities are necessary ‘collateral damage’. They’ll deem American Doctor to be pro-Hamas propaganda without even viewing it. Nothing to see here.

But if you want to judge for yourself the many moral questions for Israel, Gaza and big nations like the US that are raised in this film, you can catch a screening at 18:15 on Wednesday 17 June in Queen’s Film Theatre on day two of Docs Ireland documentary film festival. American Doctor will also be released in UK and Irish cinemas from 25 September. (links to my festival preview and the full programme)

It’s also worth noting that earlier this year – after filming had completed – Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) suspended its work at Nasser Hospital for three months. Extracts from the MSF FAQ explain:

On 13 April 2026, MSF resumed core medical activities at Nasser hospital. This resumption comes after we initially suspended non-critical medical activities on 20 January. We had made the difficult decision to suspend non-critical activities after our colleagues witnessed a series of incidents, including the presence of masked armed men, others engaging in intimidation and carrying out arbitrary arrests of patients, and one incident that involved the suspected movement of weapons, all of which are completely unacceptable.
MSF raised our concerns regarding the management of the structure, the safeguarding of its neutrality, and security breaches to the relevant authorities. We have continuously engaged with Gaza’s Ministry of Health since and have determined that the concrete improvements taken by the relevant authorities, such as measures to restrict the entry of weapons, provide the minimum conditions required for our teams to work safely and in line with our working principles ...
Nasser hospital is a critical lifeline, and one of the last remaining, partially functioning Ministry of Health hospitals in Gaza. It must be respected and protected as a civilian medical facility, in accordance with international humanitarian law.
Our calls shouldn't be instrumentalised. We have seen Israel obliterating the health system in Gaza with the justification that they are being used as command centres or for military purposes, which we never witnessed. The hospital must be spared from Israeli attacks, and it must not be used for any military purposes by Hamas or any other armed groups. The lives of countless Palestinians depend on it. Hospitals must remain neutral, civilian spaces, free from military presence or activity, to ensure the safe and impartial delivery of medical care.

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Displace: The Battle For Dublin – a story of rebuilding community in the midst of precarity, planning and protest (Docs Ireland at An Cultúrlann on Thursday 18 June)

2026-06-16T13:33:20.296+01:00

Ireland’s housing crisis is multifaceted. Displace: The Battle For Dublin documents buildings lying derelict, landlords choosing to ‘no fault’ evict families on their sixth anniversary renting flats, artists being thrown out of their studio spaces despite being long-standing tenants, pockets of land that service communities being redeveloped for profit.

The lack of accommodation (affordable or not) is argued to be a result of commercial overdevelopment, exploitation of poor renter protections, and underinvestment in initiatives that could heal fractured communities.

James Redmond’s gentle pacing introduces the audience to people living precariously, unsure if their poorly maintained accommodation will ever be repaired (there’s an example of a large landlord taking nine years to fix a broken window), people wondering whether they’ll have a home to live in this time next year. We are introduced to individuals who are organising neighbours to form tenacious residents’ groups that can stand up to their wealthy landlords. And we see when lobbying and meetings turn to last ditch street protests.

There’s a quick lesson in ‘asset urbanism’, the concept of the rich making decisions about the urban landscape, using it as a playground for making money, with home owners and small commercial and cultural renters pawns in a bigger game of wealth extraction. Pockets of land become instruments of investment rather than habitats for humans to live and thrive.

Dublin is not alone in having a housing crisis. Locking people out of the city in which they grew up is common. Local government enabling commercial companies to delay redevelopment is not unusual. But despite the Celtic tiger, despite Dublin being the European home to so many multinational tech giants, it’s particularly chilling that there is such underinvestment in community-building that would benefit citizens in this city.

In Belfast and elsewhere up t’north, the derelict buildings tend to mysteriously combust at night, sometimes making it more necessary to be demolished. It’s hard to watch the film without wondering what a thriving North Street Arcade would be like and why the poorly-named Tribeca Belfast project had been allowed to stagnate for so long. Maybe the scenes about the ‘blandmarks’ walking tour will inspire a Belfast version being developed.

Displace: The Battle For Dublin carries a sense of lament throughout its 100-minute essay on the accommodation crisis. The sense that hope is being lost is strong. But its humanisation weaves in moments of celebration and appreciation amongst the sequences of communities being pulled apart or squashed.

Throughout the film the character of buildings pops out from the screen with gorgeous black and white cinematography. Good people look tired. Protests look earnest. The final credits list contributors like a roll call of saints.

The last sequence suggests that a minor victory might be around the corner for one community. Yet the very fact that so many people need to move off the site for a number of years leaves the lingering worry that the redevelopment could still be delayed or dropped. It feels like a cake-fuelled ending that may yet have to fade into a title card that says “six years later, none of the residents were back living on the site”. Hopefully that’s not the case …

Displace: The Battle For Dublin is being screened as part of the Docs Ireland documentary film festival at 19:00 on Thursday 18 June in An Cultúrlann. Docs Ireland runs from 16 to 21 June. (links to my festival preview and the full programme)

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Previewing Docs Ireland 2026 - six days of documentary delicacies (16-21 June)

2026-06-15T20:59:42.502+01:00

Documentary film festival Docs Ireland is back for the eighth time with a smorgasbord of films.

The majority of screenings are Pay What You Want.

Amid the myriad of shorts, talks and screenings, here are a handful that caught my eye from the chunky programme.

Tuesday 16 June

Steal This Story // 18:30 at QFT // The festival’s opening night gala spotlights the work of independent US journalist Amy Goodman who has been telling stories neglected by larger networks and holding the powerful to account for over three decades. Goodman will be present for a Q&A after the screening. SOLD OUT

Wednesday 17 June

American Doctor // 18:15 at QFT // Three US physicians return to Gaza during a ceasefire. Their work in operating theatres and hospital corridors is documented before they return home and take what they’ve seen to the corridors of power and the US Congress. (REVIEWED)

Thursday 18 June

Once You Shall Be One Of Those Who Lived Long Ago // 12:00 at QFT // A northern Swedish town is slowly collapsing into the iron ore mines beneath it. Prosperity goes hand in hand with disappearance. A melancholic, humorous and absurd look at a settlement in its dying days.

