Given that the first official gig of Belfast Music Week fell on Halloween, the abundance of superheroes, witches and tiger onesies was assumed. The first band of the night, Colly Strings, unsuccessfully attempted to emulate the gothic cool of A Clockwork Orange’s Alex DeLarge. Instead, they resembled a quartet of immaculately turned out butlers. Dubious costume choices aside, the band won over the crowd with a splendid set, but still paled in comparison to the next twenty minutes from Rainy Boy Sleep.
BY TARA MCEVOY Continue reading
Picture the re-imagining of an old fashioned samurai film by one of the best directors in Japanese cinema to date. Director Takashi Miike is best known for his hyper violent films ‘Audition’, ‘Three Extremes’ and of course ‘Ichi the Killer’. Constantly behind the camera working on projects, Miike is one of the most famous and productive directors in modern Japanese cinema, yet most of his work goes unseen by audiences outside of East Asia. It’s a crying shame that only his most violent work makes its way across the globe and seeing as we Westerns haven’t heard his name mentioned since 2004, it’s about time he hit it big with his take on the classic samurai feature.
On Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th April, the Brian Friel Theatre at the QFT played host to ‘Rough Cuts’, a series of theatrical offerings from Queens University’s First Year Drama students who drew upon texts from well known writers such as Oscar Wilde and Peter Shaffer.