Wednesday, December 4

Tag: Liverpool Irish Festival

Am I Irish Yet? – Unity Theatre
North West

Am I Irish Yet? – Unity Theatre

Kate Kerrigan’s autobiographical one-woman show at Unity in Liverpool has the audience rapt as she shares anecdotes about her life in the media, working at a hair salon in London, and her deep connection to her Irish roots. Playing as part of the Liverpool Irish Festival, Am I Irish Yet? kicked off ten days of celebration as the city hosts theatre, commemorations, and talks celebrating Irish heritage. Photo: Alison Loredo My first takeaway of Am I Irish Yet? is that Kate Kerrigan is an amazing woman. Born in London in the sixties, to Irish parents from Ballina, Co. Mayo, Kate is an exceptional role model for any woman who might have been told they aren’t qualified enough. Over the course of ninety minutes, we get snippets of Kate’s life and the important characters that shaped her, a...
Brendan Son of Dublin – The Tung Auditorium
North West

Brendan Son of Dublin – The Tung Auditorium

In the 100th anniversary year of the birth of the infamous Brendan Behan, Fatdan Productions present the second of their musical dramas focusing on the ‘outsider’, following their 2021 play on Oscar Wilde, as part of the Liverpool Irish Festival. Written by John Merrigan and with music and lyrics by Danielle Morgan, director and visual artist Professor Pamela Howard OBE presents a semi-staged production to explore the enigma that is Behan. With the simplest of staging that includes three stools, three chairs, and a clothes rack, Behan (Pádraig Lynch) steps through the key phases of his life from impassioned young Republican through to literary lush, with supporting characters portrayed by an ensemble (Gillian McCafferty; John Newcombe; Jack Klaff; Ann Marcuson; Ross Scarfield) and the s...
Mrs Shaw Herself – Liverpool Irish Festival
North West

Mrs Shaw Herself – Liverpool Irish Festival

Started in 2003 to celebrate the links between Liverpool and Ireland, the Liverpool Irish Festival has always been a highlight of the city’s cultural calendar, bringing a range of arts, literature, film, music, and drama.  However, it is unlikely that any year has been as challenging as this one, with venues closed, social distancing, and so on. Drama is one of the areas most affected by the restrictions, unless the company has access to the type of technology that has been used in the recent streaming for cinema of productions by, for example, the National Theatre and the RSC. However, the online performance of Mrs Shaw Herself, by the Wirral-born writer and musician Helen Tierney, who plays the harp in the change from one ‘scene’ to another, and co-devised with Alexis Leighton, w...
Liverpool Irish Festival returns with a virtual programme in 2020
NEWS

Liverpool Irish Festival returns with a virtual programme in 2020

Liverpool Irish Festival 15th – 25th October ●    Ten days of music, performance and conversation shifts online for 2020 ●    Patrick Kielty spearheads programme exploring theme of “exchange”. Liverpool Irish Festival returns with a virtual programme in 2020, celebrating the connections between Liverpool and Ireland. In a year of change and turbulence, the Festival explores exchange through art, conversation, music and history, how it connects communities and crosses borders. A series of events examine how exchange has played out through conflict, cultural exchange and artistic practice, while diverse conversations expose dual-heritage lives, reconciliation and collective trauma. Irish Comedian and TV presenter Patrick Kielty headlines the programme with a special event, Har...