Now We’re Talking: Michael J Murphy and Sam Hanna Bell on screen // 13:00 at PRONI // Celebrating two important local cultural voices – folklorist and playwright Michael J Murphy and producer/author/editor Sam Hanna Bell – whose personal archives have been donated to the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland and have been catalogued and curated. A TV profile of Murphy being interviewed by Bell will be followed by a radio interview with Bell reflecting on his writing life, finishing with a film created by Drumintee Primary School inspired by the work of Murphy. (The same programme will also be screened in the shadow of Slieve Gullion in Tí Chullainn in Mullaghbawn at 19:00 on Saturday 20 June.) [You can find out more about Michael J Murphy in the Nerve Centre podcast series I helped make earlier this year with a group who explored his archive.]

Displace: The Battle For Dublin // 19:00 at An Cultúrlann // Gorgeous black and white cinematography and remarkable community building shine a light on the multi-faceted housing crisis in Dublin. Asset urbanism is stripping money out of areas along with the communities that enlivened them. But can citizens meaningfully fight back? (REVIEWED)

Ghost in the Machine // 20:30 at QFT // Vlerie Veatch’s documentary pores over the history of Artificial Intelligence and its ties between governments and private equity. Can we trust the people fashioning the regulation and holding the purse strings?

Friday 19 June

Trop C’est Trop (Enough is Enough) // 18:15 at QFT // The enduring conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo rarely makes it to news bulletins or newspaper reports. Elsié Sawasawa’s film bears witness to the Congolese people trapped in the endless fighting as the Congolese army protecting a regional capital are overpowered by rebels in just four days.

Lesbian Lines // 18:30 at QFT // Director Cara Holmes explores the hidden history of the underground network of lesbian helplines that operated across Ireland, mixing fear with fun and a celebration of togetherness as women who felt trapped found a chink of light. (REVIEWED)

Saturday 20 June

Desert Passages // 18:00 at QFT // Look after your water sources and waterways before it’s too late. With the 1,450 mile long Colorado River being diverted to new settlements and industry along its path down form the Rocky Mountains, the borderlands of the US and Mexico are experiencing drought. A brooding documentary with gorgeous visuals. (REVIEWED)

Cutting Through Rocks // 20:15 at QFT // Sara is the first elected councilwoman in her Iranian village. The complexity of Iran is displayed as she challenges patriarchal traditions by training teenage girls to ride motorcycles and stopping child marriages. (REVIEWED)

Sunday 21 June

Earth, Wind & Fire // 15:00 at QFT // Tracking the fractious yet fructuous history of the experiment band who started out as afro-gospel-jazz-blues-rock and would go on to define disco sound with songs like Let’s Groove Tonight. (REVIEWED)

Magilligan // 18:15 at QFT // The festival’s closing night film (preceded by the festival awards ceremony) presents a portrait of Ryan, a teenager imprisoned for a violent offence who finds purpose working on the prison farm but upon release finds his past hard to shake off. After the screening, Belfast director Ross McClean will be interviewed about his feature debut by Myrid Carten (director of last year’s closing film A Want In Her).

The full programme can be viewed on the Docs Ireland website.

Lesbian Lines – the network of helplines that offered connection, protection and solidarity (Docs Ireland in the Queen’s Film Theatre on Friday 19 June)

2026-06-15T18:11:41.737+01:00

Quite a number of LGBT organisations across the island have recently been sifting through their archives and reflecting on many decades of support and advocacy. In parallel, a number of cultural productions have been documenting the early days of these groups. Kabosh staged Dominic Montague’s Callings (2022) looking back at Cara Friend helplines. Kabosh and Montague were also responsible for the electrifying A Queer Céilí at the Marty Forsythe (2019)

Films like Rebel Dykes (2021) give a sense for the lesbian scene in London in the 1980s and 1990s. Cara Holmes’ new documentary Lesbian Lines hears from women involved with the network of lesbian helplines that ran – and continue to run – across Ireland. What starts off as a celebration of the almost underground community offering connection, protection and solidarity then examines key moments of lesbian visibility in Ireland, before acknowledging some of the darker calls the helplines received.

Back in 1980, 26-year-old Joni Crone appeared on The Late Late Show. Host Gay Byrne asked “What would compel a girl like you to appear on a programme like this and blow as it where her cover?” Later Byrne in the interview would refer to lesbians as “these people”. The host adopted a patronising tone throughout, but Crone kept her cool – perhaps aided by the backstage vodka someone in the production team recommended to calm her nerves! – and explained what it was like to live as a lesbian in Ireland.

Cinematographer Aidan Gault uses shadows and dim lighting for the interviews that sustain the storytelling. It’s almost like the women are sitting in a closet. There’s a mix of testimony, dramatic reconstruction and conversation.

Outburst Queer Arts Festival director Ruth McCarthy is among those interviewed. And there’s a snippet of archive from Free Presbyterian minister Rev David McIlveen to remind viewers of the opposition to homosexuality. Footage of the security search barriers on Royal Avenue grounds the film in a period of history which will seem alien to younger audiences but remain all too vivid for some of us oldies.

Last year’s Docs Ireland festival screened the Housewife of the Year documentary (which Holmes edited) about the now-jarring pageant of domesticity. Lesbian Lines opens a door onto another side of how society in Ireland slowly changed.

Responsible for the clamouring soundtrack of Irish folk horror Fréwaka, Die Hexen sensitively allows scenes to breath: there’s no sense of urgency, and when the mood dips, the music fades as more sombre and tragic moments are remembered. A volunteer recalls a woman ringing up in a distressed state before being cut off when an angry man comes into the room. Beaten up by her husband, she dials back the next week from hospital. Another volunteer remembers callers contemplating suicide.

Voiced up conversations based on the extensive phone logs give an insight into the vulnerability of those moments, and intimacy of people feeling safe enough to open up to a stranger and remove their mask.

Like another Docs Ireland screening – Displace: The Battle for Dublin – Lesbian Lines is a film about a silenced section of society nurturing community, allowing people to find their voice and find their tribe. Considerable fear is mixed in with fun and a celebration of togetherness as women who felt trapped find a chink of light.

