Five For Your Radar: Miriam Margolyes, Cork Short Story Festival, and more...
Miriam Margolyes is at Cork Opera House; and I Swear opens in cinemas.
This three-day festival aims to break the mould on what a traditional music festival/event looks like, and explore the common links/threads between a vibrant local community, key cultural spaces, and an important natural landscape, through common threads, ahem, of art, live music, wellness, food, and discovery. The lineup includes Martin Hayes, Morgana, Daithi, RÓIS, Colm Mac Con Iomaire, and lots more, while a bus voyage tour takes patrons from caves to castles.
Diagnosed with Tourette’s at 15, John Davidson (Robert Aramayo) grows up in 1980s Britain struggling with a condition few understand. Garnering rave reviews from near and far, I Swear is a moving portrait of resilience and identity, written and directed by Bafta-nominated filmmaker Kirk Jones. With standout turns from Maxine Peake, Shirley Henderson, and Peter Mullan, it sounds like a film that could make even the stoniest of heart weep - bring a tissue.
Among the dozens of writers taking part in the four-day Cork festival are Yoko Tawada from Japan, and Ireland's fiction laureate Éilís Ní Dhuibhne. Cork Arts Theatre (Carroll’s Quay) and Cork City Library provide the main venues for the event, with most readings either charging an admission of €5, or free.
From Happy Valley creator Sally Wainwright comes Riot Women, a sharp, funny new drama also set in Yorkshire. The six-part series follows five menopausal women who channel midlife frustration into forming a punk rock band for a local talent contest. Starring Tamsin Greig, Rosalie Craig, Amelia Bullmore, Joanna Scanlon, and Lorraine Ashbourne, Riot Women celebrates friendship and rebellion, and is “even more Hebden-centric than Happy Valley”, according to Wainwright.
What do arseholes, America, apostrophes, and ageing all have in common? In Miriam Margolyes’ world, they’re the perfect material for wit, wisdom, and unfiltered stories. After sold-out shows at the likes of West Cork Literary Festival, Margolyes returns to Cork for a show at the Opera House where she’s spinning her A-Z wheel, diving headfirst into an eclectic alphabetised mix of life’s standout moments. Every letter reveals a new gem from her 84 extraordinary years.
