The Guide: The Murder Capital, Cian Ducrot, Forest Fest and other events to see, shows to book and ones to catch before they end

July 19th-25th: The best movies, music, art and more coming your way this week

Putting on an outdoor music festival in Ireland: ‘The bands saw they weren’t going to be up on the back of a truck in Portlaoise’

Be it Glasonbury or Forest Fest, a good line-up is key for any music festival. How do Irish organisers attract the biggest names?

Playwright Simon Stephens: ‘Our sense of self is defined by the stories we tell ourselves. My family told themselves we were Irish’

The Tony and Olivier winner feels a huge affinity with Rex Ryan’s ‘fearless’ Dublin company Glass Mask, which is premiering his play Men’s Business

Alex Kapranos: ‘I saw a guy in a band being extremely predatory with underage girls. He was exploiting his position’

Franz Ferdinand are back with The Human Fear, perhaps their best album yet. The band’s frontman talks about two decades in the music business

Franz Ferdinand at Collins Barracks: Scissor-kicking, foot-stomping, phones-aloft rock’n’roll

Band’s power-pop experience brings Collins Barracks’ Wider Than Pictures series to a close with a bang

From Eurovision to the Helix: Russian arts cancelled after Ukraine invasion

Concerts, dance recitals and exhibitions pulled over Vladimir Putin’s war

Los Bitchos: ‘Being instrumental puts us on an even playing field’

The four-piece bring the tequila and Tarantino vibes – just don’t call them a girl band

Roxy Music’s Avalon gets a pretentious but illuminating overview

Music book reviews: Jon Savage reissues and Will Sergeant memoir among other highlights

On Franz Ferdinand’s wildlife stats, Shaw’s ruined opera, and Féchín’s fadas

Unlucky turn: The story of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the cat

‘I love Shane MacGowan. He’s the ultimate ... one of the last punks’

Musician and film-maker Don Letts on Shane MacGowan, The Clash and being black in Britain

Bunkhouse: Bunkhouse review – Laura Kelly shines on group’s debut album

‘Primitive’ pop band provides melodic hooks and retro pop-laden beats

Present and Incorrect – Frank McNally on the importance of being “Anseo”

An Irishman’s Diary

The Irish Times view on the post-Covid future: there can be no going back

What the world will look like after the pandemic is neither written nor pre-ordained; it will be fought over