You can catch Lesbian Lines at the Docs Ireland documentary film festival at 18:30 on Friday 19 June in Queen’s Film Theatre. Docs Ireland runs from 16 to 21 June. (links to my festival preview and the full programme)

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Bold Girls – facing up to the unpalatable whole truth and choosing how to move on (Centre Stage at the Lyric Theatre until Sunday 14 June)

2026-06-14T16:51:16.778+01:00

Bold Girls is located somewhere in and around the Falls Road/Anderstown Road in west Belfast in the late 1980s. Cassie lives with her mum Nora and kids across the road from Marie. These women are rich in ambition, poor in pocket, and they’ve been hiding secrets from each other and possibly from themselves. Phil Jennings’ simple maroon-themed kitchen set floats above the Lyric’s Naughton Studio stage, a dias for teal-spilling and dealing with the past.

An early question “Do you believe in ghosts?” sets up the non-supernatural appearance of Deirdre (Annie McIlwaine), never not dress in white, who lurks in the vicinity of Marie and Nora wherever they go.

Director Michael Quinn freezes the action – aided by Jennings’ sharp spotlighting – as characters deliver thoughtful monologues to the audience. An episode of ITV’s Blind Date plays in the corner, emphasising the neighbours’ vacuum of romantic relationships and their lust for love.

Rona Munro’s dialogue excels at allowing the lively women to speak at cross-purposes, with three people often conducting two different conversations in beautiful harmony. An unseen washing machine is an early source of humour. But this play is no comedic sitcom.

Caroline Curran sports a brunette wig and plays Marie with warmth and wit: a feeder who welcomes even the stranger into her kitchen and can knock up a sandwich in the middle of the night. (The rest of the cast had better like Curran’s sandwiches as there’s a lot of eating on two show days!)

The first act sets Marie up as a cheerful single mother who idolises her dead husband. Bold Girls asks whether any of these women can make their own decisions and escape the orbit of their men folk, who are either dead or incarcerated, and remain absent from the stage. Can they truly run away from their past and other people’s past actions?

Marie’s steady attitude is knocked in the aftermath of a trip to the local nightclub when her more sporty neighbour Cassie (played with engaging vigour by Hannah Carnegie) opens up and shares a succession of pieces of distressing news. Throughout, dream-stealing Deirdre loiters with unsure intent.

Anger bleeds into Curran’s happy-go-lucky portrayal of Marie as the young mother pushes back on other people’s legacy. Meanwhile Cassie’s mum (played by Mairead McKinley) is waking up to the fact that other people are denying her nice things. The most powerful scene comes when the women – all of whom should know better – take the side of heinous men against their kith and kin.

The characters are well drawn, the laughs keep rolling, and 36 years after its première, Rona Munro’s script still has much to say about this conflicted society where can women be left to suffer the cost of their partners’ actions. It’s a simpler yet at least as effective companion piece to the Lyric’s recent production of Tea in a China Cup.

Centre Stage’s revival of Bold Girls finishes its sold out run at the Lyric Theatre on Sunday 14 June.

Photo credit: Rebecca Jane Windsor

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Desert Passages – brooding documentary about a disappearing water source (Docs Ireland in Queen’s Film Theatre on Saturday 20 June)

2026-06-14T11:40:59.916+01:00

Snow melting in the Rocky Mountains provides up to 90% of the water flowing down the 1,450-mile-long Colorado River. It’s all but dried up by the time it reaches the ocean. Desert Passages is a gently told story of decline. There’s less snow to melt. Water is evaporating from reservoirs faster than before. Population and agricultural growth along the flow means that water is being “diverted to people as opposed to moving people to water” as one contributor explains.

Beautiful cinematography serves up striking vistas. Red stone contrasts with concrete dams. A drone camera flies low over the water like a modern recreation of a scene from 1980’s Air Wolf. Tide marks along the side of rock faces show the huge change in high water level.

The contributors are thoughtful rather than angry. There’s a stoicism that talks of adapting to the new reality of drought rather than voluntary or forced displacement of populations to land that can better support them. Towns in Arizona truck water in. The landscape becomes increasingly barren as the river almost impotent in its final hundred mile stretch into Mexico. Homes and habitats have changed forever. Climate refugees are on the rise but have no protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Desert Passages is a brooding documentary that places layers of similar detail on top of each other like a papier-mâché construction. The quickly established premise that access to water isn’t evenly spread and made worse by human decisions is almost diluted by repetition. The visuals distract from the oral duplication that stretches the film out to 77 minutes.

The film’s many moments of silence will give time for Northern Ireland audiences to consider the plight of Lough Neagh. While it’s a story of pollution from agriculture and sewage, exacerbated by arising summer temperatures that allow the blue-green algae to bloom, Jan Carson’s latest novel Few and Far Between imagines a populated archipelago in the lough, created by a government programme to reduce the water level. The residents face an existential threat of a flood to tackle the algae bloom in this fictional universe. (Just one of a number of threats the author conjures up!)

Look after your water sources and waterways before it’s too late. That’s the message of Kevin Brennan and Laurence Durkin’s new film that is being screened as part of the Docs Ireland documentary film festival at 6pm on Saturday 20 June in Queen’s Film Theatre.

PS: Watch out for the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope.

Docs Ireland runs from 16 to 21 June. (links to my festival preview and the full programme)

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Report on June 2026 PCI General Assembly #pciga26

2026-06-14T11:19:04.657+01:00

On top of the violence and disorder on the streets, there were three themes running through the four days of this year’s higgledy-piggledy General Assembly: Safeguarding, Finance and Reconfiguration, and the three were quite interlinked at points.

Three and a half days of business stretched into four. (You can still watch back the live-stream from Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.) Here’s a few highlights from my four days attending ... though lots more of note happened that I haven’t commented on, like the timely sermon during Thursday lunchtime’s worship. (Update - Deborah Sloan’s summery of proceedings is well worth a read too.)

My takeaway observations are that:

Members of General Assembly are incurious and few seemed to have (taken the time to) read the Blue Book (main and supplementary reports) from cover to cover. (I recommend working from the back towards the front as General Council’s multiple sections make more sense once you’ve got a picture of the other councils’ work.)
The lack of coverage of the General Assembly’s business outside of the News Letter and Belfast Telegraph is an indication that PCI is currently being defined by its response to the safeguarding crisis. The commitment to openness about learning is to be welcomed.
Wordy reports, corporate communications and press releases don’t cut through in a world that prefers to hear about the experience of individuals so the denomination’s much-needed response to racism and violence against women and girls needs to be shared in a way that it will be heard. (That said, the background work to respond to NI Executive and Assembly Committee consultations is also important and worthwhile.)
The process to restructure how the denomination operates – which is being driven by a hydra of task groups – will also have to take into account the results of INEQE investigation due next June. It would be wise to plan for a Special Assembly in November 2027 to address the final Structures proposals as it’s already clear that final decisions would be unwise and unlikely in June 2027.

