8 30 1 2013-01-13T10:34:19+00:00 325 HyperlocalSite tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21098869.post-2764230206820870410 482385 2013-01-08T22:24:00+00:00

In a welcome return to lunchtime drama, the Out to Lunch Arts Festival – in conjunction with Skewiff Theatre Company – delighted today’s packed venue with The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. It’s not the first time Joe Lindsay has taken to the stage and put on an American accent. Back in 2009 Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival he played the role of radio shock jock Barry Champlain in Talk Radio. In today’s one man show, Joe Lindsay stepped into the shoes of monologist Mike Daisey to tell us about the rise and fall and rise of Apple, its clay-footed boss, and the reality behind the assembly of the shiny electronic goods that dominate pockets and desks across the western world. The script was based on version 2.0 [PDF] of Mike Daisey’s original script – ie, the version with the made up bits removed – and was superbly abridged by Vittoria Cafolla. “… to be in love with Apple is a little bit to be in love with heartbreak itself, because they break your heart, again and again ... because Steve Jobs was the master of the forced upgrade.”Later he quipped: “Steve Jobs was always the enemy of nostalgia. He understood that the future requires sacrifice. Steve Jobs was never afraid to knife the baby.”The audience laughed knowingly as they remembered favourite features, functions and even products that changed (and sometimes disappeared) in the name of fruity progress. For the next hour, Joe Lindsay flitted between the nature of geekishness, the differences between Steve Jobs and the much caricatured Steve Wozniak, boardroom tussles at the electronics giant, conditions in the Foxconn’s Chinese factory and its over-efficient manual build process that assembles Apple’s beautiful products. “Shenzhen looks like Blade Runner threw up on itself.”One thread of the narrative hears how Mike Daisey went to China to try to meet Foxconn workers and find out first hand about their lives. Workers who had “fought their way out of villages to make a better life for themselves in the city” found themselves employed on production lines for 12 to 18 hours a day assembling Apple’s beautiful products before bedding down in company dorms. Yet nets had to be erected to catch jumpers wanting to kill themselves by suicide. Joe Lindsay is tall and gangily, and throughout the performance was dressed in a white shirt and black jeans. Yet even when seated he had presence on the sparse Black Box stage. His hand gestures and way he held his arms was very Jobs-esque. While the sweary tale was told from the perspective of Mike Daisey, each character mentioned had been given their own individual visual personality and auditory palette. The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs is a play that challenges its audience about the impact of the technology they hold so dear. The play highlights how the flawed personality and incredible drive of Jobs created a company that was commercially successfully, yet required thousands of far away labourers to pay a heavy price for consumers’ shiny wares. The play finished with the lines: “Today we are jailbreakers. Today we are free. Help spread the virus.”The play isn’t without hope. Apple have finally started to pay more attention to conditions in their factories. Their market presence and strength means that they can impose (improved) changes to working conditions on their suppliers. And their power may even extend to improve conditions in the manufacturing industry in general: bringing a little more humanity to the lives of hundreds of thousands of other workers on other company’s production lines. Apple’s recent moves to bring some product manufacturing and assembly back to North America may also change their worldwide business practices as workers will be able to speak out much more readily and be closer to consumers, bloggers and journalists. But next time you reach into your pocket to lift your phone, boot up your slim line laptop, or use a scroll wheel to change the song on your MP3 player, spare a thought for the human sacrifice behind the device your touching. A testing piece of theatre, expertly performed to a packed audience.

