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Event of the week
Haunted Dancehall
From Friday, November 3rd, until Sunday, November 5th; NCH, Sugar Club and Anseo, Dublin; various times and prices; nch.ie
Haunted Dancehall, which was voted best Irish festival in last year’s Ticket Awards, returns to the National Concert Hall for a second go on the swings despite the nature and tenor of the event being questioned by some NCH board members at a board meeting last November. The line-up this year (which spreads into satellite venues close to the NCH) is full of seasonal tricks and treats, including Crash Ensemble performing Glassworks by Philip Glass, and In C by Terry Riley (Friday, November 3rd, NCH), Donal Dineen’s Backstory (Friday, November 3rd, Sugar Club), Tirzah (Saturday, November 4th, NCH), Péist (Saturday, November 4th, Anseo), Kali Malone (Sunday, November 5th, NCH) and New Jackson (Sunday, November 5th, Sugar Club).
Gigs
Drawing from the Well: The Life and Music of Tommy Peoples
Saturday, October 28th; NCH, Dublin; 8pm; €30/€25/€20; nch.ie
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In association with the NCH, the Irish Traditional Music Archive pays due respect to the fiddle player Tommy Peoples (1948-2018), one of Ireland’s most acclaimed traditional musicians. Corresponding with the archive’s recently launched online exhibition of Peoples’ work, the concert will feature numerous noted traditional musicians, including Peoples’ daughter, Siobhán, Matt Molloy, Paddy Glackin, Dónal Lunny, Paddy Keenan, Seán Potts, Bríd Harper and Ciarán Ó Maonaigh. Singers include Paul Brady and the sisters Maighréad and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill. The concert programme will be presented through spoken word and poetry by the poet, novelist and essayist Theo Dorgan.
Chemical Brothers
Wednesday, November 1st; 3Arena, Dublin; 6.30pm; €51.90; ticketmaster.ie
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Are you ready for the big beat? You had better be, because that’s part of what Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands are bringing to Dublin. The two fiftysomethings have been involved with advancing the development of post-techno electronic music (with dips into psychedelia, house and hip hop) since their 1995 debut album, Exit Planet Dust. Expect to hear tracks from that album, other back-catalogue work and dance/psych/pop tunes from their new album, For That Beautiful Feeling.
Dublin Beatles Festival 2023
From Friday, November 3rd, until Tuesday, November 7th; Workman’s Club, Dublin; various times and prices; eventbrite.ie
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Avid Beatles fans will know it was 60 years ago today (or thereabouts) that the Fab Four played their only Irish gig, at the Adelphi Cinema in Dublin. Marking the anniversary with a mix of music (the tribute bands Beatles for Sale, Hamburg Beat and Polythene Jam), public interview (Beatles fan-club secretary Freda Kelly, a Dubliner, interviewed by the Newstalk presenter Tom Dunne), theatre (Lennon & Shotten) and a Beatles table quiz, the festival, which inexplicably remains unsponsored, is a must-see.
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Theatre
Impossible Interview
Tuesday, October 31st; Jerome Hynes Theatre, National Opera House, Wexford; 11am; €11.50; wexfordopera.com
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In keeping with the Women & War theme of this year’s Wexford Festival Opera, the Irish Times classical music writer Michael Dervan will be in conversation with the British nurse, statistician and social reformer Florence Nightingale (played by Olga Conway), who talks about her early life and education, her experiences in the Crimean War, and her love of music and opera. Essentially a one-act play (written by Dervan), Impossible Interview mixes fact with intellect and inquisitiveness to deliver a clever sidebar to the festival’s main programme.
Music workshops
From Thursday, November 2nd, until Saturday November 4th; the Ark, Temple Bar, Dublin; 10.30am/2pm; €11.50/€9.50; ark.ie
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Parents and guardians of the world unite and rejoice: concerns about keeping those midterm-breakers occupied will be eased by these music/songwriting workshops devised for children aged eight and up. The musicians and songwriters MayKay and Elaine Mai participated in the Ark’s Right Here Right Now Festival of Children earlier this year, writing a song, What Will You Say?, based on children’s thoughts and words about issues important to them. The pair return for these twice-daily workshops (supported by Imro) to write and record new lyrics for the song. Hey-ho, kids – let’s go!
Comedy
Michael McIntyre
From Thursday, November 2nd, until Saturday November 4th; 3Arena, Dublin; 6.30pm; €39.15 (all shows sold out); ticketmaster.ie
A decade or so ago the British-Canadian comedian and television presenter Michael McIntyre was the world’s highest-earning stand-up. As these three sold-out shows suggest, he remains at the top of the funny food chain, with an even broader fanbase (expanded, no doubt, by The Wheel, his family-friendly BBC gameshow). If you’re a fan and didn’t get a ticket to these shows, fear not: he’s playing 3Arena again on May 30th, 2024.
Visual art
Emma Roche: Loop
Until Saturday, November 25th; Wexford Arts Centre; wexfordartscentre.ie
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We admit we had never heard of an artist knitting strands of dried paint, as if it were wool or thread, but Emma Roche, who won the 2021 Emergence visual-art award, clearly likes to get her hands into the thick of it. Her large-scale work is influenced by the cycle of monotonous day-to-day chores or events that remove her from her Co Wexford studio, the doing of which informs our awareness of the way we calculate and manage our time. “My process is slow,” Roche says, while images in the work, she adds, “often indicate liquids such as tears and bodily excretions”.
Still running
Púca Festival
Until Tuesday, October 31st; Trim and Athboy, Co Meath; various times, venues and prices; pucafestival.com
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Púca Festival celebrates Ireland as the birthplace of Halloween and its folkloric beginnings. Joining the festivities are a rake of music acts (including The Waterboys, Damien Dempsey and The Charlatans) and comedians (including Reginald D Hunter and Jason Byrne). The festival website has full details.
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