Disclosure: I’m a member of the Presbyterian Church and sit on the Support Services Committee (whose private business doesn’t inform my public reporting). And I've read enough blue books of reports and sat through so many General Assemblies I can nearly spot when resolutions are taken in the wrong order (they were at one point this year) and could almost explain PCI’s version of the‘offside rule’ (when an amendment becomes the substantive motion and there’s unexpectedly more time for debate)!

Business at this week’s Presbyterian General Assembly was disrupted by what was happening outside the Assembly Hall.

The opening day’s business on Tuesday was curtailed by the online threats of disruption with the evening session cancelled and delegates sent home. Many of the delegates use public transport to travel in and out of Belfast. Wednesday’s late afternoon installation of the new moderator was postponed, the civic guests cancelled, and delegates sent home at lunchtime. Many traybakes for the moderator’s bun-worry were wasted.

Outgoing moderator Richard Murray served an extra day in office and Richard Kerr was finally installed at 10:38 on Thursday morning. So there was a lot of shuffling of business and reduced times for some speeches to catch up on the lapsed business which finally concluded just after 4pm on Friday afternoon.

Richard Murray said he was “appalled” at the knife attack in North Belfast. Prayers were offered over several days for the victim, and then (to quote) “for ethnic minorities who live among us” and for people whose homes, vehicles and work places had been attacked. The Moderator said that the rioting “has also left us appalled”. He said that the right to protest did not extend to a right to riot, or a right to intimidate or to threaten or to take life. Speaking on behalf of the denomination, he appealed “to the wider community for peace and calm, and for sense to prevail”.

Former Moderator Frank Sellar also commented on what he called “sinister” scenes with protesters wearing balaclavas to disguise their identities. He went on to address the latest unsolicited and anonymous email from a person or group called Troubled Presbyterians sent to most ministers. He said the emails were “sinister” and the issues should be more properly raised on the floor of the Assembly. “Please stop sending these emails … it’s important that we do everything we do is done openly and transparently … please stop hiding behind balaclavas.”

Could the church be prophetic in tackling racism? Or at least make a difference in changing public attitudes and protecting those who are experiencing racism everyday? Those weren’t questions the General Assembly considered. [Although I’ve been told of a Belfast congregation experiencing racism-related damage to their building.]

Back in 2021 General Assembly heard that “Racism and inclusion are very challenging issues that appear in many forms and guises. Through following up on research initiatives, one aim is to keep abreast of the experiences of ethnic minorities in churches on the island of Ireland, with a view to ensuring PCI’s own house is in order before seeking to call society to account. In addition to grappling with issues such as colonialism, empire, and the spiritual battle against fear, prejudice, and segregation, PCI will need to reflect on the place of ethnic minorities in leadership roles within the Church.”

General Assembly reports stated that “issues around the welcome, support for and integration of refugees and other ethnic minorities, together with challenging racism and negative stereotyping, is a cross-cutting issue across various councils of PCI.”

PCI’s central work on inter-cultural relations has somewhat stalled in recent years. Addressing racism as individual Christians and as congregations could become a priority. The Irish Council of Churches – whose general secretary Rev Dr Karen Campbell is one of the new moderator’s chaplains – did some work on this last year in response to the race riots, and their 2010 report on Migration, Diversity and Interculturalism would give PCI a head start.

After November’s announcement about central safeguarding failures and two Special General Assembles, there were updates on the various safeguarding reviews and investigations.

General Assembly heard that “to protect the integrity of the police investigation there is relatively little we can say about it at this stage”.

Regarding the INEQE (prounced ‘in-eek’) review of governance and safeguarding for the Charity Commission, it is “progressing well” and the group led by Jim Gamble will soon begin gathering information from congregations and individuals. Completion of the report is due by June 2027.

General Council has committed to publish the findings of that Charity Commission review and the learning within (except where it would contradict legal obligations regarding data protection).

Incoming clerk Jonathan Boyd who is currently convenor of the Statutory Investigations Advisory Task Group which has been advising Richard Murray in his liaison role said that it was part of our reformed conviction that God can use the civil authorities to address problems in the church and we should thank God for the work he does through the civil authorities to correct and purify the Church. (It’s not clear whether the former moderator remains the main liaison point for the PSNI, or whether that will shift to his successor or someone else.)

The work to support the investigations and reviews was said to have been onerous and prioritised. The sentiment that other normal work of the denomination has been sidelined and delayed was echoed in several Council reports. One report in particular went as far as to say that unintentionally prioritising safeguarding, updating the Code and reconfiguration of ministry had led to “neglect [that] has significantly weakened the local church”.

Convenor of the General Council David Bruce said he believed the denomination is being chastised and their reputation will need to be rebuilt from the ground up. He told the Assembly that “over the course of the past six months, I have met personally with several people at their request, either in their homes or elsewhere, and I have corresponded with others, as have [other senior church figures] and members of our Safeguarding Team. This has not been perfect, and I want to apologise sincerely for the times when the church’s central responses to emerging situations have caused further distress.”

Outgoing moderator Richard Murray preached at very start of his fourth General Assembly in the chair. He said “it has been a torrid time for us in PCI” adding later in his sermon that “it’s been a tough seven or eight months for the denomination and many have been left disheartened and discouraged by our failures in safeguarding”.

But he questioned whether balance had been lost in a hard-hitting part of his address: “I’ve been hearing a lot about polity over the last seven months … but I haven’t heard anyone talking about spirituality. I’ve been hearing a lot about the Code … but I’d love to hear a lot more about compassion. I’ve been hearing a lot about covenant but I’d love to hear a lot more about conversion.”

New moderator Richard Kerr’s theme is “For God so loved”, an invitation (from chapter 1 of the gospel of John) to refocus on what is at the core of Christian faith: to refocus on the lavish love of God, the centrality of the cross, and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. He said that he hopes that the investigations and inquiries can be turned around from something negative to something constructive, and provide an open and honest foundation from which to move forward.