2013-01-13T10:34:19+00:00 http://alaninbelfast.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-agony-and-ecstasy-of-steve-jobs-joe.html 2013-01-13T10:34:21+00:00 325 HyperlocalSite tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21098869.post-270918864810424648 482391 2012-12-23T22:37:00+00:00

As we head towards Christmas, time has run out for online deliveries and soon the high street shops will be shutting too. But it’s not too late to buy someone you love a ticket for the Out To Lunch Arts Festival hosted in the Black Box in the New Year. The baby sister of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival warms the hearts of many of us each January with drama, music and talk. Tickets for weekday lunchtime events include a hot lunch. Treats that I’ve noticed in the programme include: Thu 3 Jan at 1pm, Niamh McGlinchey – The Gulladuff vocalist plays mandolin, tin whistle and guitar; she . Her début mini-album Rainbow Days launched recently. Sat 5 Jan at 2pm, Zoë Conway & John McIntyre – An incredible pair merging fiddle and guitar. Based on previous performances at OTL and CQAF, not to be missed. This is the Belfast launch of their new album Go Mairir I bhFad – Long Life to You, with pieces commissioned from twelve leading Irish composers (Liz Carroll, Máirtín O’Connor, Steve Cooney, Frankie Gavin, Andy Irvine, Charlie Lennon, Donal Lunny, Tommy Peoples, Peadar O Riada, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Niall Vallely and Bill Whelan). Tue 8 Jan at 1pm and 8pm, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs – Original play by Australian Skewiff Theatre Company. Fri 11 Jan at 1pm, One Rogue Reporter – Rich Peppiatt dissects his former trade and uses tabloid techniques against the tabloids themselves. Sold out at the Edinburgh Fringe. Tue 15 Jan at 1pm and 8pm, A Thousand Kisses Deep – Award-winning vocalist Christine Tobin presents poetry and song celebrating the words and music of Leonard Cohen, alongside Phil Robson (guitar) and Dave Whitford (double bass). Thu 17 Jan at 1pm, Lennon v McCartney & John Lennon’s Last Day – Two short plays by Stephen Kennedy. A two hander to definitively sort out the pub argument of which Beatle was greater; and a look at the “strange and tragic events of John Lennon’s last day”. Sat 19 Jan at 9pm, The Dublin Afrobeat Ensemble – A “twelve piece musical force” rooted in Dublin but drawn from across the world with a “mesmerising flow of extended grooves, Afrobeat originals and covers”. Sun 20 Jan at 2pm, Four Men and a Dog – Irish trad, Southern rock, rap, jazz, blues, swing and even salsa. Sun 20 Jan at 8pm, Lucy Porter ‘People Person’ – A regular performer at OTL and CQAF, her new show promises a “feel-good night of comedy” based around a “fascinating true story with a stunning twist in the tale”. Tue 22 Jan at 1pm, Opera For Lunch (or Sex, Subterfuge and Snuff!) – NI Opera are back with three vocalists and lots of treats from beneath the refined veneer of eighteenth century opera. Wed 23 Jan at 1pm, The Steve Experiment – Local Northern Irish self-taught guitarist Stephen Catherwood has a reputation for his inventive live performances. And lots, lots more …

2013-01-13T10:34:21+00:00 http://alaninbelfast.blogspot.com/2012/12/out-to-lunch-arts-festival-2-27-january.html 2012-05-04T00:31:45+01:00 325 HyperlocalSite tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21098869.post-3972732729552564307 474839 2012-05-02T10:15:00+01:00

Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival is back, running this year from Thursday 3 to Sunday 13 May. This year must be flying in: it doesn’t feel like three months since the baby sister Out To Lunch festival finished in January. It’s an evening festival this year, with lunchtime events banished to weekends. As usual lots of events catch my eye: Pope Benedict: Bond Villain by Abie Philbin Bowman // Saturday 5 May at 8pm // The Assembly Rooms // £7 // I’m a big fan of Abie Philbin Bowman’s comedy, having caught his Guantanamo show in London a few years ago. Behind his themes and jokes are hard-hitting challenges to public perceptions and norms about important issues. Homebird // Sunday 6 May, 5pm and 8pm // The Dark Horse // £6 // The 1948 story of Maire de Baroid’s family emigration to California leaving her behind in Cork, told through the “evocative sounds of voice, guitar, Irish harp and fiddle”. An aural treat. Oscar Niemeyer: A Vida é um sopro (Life is a brief moment) // Tuesday 8 May at 6pm // The Dark Horse // £4 // A film about the great architect Oscar Niemeyer whose “buildings tend towards the formal and monumental, sometimes at odds with his socialist principles”. Followed by a panel discussion. You can’t beat a good architectural film! Simon Hoggart // Tuesday 8 May at 8pm // The Black Box // £8 // Reading from “his compendium of anecdotes from his life in journalism”, parliamentary sketch writer Simon Hoggart will let you into the secret of what he’s witnessed over the years. Glenn Patterson: The Mill for Grinding Old People Young // Tuesday 8 May at 8pm // The Assembly Rooms // £8 // The local author will read from his new novel telling the story of Gilbert Rice (born 1812), working beneath the shadow of Harland & Wolff and dealing with the impact of his love affair with Maria, a Polish barmaid. Michael Smiley – Immigrant! // Thursday 10 May at 8pm // The Assembly Rooms // £8 // Michael Smiley tells his comic story of leaving Belfast for London and moving from a “homeless, jobless, futureless young man” to life as a actor and comedian. Mark Thomas – Extreme Rambling // Thursday 10 May at 8pm // The Black Box // £8 SOLD OUT // Brilliant comic Mark Thomas reading from his book about his Middle East ramble which took him across “the entire length of the Israeli Separation Barrier crossing between the Israeli and the Palestinian side … six arrests, one stoning, too much hummus”. Vyvienne Long + Our Krypton Son // Thursday 10 May at 8pm // McHughs Basement // £6 // A classically-trained cellist and critically acclaimed songwriter. Tracey Moberly: Text Me Up // Friday 11 May at 7.30pm // Free, but book // The Assembly Rooms // Artist Tracey Moberly saved the 90,000 text messages she received since 1999 and has created a “breakneck biography” with them together with a contextual commentary on the amassed missives. A travelogue illustrated with texts and photographs. Kids’ Noisy Cinema: The Red Balloon // Saturday 12 May at 1pm // Belfast Barge // £4 // A percussion workshop followed by a screening of the timeless children’s classic The Red Balloon in which “a young boy discovers a balloon which seems to have a life of its own and together they go on an adventure through Paris”. Suitable for children aged between 7 and 11 years old, it’s a humorous story about friendship and love, without dialogue. Attending children will add their own soundtrack using props and percussion. Hackney Colliery Band // Saturday 12 May at 8pm // The Black Box // £8 // “Bringing the tradition of mobile marching bands firmly into the 21st century” with funk, hip hop, ska and contemporary jazz played by an all-acoustic brass ensemble. Also running throughout CQAF is The Open Source, a performance and workshop space in an otherwise empty Art Deco building in Belfast. Sinclair House – coincidently just opposite the Occupy Belfast People's Bank building – will feature a programme of “art, design, dance, music, gaming, coding, or any other creative pursuit” people are passionate about.

2012-05-04T00:31:45+01:00 http://alaninbelfast.blogspot.com/2012/05/cathedral-quarter-arts-festival-3-13.html 2011-04-29T22:32:28+01:00 325 HyperlocalSite tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21098869.post-2483375989532666497 349380 2011-04-29T20:40:00+01:00

