Scene and Heard: This week's arts headlines

Des O'Driscoll highlights some of this week's interesting news in TV, music, and more

ON THE TELLY:

Well, she was hardly going to just sing a song. Bjork made her first TV appearance in eight years earlier this week on Later Live With Jools Holland on BBC Two and went full concept with flutes, masks and a garden setting. The Icelandic singer performed ‘Courtship’ from last year’s EP, and also 1993 track ‘The Anchor Song’. A longer version of the show will be broadcast tomorrow at 11.30pm. Next Tuesday’s episode should also be a belter, with Florence and the Machine, Femi Kuti and Young Fathers also due to appear.

Patrick Melrose really has become this year’s must-watch series, and after the rather disturbing look at his childhood last week, on Sunday we return to Benedict Cumberbatch’s adult character and his attempt to stay away from heroin.

On Monday, RTÉ One marks the recent death of playwright Tom Murphy with a repeat of the interview he did with John Kenny last year on The Works.

Netflix subscribers can watch Maze from today. Starring Tom Vaughan- Lawlor, much of the tale of the republican jail break in 1983 was filmed in the former Cork Prison.

MUSIC NEWS:

Snow Patrol have been recently been rocking venues around the country, and today they release a new record, Wildness. It’s their first studio album since Fallen Empires way back in 2011.

The Script were in the news earlier this week when it was revealed the Irish band are suing James Arthur for copyright infringement over what they claim are similarities between the X Factor winner’s ‘Say You Won’t Let Go’ and their song ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’.

On Newstalk, Tom Dunne gave his tuppence worth on the case, saying that there were obvious similarities between the tunes, but that both were so formulaic and bland that they also sound like many others.

George Clinton must be one of the most copied artists on the planet, given the amount of times his work has been sampled, and the 76-year-old has dropped his first Parliament album in 28 years, with the digital-only Medicaid Fraud Dogg.

GIG WISE:

There’s a big summer to get out of the way first, but promoters are already rolling out the gigs for autumn and winter. For instance, you can be sure that there will be plenty takers for tickets to Lauryn Hill at 3Arena when they go on sale today. The former Fugee and mother-of-six says she will be marking 20 years since the release of her classic album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

The Chemical Brothers have also announced a gig at the same venue on October 29.

In Cork, the Right Here Right Now Festival takes place next weekend, with the Frank & Walters headlining three days of concerts and collaborations by Leeside artists.

Damo Suzuki, former member of Krautrock group Can, plays Triskel in Cork tonight.

FILM TIPS:

Solo: A Star Wars Story opened yesterday, and will probably be the big box-office draw of the weekend ahead. Early reports indicate that, whatever hardcore fans of the franchise make of the Han Solo origin tale, at the very least it’s an enjoyable action movie.

Another biggie on release today is The Breadwinner, from Midleton-born animator Nora Twomey, while Saoirse Ronan stars in an adaptation of Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach.

From Sunday, Triskel in Cork has Lean On Pete, the adaptation of a Willy Vlautin novel about a boy who befriends an ageing horse.

ALL AND SUNDRY:

TV illusionist Derren Brown brings his Underground show to Cork Opera House for a four-night run from Monday to Thursday.

Next Friday brings one of the annual highlights of the Cork art scene, with the opening of the graduates’ exhibition at Crawford College.