June 24, 2011

Literary Death match

Quite possibly one of my favourite Dublin based blogs – Culch.ie recently mentioned this event, and it looks really cool so I thought I’d share it:

Literary Death Match – Friday June 24th (doors at 8pm, show at 9.05pm) at the Workman’s Club, and it’s just €7 in.

Judges for the evening include Mark O’Halloran (of Adam & Paul fame), comedian Miriam Elia and actress Kelly Campbell. They will judge the literary ramblings of  poet Niamh MacAlister, writer and director Virginia Gilbert, comedian Gareth Stack, and performer Stephen James Smith.

Unfortunately I can’t go, because fortunately I need to go home and pack for my amazing and fantastic trip to Australia – 3 whole weeks – wahoo!

If anyone’s going, lettuce know how it goes – looks like a super geeky fun thing to do. More details here: http://www.literarydeathmatch.com/upcoming-events/june-24-2011.html

To find out more about what it’s all about or what to expect, watch the video below:

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June 16, 2011

Happy Bloomsday

Happy Bloomsday everybody! Hope the sun is shining for you today.

There’s a whole range of events organised to commemorate Joyce’s iconic Ulysses which was based on this day 107 years ago. It may all that time ago, but Bloomsday has grown over the years to now become quite a varied and established festival, not just in Dublin but worldwide too – in fact there are over 40 events organised in locations across the globe for Bloomsday this year – view my oh so nifty Google Map here.

Other than that, if you’re a Dubliner, you can enjoy some breakfast at the Gresham, readings and music in Stephen’s Green (11am – 2pm, and later on music from 6 until 8pm) and if that’s not your cup of tea (when I makes tea I makes tea – sorry inner Joycean is coming out!), there’s a Bloomsday Pub Quiz on in the Westin from 8.30 pm. Have a look at the full Bloomsday program here.

DCTV have featured Blooomsday as part of their We’re At series here, you can view episode one below where Mark and Stacey from the Joyce Centre speak about what to expect over Bloomsday:

We’re At Bloomsday Episode 1 from Were At… on Vimeo.

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June 6, 2011

Dublin Shakespeare Festival: Twelfth Night

Dublin has literary fever at the moment, with the Writers’ Festival just passed and Bloomsday coming up; it is quite fitting then that quite possibly the biggest literary influence for Joyce – Shakespeare is currently the subject of a festival based in Trinity.

The Dublin Shakespeare festival, which began June 1st and will run until June 11th, plays host to approximately 400 performers both professional and amateur featuring in over 50 outdoor performances of Shakespeare’s work. I attended Twelfth Night on Saturday evening and was really chuffed with the quality production I saw for the very reasonably priced ticket.

Student tickets are only €10, and adults €15 (significantly cheaper than the average of €25 for the Dublin Theatre Festival tickets), the show lasted for 3 hours and we were treated to complimentary tea, coffee and chocolates in the interval – in all very good value for money.

The festival have constructed a series of stands with pointed tent roofs, arranged in a semi circle all looking out over the performance area, which apparently seats 400 people (it seemed a lot smaller). It’s a lovely performance space in the beautiful front square of Trinity College and set up for a very special performance. I had never read nor seen Twelfth Night before but was really entertained by the production by GB Theatre company. The cast were superb, with excellent timing and also with great body language and expression which really added extra comedic value and some modern wit to the script. In particular, I really warmed to Sir Toby (played by the company’s manager David Davies) and Feste, the Fool (played by Oliver Cudbill), but I couldn’t fault any of the performances.

I only flaw I could pick out is the sound, there are amplified sound effects (particularly loud during the sea storm scene at the beginning) but the actors don’t use any microphones or amplification of any kind so it was quite hard to hear at times. It was also unbelievably cold throughout, as it’s an outdoor performance and you’re sitting for 3 hours on plastic seats. We saw some other incredibly intelligent audience members with blankets and if I go to their production of Romeo and Juliet during the week I am most definitely bringing a blanket!

Anyhew, get thee to a play this week by clicking on the following link: http://www.dublinshakespeare.com/ Don’t forget the blankets!!

You can read more about the production and explore the company’s website here: http://www.gbtheatre.com/twelfthnight.html

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June 1, 2011

Ulysses Seen

I’m glad my first post as an official “dot.ier” is on Joyce!

For those who want to experience the story of Ulysses but just can’t be arsed reading the novel (it’s my blog I’m allowed curse!) then a comic book version is a great option!

Robert Berry and co. have spent a lot of time illustrating Ulysses in this superb online comic book adaptation – Ulysses Seen. Created not just as an illustration of the novel, but also as an online edition of Joyce’s masterpiece, this version is also highly interactive and includes a user’s guide to open up certain sections to the reader.