Back in December, the Special Assembly agreed to beef up the Safeguarding Department and boost its independence.

Director of Operations Ken Swarbrick updated Assembly. So far, they haven’t been able to recruit a Head of Safeguarding, but by the end of next month, there will be 6 executive staff working in the safeguarding department aided by 3.5 admin officers. No one asked why the post was proving difficult to fill or whether there was a timescale for further recruitment.

Last December in the first of two Special Assemblies, ministers discovered that there was a so-called Secret Protocol that was being followed if serious safeguarding complaints were made. Prior to the Special Assembly in December, it hadn’t been shared with ministers. In the most serious of cases, individuals could be required to step back from their roles. A revised protocol has now been agreed by the Assembly which includes timescales and procedures for who needs to be appointed to an Emergency Safeguarding Panel and a reminder that it’s not an investigative body.

No one asked how often the protocol has been used … but it’s understood that the protocol has been used in a handful of cases and people have been asked to step back.

The work of reconfiguration and restructuring continues.

Work to reconfigure how local congregations relate to each other – with linkages between congregations, mergers, and dissolutions or closures planned at a regional Presbytery level began a few years ago and is ongoing. Compared to last year’s General Assembly, this activity has accelerated, but the process has many years to run.

Alongside these changes is the vision to create 10 newly-constituted congregations in addition to 10 new church planting projects over the next 10 years, an initiative with the snappy title of 10+10 in 10.

Speakers rose to ask whether it’s turned into a reconfiguration of buildings and lost sight of the reconfiguration of ministry. Some spoke about how reconfiguration can be positive.

Leaving aside the reconfiguration of congregations, more centrally, a separate General Assembly Structures and Resources Review is ongoing. A long report has been produced which is neither final nor exhaustive, and will now be sent to presbyteries and staff for comment.

Former moderator William Henry explained that this rationalisation is due to “a shortage of ministers and declining numbers and resources”. It’s remit includes finances, buildings, ministerial training and the college, social witness, missional priorities and home and abroad, how presbyteries are organised, and more.

It contains some options but no recommendations, and it was explained that the report is purposefully full of perceptions rather than hard evidence, with delegates and staff pointing out that some of the perceptions are very inaccurate.

Overall the Structures report has the feel of homework that was incomplete but handed in to meet the deadline of the General Assembly meeting. That is a bit harsh, but the reality seems to be that the bandwidth of senior figures needed for the many, many Structures meetings was diverted to the safeguarding work, and with the pressure on staff working around the clock week in week out, nothing more concrete could be produced.

A lot of frustration with the protracted process was expressed – on the floor of the General Assembly and in the corridors and coffee times – that it could go on well beyond 2027. The members of General Assembly expressed that dissatisfaction by supporting an amendment brought by Rev Sam Bostock that forces General Assembly to make a final decision during the next calendar year, either at General Assembly or by convening a Special General Assembly. That his amendment was seconded by Rev Daniel Kane, a convenor of one of the Councils, and supported by a former moderator felt significant.

To give you a flavour of some of the ideas and questions floated in the long report that will be hitting Presbyteries and members of staff’s desks over the summer and in the autumn …

Should PCI stop sending out its own missionaries and instead work with global mission partner organisations (who already send more Presbyterians around the world than the denomination itself)?
Should the training of ministers be devolved to a non-PCI organisation? There was immediate strong pushback on that notion.
If more work is to be devolved to Presbyteries, perhaps the current 19 presbyteries – the largest currently has 3 times the number of congregations than the smallest – should be reshaped into 6-8 or 12-14. Warnings from the platform that bigger does not always equal better.

It continues to be an anxious time for staff who are working against uncertainty of how they fit the denomination’s future priorities. And there are indications throughout the blue book and supplementary reports that PCI has a poor understanding of meaningful consultation and lacks expertise in surveying and measurement.

The finances of the church’s care homes and social care work were discussed in more detail than previous General Assemblies.

For several years, reports in the blue book mentioned the difficult financial situation of the work of the Council for Social Witness without giving a lot of detail. That church council currently run 6 residential care homes, a nursing home, services for addiction rehabilitation, and more. Most of its work is funded by the health and social care trusts.

This year’s council report gave the stark figure that they have now built up over the last three or four years a £3.6million internal overdraft (that’s against an annual £16m turnover). Their report explains that the council had believed their financial situation had almost turned around only to discover it was worse than they thought.

Interim Secretary Caroline Yeomans told the Assembly that some of their services “were developed for a different era” and as a Church organisation “we have not always adapted a quickly as the environment around us has changed”. She spoke of being “thankful that difficult truths are now being faced honestly”.

She spoke about years of rising costs, increasingly complex care needs and policy changes. The printed report highlights that central government fees rise slower than inflation. There has been a heavy reliance on agency staff to fill There was an opportunity for recovery that might include stopping unsustainable work and investing in areas of emerging need. From February this year, new financial recovery plans now are in place.

The Structures report suggests that the work of the Council for Social Witness could be spun out into an arms-length agency of the denomination, become totally autonomous, or sold off. The Council favour the agency approach. The need for a decision may be more urgent than the overall PCI structures review.

Answering a question raised by former moderator Norman Hamilton about other areas the Council for Social Witness could extend its expertise into, David Brice suggested that the church needed to look at streets and develop ministry for homelessness, for people with addiction and who have been through the criminal justice system. Later Norman Hamilton would return to the platform with a wren’s nest in his hand to illustrate his speech about homelessness.

Another area of the church’s work in financial difficulty is the college. Union Theological College continues to run at a deficit and is “projecting to operate at a loss for the foreseeable future”. No one asked how big the (accumulated) deficit was. The Council for Training in Ministry requests for central funding from the denomination’s United Appeal have been rising every year, with the 2027 request 30% more than back in 2023.

Is there a shortage of Presbyterian ministers?

Yes and No.

One of the reports highlighted that there may be a shortage of churches for student ministers finishing their two-year-long assistantships. This is because some vacant congregations are being held back from being allowed to call a new minister until the mergers and linkages are agreed. So in the short term there may be a shortage of churches to apply to. That said, General Assembly was told that ministers are slow to apply to opportunities in the west that have been left unfilled for well over a year.

