Snow Patrol frontman to perform home city gig with a difference
The event discussing his new book, The Forest Is The Path, is expected to be one of the star attractions of this summer's Open House Festival in Bangor, Co Down.
The annual festival includes almost 100 events throughout August, and is expected to attract about 50,000 people to the city, with Bangor Castle Walled Garden and the Court House on the seafront as the focal venues.
Lightbody will be talking to Irish author and broadcaster Sinead Gleeson about his book The Forest Is The Path, which was published in March, in what has been billed as a 'very different and incredibly personal hometown appearance', on August 26-27.
Among the other stars to appear at the Walled Garden are singers Lisa O'Neill and Mary Coughlan, folk duo Ye Vagabonds, and comedians Paddy Raff, Chris Kent and Neil Delamere.
Events at the Court House include The Ocelots, twin brothers from Wexford now based in Germany, and a special festival performance by Northern Ireland Opera.
Among the other author events scheduled, former Labour cabinet member Alan Johnson will talk about his new book, Harold Wilson, Chris Whitaker will be discussing his international best-selling novel All The Colours Of The Dark, and American writer Karen Hao will be talking about her new book Empire Of AI.
Open House director Kieran Gilmore said the festival puts a spotlight on Bangor's creative talent.
'This year's festival has some of our finest local artists performing in iconic venues throughout the city,' he said.
'From an interview with Gary Lightbody about his new book, to a conversation between Declan Lawn, Bafta-winning writer of Blue Lights, and local author Colin Bateman, to an intimate launch of a new EP by King Cedar, we're bringing around 100 events across a whole range of art forms.'
The Open House summer season gets under way on Friday July 4, with the annual Pickie to Pier swimming race, although the Seaside Revival Vintage Festival will not take place this year because of development work on the sea front.
Tickets go on sale at 10am on Friday June 6 at www.openhousefestival.com.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
Edinburgh Fringe Festival: NI acts seeking 'eyes on their work'
For three weeks in August, Scotland's capital becomes a hub of creativity, arts and culture as thousands of performers descend for the Edinburgh Festival from Northern Ireland are always a regular fixture and this year will be no some say while the Fringe brings opportunities it also has its year's programme includes 3,352 shows across 265 those performing is comedian Reece Kidd, who described the Fringe as "a bit mental". Reece will be performing five shows a day during the Fringe as it is "the only way financially" he can afford to perform. "I'm a 30 year-old man who stays in a university dorm because it's the only place that's semi-affordable," he said."I get kidney stones every year, it's tradition. I ruin myself."Reece said the financial challenges of accommodation in Edinburgh during the Fringe presented obstacles for working-class acts."The grant schemes aren't sufficient," he said."I would love if everyone had to submit their bank statements." Karis Kelly, the writer of the play Consumed, a dark-comedy examining trans-generational trauma among four generations of women from a family in Bangor, said the Fringe was an opportunity for acts from Northern Ireland to meet potential collaborators. "Another really big opportunity is that, increasingly, we've seen shows that were staged at the Fringe become TV productions," Karis said."The Fringe gives you the opportunity to actually have a thriving career."But they believe a lack of funding holds back acts from Northern Ireland."I think working-class artists in the north have a harder time than any other artists," Karis added that more priority needed to be given to the arts scene in Northern Ireland."Audiences in Northern Ireland deserve to see authentic representations of their stories," they said."So often we see our stories told by people who aren't Northern Irish."I don't know how we expect to have a thriving theatre ecology when we ship everyone out."What's going on at this year's Edinburgh festivals? Rose Coogan, whose play Rose + Bud features at this year's Fringe, said it was a great opportunity to "get eyes" on her work."It's no secret that there's a certain level of validity that doing the Fringe can give you."She described her play as "a queer coming of age story about learning who you are and forgiving who you were".She said it was more important than ever that "queer people make art"."Hopefully people, who don't know any trans people, walk away from the show knowing we are looking for the same things in life as them," she said she felt many artists left Northern Ireland because the local art scene "doesn't know what to do with them"."Belfast needs to treat itself just as important as Edinburgh or London. Sometimes working in theatre here can feel like screaming at a brick wall," she said."We need to strive to get our things put on here."She added that people from working-class communities struggled to afford the costs associated with performing at the Fringe. "This would have been undoable if I hadn't got the experiences and opportunities I'd been given," she said."We don't give working class artists here enough room to grow. Art needs to be more accessible."