The 12th Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival kicked off last night with comedian Mark Steel in the Black Box and Abie Philbin Bowman in The Dark Horse. For the next week and a half, Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter will be alive with song, laughter, drama and chat.If you’re shopping in Belfast city centre over the long weekend (Saturday 30 April – Monday 2 May), watch out for Granny Turismo, the “world’s first (and only) formation shopping trolley dance teamâ€*.The Bank of Ireland on Royal Avenue will be hosting Multiple, a pop-up shop and exhibition of twelve local artists, open between 1pm and 8pm until 8 May. “Expect wry insights into the city as they present art ‘for sale’ as lo-fi commodities, collectables, souvenirs, posters and paraphernalia. Catherine Roberts of Budgie Butlins fame is one of the artists participating.Other personal highlights include: Saturday 30 Aprilnoon – Writers Square – The May Day rally and march leaves Writers Square (opposite St Anne’s Cathedral) at 12.30pm after speeches at noon. After the march, Writers Square will host a Diversity Festival between 1pm and 5pm, an afternoon of music and entertainment.Sunday 1 May8pm – The John Hewitt – Australian band Wishing Well.Monday 2 May1pm – The Black Box – The Silent Picture House “recreating some of the magicâ€* of silent movies with a Buster Keaton / Laurel and Hardy double bill with live piano accompaniment.5pm – Cotton Court – The Chipolatas are gagging musicians and billed as “a special kind of alchemy which rakes the base ingredients of music, rhythm, juggling and comedy to turn them into a show packed full of sheer joyâ€*.Wednesday 4 May9am-5pm – Lagan Lookout – PLACE invites architects, city officials and creative thinkers to its CQ Charrette to work in cross-discipline teams to respond to a design brief and make a contribution to the Belfast townscape.1pm – The Black Box – Northern Irish poet, Michael Longley.8pm – Duke of York – On the eve of the Assembly and Local Government elections and the referendum on Voting Reform, join Grimes, McKee and others in the Big Election Comedy Quiz as they “steer you through the (tri-lingual) Vote, Votail, Big Heid Coontâ€*.Thursday 5 May1pm – The Black Box – Dramatised readings from the works of Brian Moore.8pm – Oh Yeah Centre – The 4th Annual David Ervine Memorial Talk. As well as guest speaker and guest artists, awards will be announced for successful applicants to the David Ervine Foundation which supports “educational, training and/or personal/development opportunities to children and young people from socially and economically deprived backgroundâ€*.Friday 6 May1pm – The Black Box – John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, will give the first public reading from his new novel The Absolutist which is currently Book at Bedtime on BBC Radio 4.8pm – The Dark Horse – Poland 3 Iran 2 is part of Polish Cultural Week a conversation between Join Seyf and Dobrowolski about monumental historic events including the eponymous victory of the Polish football team in the 1976 Montreal Olympics.Saturday 7 May3pm – Festival Marquee – English folk musician Kate Rusby will be performing a family matinee in the Custom House Square tent on Saturday afternoon. Her 8pm evening show is now sold out.Sunday 8 May2pm – The Black Box – More folk music from much recommended local five piece band, The Rapparees.

2011-04-29T22:32:28+01:00 http://alaninbelfast.blogspot.com/2011/04/12th-cathedral-quarter-arts-festival.html 2011-03-10T22:34:17+00:00 325 HyperlocalSite tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21098869.post-8506095879982218992 314481 2011-03-10T21:51:00+00:00

Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival is back for the 12th year. This year it runs between 28 April and 8 May. While the full programme won’t be released until 30 March, the organisers have released some details and tickets in advance.The Human League – Festival Marquee on Saturday 30 April at 8pm Poet, lyricist and novelist Simon Armitage – The Dark Horse on Tuesday 3 May at 7.30pm Stand-up comic and Radio 4 regular Jeremy Hardy – The Black Box on Monday 2 May at 8pm

2011-03-10T22:34:17+00:00 http://alaninbelfast.blogspot.com/2011/03/12th-cathedral-quarter-arts-festival.html 2011-01-24T22:38:47+00:00 325 HyperlocalSite tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21098869.post-7769095050308410624 280182 2011-01-24T20:38:00+00:00

