What's on in Cork for the next week: Franks on stage, scary movies, and Disco Pigs

No sooner has the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival shuffled off the stage, and we are heading into Halloween.

Every year, the unique former church at Triskel Arts Centre is the perfect spooky place to have fun and frights at the cinema.

This year, they have vampires, a slasher, a murderous urban legend, and a resurrected rock star out for revenge. Tickets are on sale at www.triskelartscentre.ie

The focus is on classics from the 1990s: on Thursday, October 29, at 6pm, they show Nadja, at 6pm, and The Crow, starring Brandon Lee, at 8pm, while on Friday, October 30, there is Candyman with the late, great Tony Todd at 6pm, and Wes Craven’s Scream, at 8pm in its 30th anniversary year.

And don’t forget the Dragon of Shandon event taking place on Saturday too. This is its 20th anniversary year, and organisers will be marking it with a special edition of this iconic parade.

On Samhain night at 7pm, the dragon, meticulously crafted entirely from tape, will leave its lair to prowl the historic streets of Cork, accompanied by a lively entourage of skeletons, ghouls, and fantastical creatures.

Elsewhere, music fans are in for a treat at Cork Opera House, with Gavin James performing there on Friday, October 30, and a home town Halloween gig by The Frank And Walters on Saturday, October 31.

Then, next Thursday, November 5, the Opera House’s ballet production makes its bow, as The Nutcracker begins a three-night run.

Over at the Everyman, it’s also a blockbuster week, with the return of that classic play Disco Pigs on Saturday, October 31. Pig and Runt are Cork teens who share the same birthday, speak the same secret language, and whose joint inner world is about to be torn asunder by impending adulthood.

The Everyman has also managed to squeeze in a couple of musical concerts too.

A true icon of the folk world, Ralph McTell, brings more than five decades of timeless song-writing to the stage on Sunday, November 1, while The Mersey Beatles bring their tribute to the Fab Four to the venue on Wednesday, November 4.

The spooky fun continues at Cork Arts Theatre, where The Improv Halloween Murder Mystery continues its nightly run until - you guessed it! - Halloween night on Saturday.

Billed as a whodunnit where the audience decide, it’s bound to be frightfully good fun.

The next day, Sunday, November 1, Cork Arts Theatre hosts Ó Bhéal’s 14th International Poetry Film Competition Festival, with performances at 1pm, 3pm, and 4.30pm.

Stories Of Leaving at the venue on Tuesday, November 3, asks people to share stories that are played back with an ensemble of actors and musicians.

Then the Cork One Act Drama Festival 2026 begins its run at Cork Arts Theatre on Wednesday, November 4. A busy time there!

There is live music in the shape of Eagles tribute band Dezperado at the Briery Gap in Macroom on Friday, October 30 followed by some suitable scary Halloween films the next day, culminating in Poltergeist.

There is a treat lined up at the Glen Theatre in Banteer next week, as award-winning comedian, writer and podcaster Cornelius Patrick O’Sullivan brings his new comedy show Pull Hard to the venue on Thursday, November 5.

As he looks his forties firmly in the face, he has hatched a plan. To live his life vicariously through his seven-year-old son Harvey.

There is a feast of music for visitors to the Sea Church in Ballycotton this week.

The Whileaways singing group headline on Thursday, October 29, with a Percy French Show there on Saturday, October 31, starring Eleanor Shanley, Ultan Conlon, and Jimmy Higgins, in a spectacular celebration of one of Ireland’s most beloved cultural icons.