Time Out
2 days ago
- Time Out
10 Downing Street is opening to the public for exclusive tours during Open House London 2025
If you ask us, 10 Downing Street is easily the most iconic address in London – sorry, 221B Baker Street – if not the entire planet. The home of British prime ministers since 1735, the Georgian dwelling off Whitehall is where many of the UK's most significant political decisions of the last 300 years have been made, has been visited by countless legendary historical figures over the years, and still serves as a backdrop for key addresses from the Prime Minister. The opportunity to visit this illustrious home is usually reserved for cabinet members, royalty, foreign dignitaries, Larry the Cat and very special invited guests, and most Londoners can't even get a good look at its famous black door thanks to the security gate at the end of the street. It's thoroughly exciting news, then, that a handful of lucky guests will be welcomed inside for a once-in-a-lifetime tour of the building as part of this year's Open House Festival. Prospective visitors can enter a public ballot for a chance to book onto the special tour, one of several in-demand experiences being balloted alongside the 700+ buildings, spaces, and experiences available to book for free as part of Open House's wider programme. The 2025 ballot also features tours of Fitzrovia's Grade II-listed BT Tower, Canada House, the Trafalgar Square home of Canada's High Commission, BBC's Broadcasting House and the new London Museum due to open in Smithfield next year, all of which take place during the festival from 13-21 September. Ballot entries for these incredibly sought-after experiences are open until Monday 18 August, with successful entrants notified on the same day via email. And if you're not successful, don't be too disappointed; there are still plenty of usually-off-limits London landmarks you can snoop around for free during the festival, with general booking going live on Wednesday 20 August. So mark your calendars, check out our roundup of the festival's other highlights, and get those ballot entries in. Best of luck!
BBC News
2 days ago
- BBC News
Riverside Theatre: 'West End of the north coast' closes doors for final time
The closure of the Riverside theatre means a generation of performers in the north west will miss out on the experience of being on a "proper stage", the owner of a dance company has theatre at the Coleraine campus of Ulster University (UU) will stop operating on venue was billed as Northern Ireland's oldest professional theatre outside of Belfast.A UU spokesperson previously said the building had "come to the end of its life" and needed significant investment. Catherine Lamont, who owns Innova Irish dance company in Portstewart, first took to the venue's stage when she was eight or nine years old. Her dance company has used the Riverside Theatre regularly over the last twelve years."It's always been such a special place and whenever I started my own company, that was the theatre that we wanted to have our debut performance [in]," she Lamont said there were some great spaces in the area but the Riverside was "unique"."Somebody described it, it's like the West End of the north coast. It's our West End," she said."Especially for the younger children coming in as performers, you really feel the sense that you are on a proper theatre background facilities, the lights, the music, the wings, the drama." The venue opened in the 1970s with a capacity of about 350 January, concerns were raised over its long-term future after UU, which owns the venue, confirmed it was reviewing the way it was Coast and Glens Borough Council was asked to consider entering into a lease agreement and taking over the estimated that essential repairs could cost almost £750,000, with yearly running costs of almost £500, June, a council spokesperson said it already operated two arts and culture centres at a significant council spokesperson added that taking on the Riverside Theatre and "its extensive repair bill and associated operating costs" would have a direct impact on how council invests in other projects it had already committed to. Steven Millar, a local actor who has spearheaded the campaign to try and keep the Riverside theatre open, said he accepted the building needed some work and that it had running costs but accused the university of being "short-sighted" by not looking at all the viable options."They could have put the theatre out to tender, they could've asked if other community groups want to take this building over as a lease, they haven't considered any of these options," he said."This region of Northern Ireland is not going to have a theatre that receives professional theatre as well as supporting the community with amateur theatre, dance schools and drama societies." Jayne Wisener, an actress from Coleraine who has starred in The Inbetweeners and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, performed at the Riverside both as a young person in amateur productions and more recently in touring shows."The great thing about the place was less the theatre itself and actually the local audiences, who were always incredibly supportive and up for a laugh," she said."I think it's very sad that the theatre's closing down for good."It's been a huge part of our community's theatrical experience for so many years."Ms Wisener said she would like a new theatre or cultural hub to be created in Coleraine to allow the theatre scene "to thrive". University 'committed to explore new ways to support the arts' In May, an UU spokesperson said "in the face of unprecedented financial challenges... it is more important than ever that we focus our resources on core academic activities.""Having supported and delivered this civic asset for 50 years, the building itself has now come to the end of its life and requires significant capital investment to remain in use," they spokesperson added that the university appreciated the theatre's closure would come as "a disappointment to many" but said it was committed to exploring new ways to support arts and culture in the latest financial statement showed it had a surplus of more than £80m. Social Democratic and Labour Party East Londonderry MLA Cara Hunter said the theatre's closure was "absolutely gutting""This venue has been the lifeblood of our arts and cultural scene for decades. Permanent closure would be a devastating blow, leaving this as the only council area without a dedicated theatre," she said."Without this space, the next generation of actors and performers will be forced to look elsewhere for opportunities and our community will be all the poorer for it."