The process is extremely time consuming and costly so the project has only completed episodes one and four so far, episode 4 Calypso has just been released in time for this year’s Bloomsday. In my opinion it’s a fantastic way to open up Joyce’s Ulysses to a wider audience, go explore here: http://www.ulyssesseen.com/ (also available for the iPad!)

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May 27, 2011

Imagine Bloomsday

As I press this Gabriel Byrne is on The Late Late Show doing Jedward impressions and speaking about Imagine Ireland’s second half launch which took place today in Dublin and announces an impressive line up of events due to take part across the US involving artists from a variety of art forms in Ireland.

With over 400 events due to take place in the US in 2011 which Imagine Ireland is funding, the Irish are definitely getting a lot of exposure this year. With a wealth of dancers, musicians, writers and actors performing across the US this year, it’s amazing we still have stuff going on here too! Do the clicky thing here to see Imagine Ireland’s programme of events.

I noticed a Bloomsday event listed in the line up. IABANY are organising an event to commemorate the landmark censorship case taken preventing the publication of Ulysses in the US and how Joyce’s fight against this case contributed towards “freedom of speech” for US artists and citizens in general. It looks like a pretty cool event because they’re going to do an enactment of the court scenes. There’s a ridiculous amount of events going on worldwide for Bloomsday this year, which you can view here. Of course there’s also a wealth of events taking place in Dublin. The Joyce Centre announced their program of events this week which includes a nice array of events for both the young and old – such as musical events in Stephen’s Green, readings, exhibitions, talks, walking tours, a pretty cool cycling tour and a pub quiz. You can see all the Joycean fun to be had in Dublin this Bloomsday here.

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May 22, 2011

Le Cool Dublin Walking Experience

I did something this weekend that I’ve never done before….so now so, how many of ye can say that?

As you may or may not already know, Le Cool Dublin launched recently. An online magazine, which publishes itself into your email every Thursday full of all the events you can look forward to in Dublin, Le Cool Dublin is part of a wider European family of Le Cool websites. However, the Dublin site has decided to diversify a little bit and now, instead of just winging a newsletter to their subscribers once a week, Le Cool are bringing you to the streets, or the streets to you….ok you and the streets together.

After sponsoring them the meagre amount of €15 on Fundit.ie (it’s a recession ok……I had to save for flights to Oz), I was granted a free pass to their first walking tour yesterday. To be honest I hadn’t a clue what to expect and arrived along with little expectation.

Sites taken in along the walk included David Foran’s exhibition at Clyne Gallery; a trip to the Redress pop up shop in the Powerscourt Centre as part of Dublin Better Fashion Week, one of Dublin’s oldest barbers – The Waldorf on Westmoreland St where we got a great introduction to the barber tradition along with a sneak peek into their back room where there’s an array of old barber tools and hairdryers; Adair Lane (it runs parallel to Fleet St, Quay side) where there’s a really weird exhibition of placards to Irish pop culture icons like Gay Byrne and the showbands among many others; and a trip to “closing today” pop up restaurant Crack Bird on Crane Lane.

My favourite stop along the way was the Project Arts Centre where Eleanor from Dublin Dance Festival spoke to us about the festival and in particular about the piece of work currently being staged in the Project by Balbir Singh – Decreasing Infinity (video below but musicians are different). The piece is a meeting point between modern dance form and traditional Kathak dancing which originates in Northern India. The piece is also accompanied by a tabla player and a very cool human beat boxer. After Eleanor’s introduction, we were allowed to watch the performers rehearsing and they also gave a quick Q&A session after. Click here to find out more about booking yourself in to attend the show today or tomorrow.

In all the tour was really different, not touristy at all and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who loves discovering new things in Dublin, and instead of flicking through an events guide would like to get out on the street and get introduced to new venues and events. I’d even recommend it to tourists as the first thing for them to do when they land in Dublin if they don’t want to do the general run of the mill touristy stuff.

In all, a fun and cheap thing to do with your Saturday afternoon, click here for more info on “booking your boots in”: Le Cool Dublin Walking Tours.

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May 7, 2011

Mayday Mullagh

Just spotted an interesting event which is taking place down in Mullagh this weekend. It’s “a gathering of professionals, amateurs and enthusiasts of the arts.” Attendants at the events which started yesterday and run today and tomorrow include Cillian Murphy, Saoirse Ronan, Aaron Monaghan, Enda Walsh and Conor McPherson among many others, who will all be available to budding arts professionals and those looking to improve their acting techniques.

Check out their website, which is very cool (never seen a website which starts at the bottom before!): http://maydaymullagh.org/ Also have a listen to Kate Winslet, who isn’t attending the event, but thought enough of the initiative to record a video interview for the organisers, in her bathroom talking about what being an actress means to her:

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