09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Rick O'Shea: One of America's smartest political minds makes a brave admission about Israel
Ta-Nehisi Coates admits he has a problem with an article he wrote in 2014 in The Message, while Seán Hewitt's Open, Heaven feels like a classic and What a Time to be Alive by Jenny Mustard will appeal to Sally Rooney fans
Today at 21:30
Don't ever let anyone tell you that turning 50 is hard; turning 50 is a doddle. For me, it involved an eight-month series of arm-chancing trips to New York, Portugal and Iceland after I made sad puppy eyes at my impossibly lovely and soft-hearted wife.
This week I turned 52, an age that is so unremarkable it seems pointless to mention it, let alone celebrate it. That has never stopped me before. I went to London and thoroughly enjoyed Conor McPherson's new play The Brightening Air at the Old Vic, was baffled but sort of entertained anyway by Here We Are, Stephen Sondheim's last musical – or half a musical if you want to be accurate – at the National Theatre, and I finally got to see the joyfully fun and incredibly complicated staging of My Neighbour Totoro.
