Spoiled for choice at Cork's theatres as summer festival season heats up

THE Cork Midsummer Festival is upon us, with shows, special events, and one-off performances in all sorts of locations.

At Cork Arts Theatre, it kicks off this evening when Oh!Scare Wilde Productions present The Pigeon Factory. Written and performed by Aaron O’Neill, it’s a new one-man show that explores ideas of work, family, and finding purpose in a broken society through the lens of absurdity, pathos, and pigeons. Until Saturday at 6pm.

That’s followed next week by The Wind That Shakes The Wig, written and performed by drag artist Candy Warhol.

This is where she rediscovers and shares her grá for her homeland in her own inimitable style.

That’s on Saturday, June 24, at both 4pm and 7pm (very few seats left for the first performance at time of going to press).

And those of you looking out for the popular Lunchtime Theatre series, the good news is it begins at the end of June with OCD Me, writer/director Aisling Smith’s one-woman show, performed by actress Laura Whelan.

This will be the first of eight shows this year that include lunch time performances Thursday and Friday with lunch included.

Booking for all Cork Arts Theatre shows on 021 450 5624. See https://corkartstheatre.com/

Crawford Art Gallery opened its spaces yesterday for the Midsummer Festival with I Fall Down, an immersive performance by Gina Moxley. A combination of contemporary movement, video and sound installation, opera and bare-faced cheek, the audience follows one woman’s brazen attempt to right the wrongs of some of the most celebrated works in art history. This is in fact a last fling before parts of the building are erased forever, so be there!

It runs at 6.30pm nightly until Saturday, with an additional performance that day at 9pm.

Booking via Everyman on 021 450 1673 or www.everymancork.com.

At the Granary from Saturday until next Thursday (June 17-22), BrokenCrow, in association with The Everyman and Cork Midsummer Festival, present The Settling by Gavin McEntee. Fantasy and reality blend in this new play about an old man caught in the recesses of his mind, as actions long buried climb to the surface.

Then, at Graffiti from June 22 to 25, BrokenCrow and Everyman have another production, Found, by Aideen Wylde. Described as Bridget Jones meets Indiana Jones, with talking fish, and blending Irish culture with that of strongly-Irish Newfoundland, it’s a joyous night of theatre, traditional storytelling, and music directed by Julie Kelleher.

See it at 9pm from June 22-24, 7.30pm on June 25, matinee 4pm on June 24-25. Booking: www.corkmidsummer.com.

Don’t forget The West Cork Chamber Music Festival runs from June 23 to July 2, with a fine range of events and artists in beautiful Bantry town.

Among those playing in this superb location are the Armida Quartet, Pacifica Quartet, Ragazze Quartet, Ardeo Quartet, Ensemble Diderot, Alina Ibragimova, Viviane Hagner, Caroline Melzer and Trio Gaspard. Plus, The Biber Mystery Sonatas, postponed from 2022, will be performed by Ensemble Vintage Köln with newly commissioned poems by Ruth Padel. See https://www.westcorkmusic.ie/chamber-music-festival

Later in the summer, Masters of Tradition, celebrating its 21st anniversary, brings music of a different genre to Bantry from August 23-27. See https://www.westcorkmusic.ie/masters-of-tradition/.

West Cork Fit-Up Theatre Festival is from July 11 to August 7. It’s a very old tradition in Ireland, when travelling companies toured the smaller settlements throughout the 19th century, staying for a few days or a week before moving on to the next location. Here in Ireland they lasted right into the early 1960s, and now Geoff Gould has revived the custom. Check out their website for more: https://www.westcorkfit-upfestival.com/.