Life-long model maker Pat McGrath tells Colette Sheridan about his one-man play.

Deep down music has always been the root of me.

They braved the cold and rain in their quest for fame yesterday as The X Factor machine rolled into Cork.

For the past five years, University College Cork’s FUAIM concerts and seminars have celebrated the diversity of Irish music and its interconnectedness with further flung forms.

The critically acclaimed two-hander, Fred & Alice, is back on the road with a seven-week national touring grant from the Arts Council.

Theatre: Where in the World is Frank Sparrow?

For the first time in its 30-year history, Graffiti Theatre Company is collaborating with the Cork Opera House. The company, which produces drama for young people, is staging Where in the World is Frank Sparrow? at the venue’s Half Moon theatre from February 25-March 8.

It's an hour before curtain in the Cork Opera House and everyone’s stirring in preparation for their first sell-out show of the season.

Expecting the unexpected is par for the course for the members of ITSA Theatre Company, which is staging its annual Improvised Panto at the Half Moon Theatre in Cork from Dec 6-21. Now in its third year, this fun event is, to some extent, guided by the over-16s audience.

JOHN O’BRIEN is one of the key people behind what might be Cork’s golden age of opera and musical theatre.

The Cork Midsummer festival opens tonight, kicking off an eclectic mix of weekend fun that includes Elton John, vintage Formula One racing cars, and pirates.

Rave club Sir Henry’s closed ten years ago, but it still obsesses the hero in new play, DEEP, says Colette Sheridan

The Theatre Development Centre’s new three-week residencies provide the time and space for test runs of new work in Cork City, says Colette Sheridan

CORK Cine Club’s latest programme runs from Oct 11-Dec 13 at its new venue, St John’s Central College in Cork city. With screenings of art house films and documentaries every Thursday night, the season kicks off with Even The Rain, directed by Iciar Bollain. This socially aware film is about a production team in Bolivia making a controversial film about Christopher Columbus. Meanwhile, a local uprising against water rates takes place.

MUSIC NEWS: Lock up your children! David Guetta, and Example headline tonight’s dance event in Marlay Park, Dublin, and as we predicted in the wake of the Swedish House Mafia trouble, the powers that be are queuing up to get tough with those awful young people.

Corcadorca present a rehearsed reading of Pat McCabe’s Stars of Bel Air at Triskel at 6pm this evening. Also this evening at 8pm Bowerbird presents folk acts Andy Irvine, Sam Amidon, Adrian Crowley and Serafina Steer at Triskel Christchurch.

Continuing today are Siamsa Tire’s What the Folk?, Dylan Tighe’s Record at the Half Moon Theatre and Ronan Leonard’s Adventures of a Music Nerd at the Crane Lane.

AT Blackrock Castle Observatory tonight, the Buzz Aldrin All Stars perform a live sound-track to Spanish artist Esperenza Collado’s series of film loops, Moon.

* TODAY AT THE FESTIVAL

Kate Ellis will demonstrate a wide range of musical interests at her concert this weekend, writes Nikki ffrench Davis

MUSIC, drama, coffee mornings and information events are taking place across Cork city as part of Drug Awareness Week 2011.

MUSIC, drama, coffee mornings and information events are taking place across Cork city as part of Drug Awareness Week 2011.

A PLAY about a teenage drug addict, based on a true story, opens at the Half Moon Theatre on November 7 as part of Drugs Awareness Week. Cracking Lives is the brainchild of Corkwoman Alma Kickham, whose son succumbed to addiction in his teens.

PAT HERLIHY spent years sitting at the front window of his home or driving around the streets of Cork looking for his daughter.

IT TAKES two to tango but there’ll be a sensuous dance for everyone in the audience at a series of unique shows in Cork.

THE Cork Opera House moved into the black in 2007 despite lower turnover, according to newly filed accounts.

THE 2008 Cork Guinness Jazz Festival is expected to have a more multi-ethnic face with a number of Arab and Eastern European bands taking part.

ONE of Europe’s most renowned jazz festivals, the Cork Guinness Jazz Festival, will celebrate its 30th year with a line-up featuring a mix of traditional jazz styles.

AS if Roy Keane weren’t famous enough in Cork, the place of his birth is hosting another play about the footballer.

IRELAND’S artistic hotbed of south Kerry figures prominently in the list of areas to benefit from substantial new arts funding.

O ROMEO, Romeo, where fore art th... ouch!

PEOPLE were asked to play their part last night in the creation of an exhibition of war memorabilia inspired by a tragic wartime play.