However, in the medium term, with only 10 or 11 new student ministers entering the college each year, the number of retirements far exceeds the new supply of ministers and there may ultimately be more vacant churches that available ministers. Ministers transferring in from other countries and denominations may help make up the shortfall.

The reason for the college’s financial position was partly put down to unpredictable numbers of students. Having broken away from Queen’s University, their new partnership with St Mary’s University in Twickenham has offered non-ministerial students a BA (Hons) in Theology since September 2022.

Buried in a Structures Review report – but not verbally explained from the platform as part of the Council for Training in Ministry section of business – no further students are being accepted onto that undergraduate course, although students who are already enrolled will be able to finish their degrees.

This year’s Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) annual monitoring report is due to be published any day now and may provide more external insight into that decision.

There was commentary in written reports about the challenge of operating a ‘mini-university’ and managing the regulatory requirements being imposed by the Office for Students in England via the link with St Mary’s.

Former moderator John Kirkpatrick chairs the College Management Committee. He warned members of General Assembly that “as goes the college, so goes the church”, an oblique reference to questions of whether ministerial training could be outsourced. Instead he said the church should “prepare for growth”.

Against the backdrop of the incomplete Structures Review, Rev Prof Michael McClenahan’s three year term as college principal was extended by one year.

NDAs and Compromise Agreements

The December Special Assembly commissioned a task group to write a policy on the use of Compromise Agreements. A two-page document was debated and agreed almost unanimously, although the 380-word Biblical perspective was criticised by some as being too brief.

The official PCI position is now that NDAs will not be used as a matter of course. But they may be considered at the request of the departing employee, or to prevent or reduce further harm, or to protect other parties – like PCI staff – of whom the church has a duty of care. The triumvirate Senior Leadership Team now need to approve their use with legal and HR advice. The General Council will be furnished with an annual anonymised report about the use of Compromise Agreements and NDAs, and will have the power – subject to legal advice – to amend or cancel obligations placed on an employee.

New Clerk

Rev Jonathan Boyd is the new clerk, taking up the post in early July. He’s one of three Jonathan Boyds in the system. So it’s not a sudden rise to fame for the student minister, but instead the minister of Killyleagh congregation. (Acting Clerk David Allen will then become a part-time Assistant Clerk with responsibility for the Reconfiguration of Ministry.)

As agreed at the Special General Assembly in February, the powerful General Council now has two co-convenors, a minister and an elder, with Avril Heenan joining former moderator David Bruce as the line managers of the ‘three Wise Men’ (aka Senior Leadership Team): Clerk, Deputy Clerk and Director of Operations.

Ecumenical matters

Correspondence from one minister has triggered a review of the principles that should underlie PCI’s engagement with ecumenical bodies. A pivotal moment in PCI’s history was its decision to leave the World Council of Churches in 1980. 46 years later, the minister of Trinity congregation in Cork, Rev Richie Cronin, expressed dissatisfaction the World Communion of Reformed Churches’ gender justice policy, and stance on abortion, same-sex marriage, and its theological position on justification.

Former moderator Trevor Morrow rose to tell members of General Assembly that the reformed tradition in Britain and Ireland is traditionally ‘big tent’ theologically, while US Presbyterianism tends towards separatism. He suggested some people were receiving their reformed theology from the US. Richie Cronin countered that he was not a separatist and would like “like to stay and fight”.

Public Affairs

Convenor of the Council for Public Affairs, Rev Daniel Kane said that the denomination was not trying to “be known for winning culture wars” but wanted to be known “for advancing morally serious and human theology” as society faces up to big issues.

He said the church needed to move wider than the old hackneyed issues of human sexuality, abortion etc. “We need not to be seen for what we’re against, but be seen for what we’re for.”

Commenting on the Department of Finance’s Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill that has reached Committee Stage, Daniel Kane suggested that giving legal recognition to non-religious belief marriages – like humanist ceremonies – should not “facilitate eccentric or frivolous” ceremonies and said that the church was “opposed to marriage ceremonies being offered on a for-profit basis”. Given that consensual sexual activity is legal from the age of 16, and sex belonged within marriage, he said it was illogical of the bill to raise the minimum age of marriage from 16 to 18, provided safeguards were in place.

The church’s response to Violence Against Women and Girls was raised once from the platform.

Christian Aid

Questions were raised at last June’s General Assembly about the LGBT position taken in a report published by the Great Britain wing of Christian Aid. After spending considerable time debating it, the denomination’s Christmas World Development Appeal, a fundraiser traditionally split evenly between Tear Fund and Christian Aid (and a small amount for other projects) was altered to give congregations the option of not funding one of the charities.

While the verbal reports didn’t highlight it, the printed report of the Council for Global Mission notes that only 15 of the 500+ congregations asked for their contributions to go to Tear Fund alone, and one congregation even requested that all of their donations go to Christian Aid. Just about 3.5% of the £0.5m appeal was affected.

The science of climate change was challenged

A resolution in support of last September’s Stewardship of Creation conference went to a standing card vote late on Friday afternoon. Two speakers questioned what they perceived as a lack of alternative opinions on the science of human-induced climate change at the event. Though the organiser said the conference was primarily about unpacking what the Bible said about the issue rather than articulating the science. Several speakers expressed their dissatisfaction. A vote on the resolution eventually passed 64 to 50. But climate change is still a topic of debate among a significant minority of ministers and representative elders.

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General Assembly returns on Tuesday 15 June next year. In the meantime, the restriction on serving alcohol in Assembly Buildings has been varied so the Anglican Consultative Council can serve alcoholic wine at Eucharist services when they meet in Belfast between 27 June 2026 and 5 July 2026!

Derren Brown: Only Human – combining magic, misdirection and mentalism to great effect (Grand Opera House until Saturday 23 May)

2026-05-20T00:28:25.107+01:00

The audience are quickly integrated into the running of the Derren Brown: Only Human show. And we stay involved right to the finish. The underlying techniques that the skilled storyteller and hustler claims to be employing – never mind the ones that he’s actually using to obtain the wowing results – vary across the different beats of the production.

Everyone attending – and specifically reviewers – are asked not to reveal the details of the almost fully sold-out show. But it’s safe to say that there will be demonstrations of the full suite of mentalism (suggestion, perception, psychology and hypnosis), close magic and the manipulation of objects, misdirection, and large-scale illusion which may put a relatively simple trick at the heart of something so theatrical that it feels immense. There’s lots of live camera work to pick out people in the audience – sitting up in the Gods doesn’t preclude you being called down onto the stage or given a mic to share your input.