The Out to Lunch festival is now into its last week. Boo hiss. It’s good sign that many of the shows have sold out … but if you’re quick and check the festival website, there are still tickets available for some of this week’s gigs.On Sunday afternoon, the Black Box hosted The Henry Girls playing alongside with the boys from The Fox Hunt. The transatlantic collaboration between “West Virginian Americana and Irish nu-folkâ€* is a continuation of a commission for last year’s Earagail Arts Festival in Donegal.The Fox Hunt play and sing around a single condenser microphone, standing in a rough semicircle with their fiddle, guitar, banjo and upright (double) bass. Singers needing to he heard lean in towards the mic. Similarly instruments that need to come to the fore in the mix edge closer to the mic.As well letting the band control the sound mix (there’s only one mic and a pickup on the double bass for the sound guy to fiddle with) it also creates a visual dance around the mic. When you add the three Henry Girls to the four Fox Hunters, you get up to seven people swapping position and leaning in and out. With a couple of switches during a verse and another for the chorus, its’ a visual treat as well as music to the audience’s ears.The members of the Fox Hunt swap instruments between each other between songs. The main guitarist is left handed but plays guitars and fiddles stringed for right handed players. The Henry Girls add harp, accordion, keyboard, fiddle and mandolin (or was it ukulele?) as well as a beautiful blend of close harmony singing. Everyone also manages to play and sing at the same time – try that next time you’ve a violin under your chin!Playing for around two and a half hours (with a short interval), it was a great value gig and the audience seemed to be loving it. A particular highlight came near the end when the combined group dropped all pretence of folk music and played a crowd pleasing cover of Dire Straits’ Walk of Life … with a lot of the audience joining in!You’ll catch the Fox Hunt and The Henry Girls playing in Clonmel (Thursday 27 – SOLD OUT), Naul (Friday 28), Derry (Saturday 29) and finishing their tour in Letterkenny (Sunday 30).

2011-01-24T22:38:47+00:00 http://alaninbelfast.blogspot.com/2011/01/lazy-sunday-afternoon-withi-henry-girls.html 2011-01-15T22:31:45+00:00 325 HyperlocalSite tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21098869.post-7866636164260164322 273679 2011-01-15T20:54:00+00:00

The Out to Lunch arts festival in Belfast has reached its half way point. The first couple of weeks have been dominated by words; now it shifts to music for the final two weeks.I've only got along to one event so far - Friday lunchtime's show with Marxist Magician Ian Saville who entertained a packed Black Box with his brand of political insight and illusion.Comics sometimes take a long time to warm up a Belfast lunchtime audience, but Ian Saville had the crowd giggling and tittering right from the start of his easy going act. Half magician, half comedian, total Marxist!Tricks with handkerchiefs, ropes, ventriloquism, making a £20 note disappear and reappear, and a bit of escapology to finish. But tricks all with a message. The tearing up a newspaper trick and unfolding the pieces back together while dropping one to leave a complete paper with a square missing was done to perfection - one day the socialist factions that normally tear themselves apart will reunite, though there's always one awkward lot who won't co-opearate! Great fun, and with a socialist message too. Possibly the funniest moment was when he asked a member of the audience to examine his manacles and she quipped that they were just like the last pair she'd seen!I caught up with Ian Saville afterwards to find out more about how he'd become a Marxist magician (MP3 audio).Don't forget to check out the rest of the programme. Sunday afternoon's gig with Elizabeth Cook still has tickets and there are lots of other promising gigs to follow.

2011-01-15T22:31:45+00:00 http://alaninbelfast.blogspot.com/2011/01/out-to-lunch-arts-festival-in-belfast.html 2011-01-04T22:31:27+00:00 325 HyperlocalSite tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21098869.post-294541490630719037 265895 2011-01-04T22:00:00+00:00

