Tag Archives: Brian Swann

REVIEW: QUB Players Week

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The three plays selected for this year’s ‘Players Week’, run by The Queen’s University Players with the best show chosen to participate at the ISDA theatre festival had a mixture of themes. From finding love in unexpected places ‘The Woman in the Red Dress’, a comedic tale of tempters in Hell luring Humans away from God, to the enemy ‘The Screwtape Letters’, and a coming-of-age story about a group of seven grammar school boys exploring the nature of education, sexuality and literature as they prepare for Oxbridge entrance exams ‘The History Boys’.

BY BRIAN SWANN

UPDATE: Introductory analysis to “The Woman in the Red Dress” by Catherine Lambert

UPDATE: Catherine Lambert explains the ISDA selection process

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REVIEW: Rhinoceros

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It’s a real challenge to stage such a complex conformist piece of absurdist theatre like Eugene Ionesco’s ‘Rhinoceros’.  I felt that director, Sarah Melville-Watson, made a good attempt in her direction to get across the play’s metaphors and not so subtle symbolism.  Ionesco’s ‘Rhinoceros’, in a new translation by British playwright Martin Crimp, is clearly a ‘theatre of the absurd’ play.

BY BRIAN SWANN

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INTERVIEW: Director of ‘The Donahue sisters’

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At the launch of The Brian Friel Theatre season, we were spoilt for choice with the best of what you could expect for the rest of the year. From the intriguing plays ‘Beckett’s Shorts’ and ‘The Libertine’, the immense ‘Crooked’ to the absurdly comic ‘Rhinoceros’, amongst them all one performance stood alone in the crowd, ‘The Donahue Sisters’. The director of the play, Ciara McGuigan, talked to The Gown about the project.

BRIAN SWANN

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REVIEW: Toy Story 2 3D

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Toy Story 2 is one of the best movies of the 90s, already visually rich in its storytelling without the technical achievement 3D has brought to the cinema-going experience. Now, newly released in 3D the film has taken on a whole new life, reintroducing a much loved cast of characters to a new generation of children, ahead of the summer release date of the highly anticipated third instalment.

BY BRIAN SWANN

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REVIEW: Translations at QFT

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If you need to understand why the theatre space in the QFT is named in the honour of Friel, Tyrone Guthrie Society’s production of Translations demonstrates this reason each night of their successful run at The Brian Friel Theatre. David Grant brings a professionally performed and directed, amateur production to the stage.

BY BRIAN SWANN

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REVIEW: Jedward – Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)

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Louie Walsh’s diabolically awful twosome have launched their attack on the music industry before the spotlight and novelty fades. It is more likely that the terribly tacky twins will spend their golden years perfoming at Butlin rather than topping charts, despite their newly announced UK Tour.

BY BRIAN SWANN

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REVIEW: I Dreamed a Dream

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Where you were when you first heard Susan Boyle sing the iconic song from the musical ‘Les Miserables’ on ‘Britain’s Got Talen’t will be the question your children will ask when you talk about the noughties.  The album acts more as a souvenir to an overnight You Tube international phenomenon than a proper CD from a recording artist.

BY BRIAN SWANN

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