Brown is warm and affable. Volunteers – if anyone can truly show freewill in an environment that so carefully controls certain aspects of our experience – all seem very comfortable. Walking up Great Victoria Street after the show, I bumped into one of the early on-stage volunteers carrying his ‘prize’ and he was thrilled with his evening.

Learning to ask the right questions was the theme of local magician Caolan McBride’s impressive Unlocking Sherlock show last October. With a focus on how we relate to the future, the “Only Human” title is loosely referred to during Brown’s two-hour 40-minute show – plan your return travel arrangements accordingly as some of tonight’s audience members hadn’t correctly predicted their exit time! – he keeps returning to another question: “What do you want to be?”

The historical figure of Nostradamus provides a vehicle for a set of in-show predictions which build up and extend throughout the full duration of the performance. Overthinkers like me will spot clues and develop hunches about how some of the illusions might be achieved. But by the time we’ve reached the grand finale, the combination of what seem like huge coincidences and the arms-length nature of one of the final numerical tricks defy easy explanation, and any suggestion that the coherence of the show’s theme didn’t always land is mostly replaced with a sense of wonder that Brown and his expert team can keep the myriad of plates spinning to pull off such a series of big reveals.

(Overthinkers may later want to question the assumptions that are re-enforced at intervals throughout the show to unpick how some of the illusions are achieved. However, the people who’ll get the best sense of what’s truly going on will be the theatre’s ushers who will see the same elements of the show repeated – and probably adapted to go with the flow of audience responses – throughout the week. But they’ll also be keeping tight lipped about their observations! Most people seem happy to sit back, relax and soak it all in and be wowed.)

Derren Brown: Only Human continues at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 23 May before heading off to Plymouth, Birmingham, Edinburgh, and more … ending up in the Apollo Theatre in London’s West End for three and a half months from 10 October.

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Hen – fresh and feathery perspective on a familiar human crisis (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 22 May)

2026-05-18T16:13:31.949+01:00

Over the weekend, I had to watch To Kill A Mockingbird in preparation for the recording of an upcoming episode of Banterflix. Harper Lee’s novel wasn’t part of my GCSE English Literature experience: Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie was the book we had to study. Like the original 1960 book, the 1962 film adaptation examines racial injustice in the American South through the eyes of a child. The mixture of naïve and old-beyond-her-years observation feels fresher than any adult procedural storytelling could have managed.

Reacting to the constraints on his normal mode of filmmaking in his home country of Hungary, György Pálfi’s new film Hen uses the perspective of a chicken. Born and reared in a factory farm environment, the unnamed avian escapologist takes advantage of an opportunity to flee from a lorry transporting hens to the next, likely final, stage of their journey from egg to plate. It’s the first of many breakouts, as the leghorn hen travels to her new home where she ‘flies the coop’ to explore the surroundings of a family-owned restaurant on the Greek coast.

Business isn’t good and the owner’s daughter’s boyfriend decides to diversify their income with people smuggling. Despite the feathery perspective, Pálfi boldly makes the hen complicit in events that will shock but not surprise audiences.

The lead role is played by eight chickens: Anett, Enci, Enikő, Eszti, Eti, Feri, Nóra and Szandi. You can find out more about their jumping and running skills in a Guardian interview with Pálfi. The performance of the hens on screen are always real, never CGIed, though their human handler is magicked out of some footage.

What starts out as an almost flippant film about factory farming, switches to tell a somewhat familiar tale of human trafficking. A novel depiction, but hardly a new story? Yet the fresh perspective remains vivid in my mind days after the preview screening.

The tale of a hen determined to break free from her own captors, who stows away and witnesses terrible things along her journey. The parallels are subtle yet significant with the hopes and experiences of the people we briefly see being moved around ‘like animals’.

Hen is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 22 May.

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Guys and Dolls – agile gamblers with varying degrees of situationships are confronted with the error of their ways in this infectious musical (Belfast Operatic Company at Grand Opera House until Saturday 16 May)

2026-05-13T20:11:29.582+01:00

Nathan is running an nomadic crap game under the nose of the local cop and in spite of a warning from his long suffering fiancée of 14 years, nightclub dancer Adelaide. To raise enough money to secure a new venue, he bets master gambler Sky Masterson $1,000 that he can’t take a local Save-A-Soul Mission worker Sergeant Sarah on a same-day dinner date to Havana. The odds are stacked in his favour, but does anything ever run smoothly for Nathan?

Despite the appearance of a gun on stage, Guys and Dolls is a musical comedy that swerves all opportunities to become a heart-wrenching noir story of tragic loss. Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows’ book with lyrics and music by Frank Loesser is set in early 1950’s New York.

A gang of gamblers view all women as ‘dolls’. The women show their smarts and view the gambling, misogynistic guys with varying degrees of distain. Spoiler alert: Sarah’s spiritual battle with the gamblers in “this jungle of sin” ultimately leads the men through a pleasingly theologically sound process of examining their consciences, confession, redemption and ultimately restoration!

76 years after the show’s Broadway première, Belfast Operatic Company’s ambitious production swims in a sea of talent. The whole company look at home on the stage and ooze enthusiasm and a sense of joy. The chemistry between the potential love interest’s is natural. Dessie Havlin’s confident swagger and tenor voice as charismatic Sky are well matched by Naomi Smyth’s all-round performance as Sarah (and her terrifically trolleyed introduction to rum), with their gorgeous duet I’ve Never Been in Love Before a fabulous way to round off act one.

Greg Fox brings humour, exasperation and pleading to his portrayal of larger-than-life Nathan. Emiko Seawright swings the put-upon artiste Adelaide between hope and exasperation, with starry singing and dancing in A Bushel and a Peck and the playful Take Back your Mink. Adelaide’s only duet with fellow situationship victim Sarah, Marry the Man Today, beautifully blends the voices of Seawright and Smyth. Kudos to Conor Anderson who animates the character Nicely Nicely and ably leads the jubilant 11 o’clock number Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ The Boat. Salvation Army member and Belfast Operatic/St Agnes’ stalwart, Laura Kerr, plays the stern-until-she’s-flexible General Cartwright with gusto ... hopefully not based on anyone she’s met in church!

