A Glittering drag and an acrobatic fantasy... all on Cork's stages this week

WELCOME news that The Half Moon Place Café has now opened in the foyer of the Opera House - a great location for meeting up with friends at lunchtime or even breakfast!

With delicious food and drink on offer, where better to be this summer? Especially as you can catch a free lunchtime concert as well! Yes, they have arranged a series of new and emerging artists to entertain you during that lunch break, making this surely the ‘in place’ to see and be seen!

Meanwhile, surely Ireland’s most successful impressionist and satirist, Mario Rosenstock is onstage at the Opera House tomorrow and Saturday night with Gift Grub. Tickets are going fast! 021 427 0022 or www.corkoperahouse.ie

The Cork Midsummer Festival is in full swing. Last chance to see The Settling by Nathan Carter tonight (Thursday June 22) at the Granary, presented by BrokenCrow in association with The Everyman. The same team bring FOUND, Aideen Wylde’s new play, to Graffiti Theatre, also as part of the festival. Described as Bridget Jones meets Indiana Jones, with talking fish, in a joy-filled night of theatre, traditional storytelling and music directed by Julie Kelleher. 9pm tonight and Friday, 4pm and 9pm on Saturday, and 4pm and 7.30pm Sunday.

In the Everyman itself tonight, the premiere of Freefalling by Georgina Miller, presented by Rough Magic and The Lime Tree/Belltable in association with Fidget Feet Aerial Dance, again as part of the Midsummer Festival. This is movement as you’ve never seen it, combined with thought-provoking questions about the difference between a body living life to the full and one unable to move. Freefalling runs until Saturday at 7pm with an extra matinee on Saturday at 2pm.

And still more from the Festival. Tonight the Philip Connaughton dance company perform Trojans, based on the Aeneid, in the Marina Market Warehouse. 9pm start, and it runs until Sunday with an additional Sunday matinee at 2pm. And a marvellous late night event at the Circus Factory when Four Lovers turns Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream into an acrobatic fantasy! Until Saturday at 10.30pm.

See https://everymancork.com/

Up at the Cork Arts Theatre, Candy Warhol is presenting her glittering drag act tomorrow at both 4pm and 7pm, and from next Wednesday, June 28. Booking for all the amazing festival shows on corkmidsummer.com, where you can also see just how many events are going on!

See https://corkartstheatre.com/

Something different up at the Cork Arts Theatre next week, OCD Me, a one-woman play about living with obsessive compulsive disorder, written and directed by Aisling Smith and starring Laura Whelan. Up to 150k people suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in Ireland, says author Aisling Smith. She herself was formally diagnosed with OCD when she was 19, and this play was created to give people an honest insight into the condition. Which often manifests in adolescence. Wednesday June 28 to Saturrday July 1 at 8pm, plus lunchtime performances at 1pm Thursday. and Friday, June 29 and 30. 021 450 5624 for tickets.

Head for Macroom this weekend, whatever you do! The Macroom Music Fest runs Friday to Sunday, with headline acts like The Frank & Walters, Riptide Movement, Mundy, and more on Saturday, plus a Music Trail tomorrow, live music in all the bars, and a great Family Day in the town square on Sunday with events to amuse all ages. The festival celebrates the opening of the long-awaited bypass, and the town being able in consequence to realise its full potential for both residents and visitors. It also recalls the very first open-air music festival in Ireland, The Macroom Mountain Dew Festival, which ran from 1976 until 1982 and brought Rory Gallagher Van Morrision, The Dubliners, The Chieftans and many more to West Cork. It’s going to be a lively few days in this bustling little town! See www.macroommusicfest.ie