Cocaine, obsessive love and poisonous wit all play a part in The Vortex, says Alan O’Riordan

Box offices successes including George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara and Frank McGuiness’s dramatisation of The Dead by James Joyce at the Abbey Theatre are expected to contribute to the theatre producing a profit of €250,000 this year.

Philip Stewart tells Pádraic Killeen how the Salvation Army provided musical inspiration for GB Shaw’s Major Barbara