The days are short, the weather’s cold, and the back-to-work blues are all around. The Out To Lunch arts festival is the tonic we normally reach for in January.Daily shows at 1pm in the Black Box – entertainment and lunch (weekdays) for a mere £5.50. (Evening shows at 8pm for £8.)The programme stops just short of being organised alphabetically, but does have a certain OCD charm with the scheduling of all the comedy, before all of the speech-based events, and finishing with music! Some picks from the great programme ... ComedyVeteran of the Edinburgh Fringe, Mock the Week, McIntyre and 8 Out of 10 Cats, Daniel Sloss will be performing his latest show on Thursday 6 at 1pm and 8pm. According to the programme, he’s a “comic prodigy and typical half-man-half-Xbox, hormone-ridden teenagerâ€*.Newspaper cartoonist Steve Bell is along on Friday 7 at 1pm. He’s the pen behind the memorable image of John Major with his underpants worn on the outside of his trousers and depicted portrayed drew George W Bush as a chimpanzee. He’ll be talking about “how cartoonists capture, interpret and respond to the newsâ€*.Black-rimmed spectacle wearer comedian, songwriter and performance poet John Hegley takes to the Black Box stage at 8pm on Friday 7. If previous shows are anything to go by, expect music, poetry, laughter, mandolin-playing and even some audience participation.Lucy Porter is a veteran of Cathedral Quarter Arts Festivals and is back on Saturday 8 at 2pm and 8pm with her brand of stand-up comedy.Words and IdeasTuesday 11 will be the first time actor David Soul (Starsky & Hutch) has performed on the same stage as his daughter China Soul. She’ll be opening the 1pm and 8pm shows with songs from her debut album Secrets and Words. Then her father will perform the works of the “great Chilean and Pulitzer Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda, accompanied by guitarist Hugh Burns.Lunchtime gigs can be difficult. As Shappi Khorsandi discovered, swearing at lunchtime doesn’t work as well.Another show that will test the Belfast boundaries is Stripped at 1pm on Wednesday 12 (also at 8pm). Reflecting on her own time after acting school working in the “entertainment industryâ€*, Hannah Chalmers plays six characters in her one-woman show. To quote a review from the Edinburgh Fringe:“She gives us an exclusive backstage tour of the gentlemen's clubs - seen through the eyes of Baby, the newest girl on the block. The performer has a lot of fun with her story, impersonating a whole host of characters along the way … Her story exposes the real economics of the adult-entertainment world, as well as looking at the emotional effects upon those who work in it. There is nothing preachy or judgemental about it; she just tells it how it is.â€*Another one-woman show is What would Helen Mirren do? on Thursday 13 at 1pm and 8pm. Anita Parry plays Susan who works part-time on the check-out of a supermarket. Her kids have recently flown the nest and her boss has singled her out for promotion. The management training course she’s sent on changes her outlook on life.On Friday 1pm, join Marxist magician Ian Saville as he avoids puny tricks like David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear and instead “aims at the much more ambitious goal of making International Capitalism and exploitation disappearâ€*. Serious about his socialism, he’s travelling across “to Belfast via Liverpool ... getting ferry to avoid CO2 emissionsâ€*. Previous performance have collected great reviews.MusicTwo brass bands will be tooting and blowing on the Black Box stage from 8pm on Saturday 15. Brass Off! will star The Northern Strand Kontra Band and Balkan Alien Sound take in the genres of Jewish dance, Romanian, Bulgarian and other Balkan states along with fund, drum & bass and odd time signatures.Elizabeth Cook is billed as one of the festival highlights. She’ll be swapping the stage of the Grand Ole Opry for the Black Box on Sunday 16 at 2pm as she sings country. “Her mixture of sassy humour, emotional honesty and a killer voice is impossible to resist.â€*Female acapella trio The Shannon Colleens will be performing The Songs of James Joyce on Tuesday 18 at 1pm. Bawdy street ballads and sea shanties, as well as music hall hits and folk songs.Irish band Túcan are providing the lunch time entertainment on Friday 21 at 1pm with their hybrid sound that has been described as “some kind of fairytale colossus spewing out metal, flamenco and jazz stained compositions that raise their guitar necks to Tool, Django & Daft Punkâ€*.There’ll be more of a swing later on at 8pm on Friday 21 with Carmen Ghia and the Hotrods. The six piece rockabilly swing band from Sheffield promise to jazz up your evening.Sunday 23 at 2pm brings individual sets from The Henry Girls and Fox Hunt to the Black Box stage, along with a commissioned collaboration that “combines gritty West Virginian Americana with emerging Irish nu-folkâ€*.Gigs by Liam O’Maonlai (lead singer/pianist for the Hothouse Flowers) and Bronagh Gallagher have both sold out already.

2011-01-04T22:31:27+00:00 http://alaninbelfast.blogspot.com/2011/01/out-to-lunch-arts-festival-warming-up.html