Guys and Dolls is a long show, running just shy of three hours including the interval, which seemed to catch out some first night audience members (who shuffled towards the theatre’s exits to catch last buses and trains before the second act was even close to finishing). Despite the run time that must have put pressure on rehearsals, director Kerry Rodgers delivers a well-drilled cast who felt like they’re mid-way through a month long run rather than the first of six shows.

The 20-strong orchestra in the pit under Colin Scott’s baton crank out toe-tapping tune after infectious tune, although the meaty second act entr’acte (blame the composer!) almost causes, rather than prevents, audience restlessness with a desire to quickly get back to the on-stage madness.

I can’t think of many amateur groups who could deliver the all-male Luck Be A Lady song and dance routine with such aplomb and nimble footwork. The dice-heavy set design and flamboyant costumes – the guys’ rainbow suits are a triumph of the second act – reinforce the frivolity of the plot. Tim Bell’s ambitious choreography impresses throughout, whether bringing the Hot Box dancers to life, or creating the visually pleasing Havana routine as Sky and Sarah mingle with the carousing street party. The vivid lighting design adds height and movement to scenes, though on opening night left some characters performing in the relative shadow.

Guys and Dolls continues its impressive run at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 16 May.

Photo credit: unknown

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Tea In A China Cup – getting out the good china from 1983 for a fresh brew (Lyric Theatre until Saturday 30 May)

2026-05-09T21:50:00.004+01:00

As part of the Lyric Theatre’s 75th anniversary programme, Christina Reid’s 1983 play Tea in a China Cup is being restaged. Back then she was the theatre’s playwright-in-residence (1983/4) and one of just four female playwrights to have their work produced by the Lyric during the 1980s. One of just four women playwrights in a decade!

Tea In A China Cup is a play about working-class Ulster Protestant women penned by a working-class Ulster Protestant woman who lived in Ardoyne. To borrow from one of the script’s recurring themes, it’s as if the play has been trapped in one of the wooden cabinets with glass shelves dotted around the walls of the Lyric Theatre’s public areas, like the ‘best’ china tea set that no one uses. And more than 40 years later, someone has had the nerve to open the door and lift out a cup and saucer.

This is a play full of sorrow that follows three generations of women in a family. History repeats itself with dangerous military service (across world wars and the Troubles), husbands with little respect for their wives, and a strong sense that the first rule of Protestant club is to never let yourself down in front of other people.

Everything is viewed through the eyes of Beth. When she’s not in the heart of a scene, Amy Molloy lurks to the side, either crouched down or peering down on the action from high up on the multi-storey set. Poverty has constrained Beth’s education along with her wider family’s social mobility. It’s easy to forget that the play is set in North Down rather than north Belfast. Perhaps true to her own Ardoyne environs, Reid writes in a best friend for Beth, Catholic girl Theresa (Louise Parker), who seems to have the best of everything, but who we will discover ultimately also lives under her own family’s omertà and suppresses her actual circumstances when back home from London.

Beth was apparently born asking ‘why?’ and as her character matures, Molloy finds new ways to question difference and physically react to the hypocrisy around her and the perennial absence of fulsome answers. Will she ever find relief from the burden of carrying around everyone else’s past lives? Again, an attitude that will have seemed more novel and x in 1983 than 2026.

The play’s narrative crashes together flashbacks like a script dropped on the floor with its pages picked up in a random order. In the present, Mum Sarah (a brilliant Mary Moulds) is facing the final months of her life with great fortitude. With effort she moves from her bed to a window to watch the bands go past on the Twelfth. Director Dan Gordon starred in the 1983 production. His decades-long work with bands brings the authentic sound of Mourne Young Defenders Flute Band into Chris Warner’s vivid soundscape. (The Lyric’s spatial audio system is put to good use throughout, though the sound of cars going past being placed above the audience’s heads felt jarring.)

Marie Jones has a twinkle in her eye playing Beth’s grandmother, with some great conspiratorial scenes shared with Great Aunt Maisie (Katie Tumelty). The remainder of the cast play family members, council workers and neighbours. Maria Connolly sets a flippant tone as a cemetery department clerk with a bouffant hairdo and a comedy-sized magnifying glass. She later garners more laughs as a costly fortune teller.

One generation’s loss during a world war is followed by the next’s loss of homes as the Troubles begin. Simon Sweeney sympathetically portrays two generations of young men heading away to army training – cherished figures with pride of place on the wall of the family home – with the first departure particularly touching. John Paul Connolly is the more trouble-than-he’s-worth grandfather, while Matthew Forsythe appears in a number of roles including a British Army officer struggling to protect homes under threat.

Ciarán Bagnall’s spinning and sliding set and lighting design cast vivid slabs of light through open doorways in dark building with the cast needing to take care to hit their mark precisely to keep their faces illuminated in the narrow beams. The homes on either side of the stage neatly rotate, revealing perilous ladders that that put your heart in your mouth as you watch cast members clamber up and down. (The forced perspective works well, though I almost expect Scrooge from the Lyric’s recent festive productions to step through at any moment.)

Death rituals and lousy sex education are familiar topics in modern theatre. Shame may still be a driving force in families, but is secrecy still as prevalent? Tea In A China Cup often feels like a play of its time. What producer today would entertain commissioning a play with such a large cast (nine)? Yet its restaging is a much-needed reminder that women are still under-represented in almost every aspect of Irish theatre (except costume design), but will contribute so much when not actively frozen out.

If she was allowed to break the fourth wall, Beth might ask why this play was chosen from the archives to be revamped and presented to fresh audiences? A women-led story on a Belfast stage is almost as unusual then as it is now: Cuckoo-Land is a recent exception. When first staged, the brazen and unfiltered anti-Catholic bigoted utterances of the main characters must have been shocking and almost fearless. But what about today? How much has changed? Those lines of dialogue – sometimes funny, sometimes almost too crass to be comfortable – are a reminder of how far society has come. Sectarianism is by no means dead, but it’s much diluted and has largely moved beyond simple beliefs that people from the ‘other side’ are lazy and don’t have good personal hygiene. Yet communities are still apt to be swayed by fear and difference over hope and cohesion.

Tea In A China Cup continues its run at the Lyric Theatre until Saturday 30 May.

Photo Credit: Neil Harrison

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