The Guide: Kevin Hart, Twenty One Pilots, Cork Fringe Festival and other events to see, shows to book and ones to catch before they end
Kevin Hart
Saturday, May 3rd, and Sunday, May 4th, SSE Arena, Belfast, 8pm, £128/£73; Tuesday, May 6th, 3Arena, Dublin, 7.30pm, €88.25/€72.70,
ticketmaster.ie
From being booed off stage in his native Philadelphia in the late 1990s to becoming one of the most bankable names in comedy – he has sold millions of tickets to his stand-up shows over the past 25 years or so, not to mention becoming a familiar face in Hollywood movies – Kevin Hart has had quite the career trajectory. The comic, production-company founder, actor, awards host, singer, author and reality-television star manages to keep a whole pressful of plates spinning. At the centre of his Acting My Age tour, says Hart – who last year added the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor to his awards cabinet – are some deeply personal stories.
Gigs
Hayden Thorpe & Propellor Ensemble
Wednesday, May 7th, Deer's Head Music Hall, Belfast, 8pm, £15, cqaf.com; Thursday, May 8th, Grand Social, Dublin, 8pm, €23.65,
foggynotions.ie
Hayden Thorpe. Photograph: Eeva Rinne
Living in the bucolic setting of the Lake District, in northwest England, had a clear influence on Ness, the most recent album from Hayden Thorpe, the former lead singer of Wild Beasts. It's a musical reading of Robert Macfarlane's prose poem of the same name, from 2019, which was inspired by the landscape and history of Orford Ness, a former missile testing site on the Suffolk coast. Thorpe arrives in Ireland with a slimmer version of the boundary-breaking Propeller Ensemble.
Twenty One Pilots
Thursday, May 8th, SSE Arena, Belfast, 6.30pm, £62.50; Friday, May 9th, 3Arena, Dublin, 6.30pm, €61.35,
ticketmaster.ie
Rock bands rarely interrupt their performances with backflips and other gymnastics, but Twenty One Pilots isn't your average music act. The duo of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun emerged from the Christian rock/rap scene in Ohio, but soon gravitated towards an expansive fusion of rock, rap, electro and pop. The pair arrive in Ireland close to the end of their world tour for last year's studio album, Clancy, which Kerrang! magazine described as creative, colourful and endlessly charismatic.
Festivals
Baggot Street Blues Festival
Saturday-Monday, May 3rd-5th, Star Bar, Dublin, various times, free,
thestarbardublin.com
The inaugural Baggot Street Blues Festival moves the bank-holiday weekend in the right direction. Across three days, from 3pm to late, the Star Bar, a new venue, will feature established hot-to-the-touch blues acts (Mary Stokes Band, Dublin Blues Cartel, Ben Prevo Band), ambitious up-and-comers (Blind Boys of Kilnamanagh, Steven McCann Trio) and international musicians (including the Turkish band Melted). The festival is free, although QR codes are available throughout the venue for artist donations.
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International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival
From Monday, May 5th, until Sunday, May 18th, Teacher's Club, Dublin, various times and prices,
gaytheatre.ie
Homo(sapien)
Since its inception in 2004, International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival has raised awareness of and support for established and developing gay artists and theatrical work. This year's highlights include The Strange Case of Dr Dillon, the true story of the Anglo-Irish trans pioneer Michael Dillon (Monday-Saturday, May 5th-10th), and Homo(sapien), a comedy solo show about self-discovery within a Catholic worldview (Monday-Saturday, May 12th-17th).
Féasta Ceoil an Spidéil '25
From Thursday, May 8th, until Friday, May 30th, Stiúideo Cuan, Spiddal, Co Galway, various days and times, €25/€22.50,
stiuideocuan.ie
Pádraig Rynne, Tara Breen, Jim Murray
Anyone who finds themselves out west in May should visit Stiúideo Cuan, one of Europe's finest recording facilities. Featuring a range of concerts by Ireland's leading traditional musicians, Féasta Ceoil an Spidéil '25 gets under way with Cormac Breatnach, Martin Dunlea and Brian Fleming (Thursday, May 8th) and Tara Breen, Pádraig Rynne and Jim Murray (Friday, May 9th). The series concludes with a concert by Steve Cooney and Breandán Begley (Friday, May 30th).
Cork Fringe Festival
From Friday, May 9th, until Sunday, May 11th, various venues, times and prices,
corkfringe.com
The inaugural Cork Fringe Festival, which features 20 events at 10 venues, celebrates 'the weird, the wonderful and the often under-represented' in the city's vibrant arts scene. Highlights include music (Rob Carlile, Friday, May 9th, the Roundy, 6.30pm, €12.50), theatre (In a Bad Way/Happy Capital, Saturday, May 10th, Everyman, 7.30pm, €21), comedy (How Do You Feel?, Sunday, May 11th, the Roundy, 7.30pm, €15) and visual art (Dreamscape/Eden, Friday, May 9th, until Sunday, May 11th, Laneway Gallery, free).
In conversation
John Boyne
Tuesday, May 6th, Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, 8pm, €15,
paviliontheatre.ie
John Boyne
Since 2023 the Dublin-based author John Boyne has been publishing novella-length books –
Water
,
Earth
,
Fire
– that, while ostensibly separate, have connected plots and characters. With the imminent publication of Air, about the relationship between a father and his teenage son as they travel thousands of kilometres together towards an uncertain future, Boyne has come to the end of his single-minded and well-received Elements quartet, so there's a lot to discuss. He's in conversation with his fellow author Claire Kilroy (whose 2023 novel,
Soldier Sailor
, was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction).
Still running
Myra's Story
From Monday, May 5th, until Saturday, May 10th, Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, 7.30pm, €41.05/€30.95/€26.45,
ticketmaster.ie
Fíonna Hewitt-Twamley
Myra's Story features the Ifta-nominated actor Fíonna Hewitt-Twamley not only as the homeless alcoholic of the title but also as more than a dozen other characters. Brian Foster's play is equal parts heart-warming and sad, with Hewitt-Twamley giving what the online magazine WhatsOnStage calls a virtuoso performance.
Book it this week
Matty Matheson, Vicar Street, Dublin, June 5th,
ticketmaster.ie
Clonmel Junction Arts Festival, Co Tipperary, July 4th-13th,
junctionfestival.com
West Cork Literary Festival, Bantry, Co Cork, July 11th-18th,
westcorkmusic.ie
Sounds from a Safe Harbour, Cork, September 11th-14th,
soundsfromasafeharbour.com
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A loss to the Catholic Church, but a great blessing for popular music. Kevin Rowland was turned down for seminary school, but his alternative path did lead him to Dexys Midnight Runners and an impressive output since they broke through in the late 1970s. You can hear a light Wolverhampton accent, but Rowland, stylish as ever, speaks with a gentle lilt, passed on from his Irish parents. An altar boy in his early days, his calling must have been every Catholic mother's dream? "Yes, I think it is. She was very pleased and took me to see the bishop,' says Rowland, 72 this month. 'I asked her about it in 2007; she passed in 2016. I told her I was surprised about not getting into priest college. It turned out my parents were surprised too because there was a desperate shortage then, as there is now. I can only presume it was about getting into trouble at school and that they went to the headmistress for a reference." His impressive new Bless Me Father has a cinematic quality. 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