Join Dr Andrew Sneddon, a history lecturer at Ulster University and leading author and authority on the history of the Supernatural in Ireland, for scary and spooky tales of real-life, documented stories of ghosts, possessions, poltergeists and hauntings in Ulster covering the last 400 years.
Doors 2.30 pm | Tickets £7.00
Thirty years of playing together, and with a brand new album release lined up for 2023, the creativity of brothers, Brendan and Declan Murphy, shows no sign of abating.
The pair have forged a unique musical identity, producing original and award-winning recordings and building a loyal fan base along the way.
With an enviable catalogue of timeless songs including Mary, Washington Down, She Hits Me, Sunlight and Sugar Island, expect some beautiful songs, stunning interplay and great stories from the road.
We think it’s safe to say, this one will sell out.
Doors 1.30pm | Unreserved seating
‘Never before have I been to a gig where the atmosphere has been so electric’ –THE IRISH NEWS
David Kitt’s inconspicuous debut album, Small Moments, was a slow-burn collection of lo-fi recordings that crept up on the record-buying public in 2000 leading to the breakthrough success of his sophomore LP, The Big Romance. In 2002, Kitt even appeared as part of Meltdown Festival in London, as curated by David Bowie.
Kitt’s follow-up, Square 1, debuted atop the Irish charts in the balmy summer of 2003. Kitt’s initial success aligned him with a then-burgeoning scene of radio-friendly indie and folk- rock breakthrough acts, including David Gray, with whom Kitt has regularly toured alongside as a supporting musician.
However, Kitt was quickly drawn into his wider sphere of influences, from optimistic, MPC-driven hip-hop, melancholic Arthur Russell-esque funk and the more traditional but ambitious folk of his heritage. Each of these avenues were wandered at ease throughout 2004’s The Black and Red Notebook and it’s follow-up Not Fade Away.
A long history of supporting and then playing with the acclaimed rock group Tindersticks, lead to Kitt officially joining the group for the release of their 2010 LP, Falling Down a Mountain.
Touring internationally, Kitt remained creatively fertile, and yet, eight years passed between the release of his LP The Nightsaver and 2018’s Yous reaffirming him as one of Ireland’s best singer/songwriters. Yous was released on Dublin’s own All City Records, the notably and suitably eclectic label through which Kitt released From Night to Night, his debut album under the alias of New Jackson.
Solely focused on techno and house music influences, but energised by the same sense of melody and experimentation that defines Kitt’s work under his given name, the music of New Jackson has featured on some of the best-respected electronic and dance labels across Europe, including Hivern Discs, Cin Cin and Permanent Vacation.
With more releases incoming on All City and beyond, Kitt remains a unique, sincere artist and songwriter, able to meld influences, eras and sound with a timelessness earned after more than twenty years immersed in music.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
When the sad news of Terry Hall’s passing came through recently, our minds returned to one of the finest live shows CQAF have presented in many a year.
“Nothing came close to the sensational Neville Staple Band who really got the party started and had the masses dancing along” Anita Merritt-Exeter Express & Echo.
Neville Staple, Legendary front man ofThe Specials, Fun Boy Three and Special Beat, also known as The Original Rude Boy, is credited with changing the face of pop music not only once but twice. His celebrates a super 40-year career in the music business which is well documented and started out from the early days withRay King, The Coventry Automatics and his Jah Baddis Sound System, before taking to the stage withThe Specials during the famous ‘Clash’ tour.
Neville states, “I remember the massive reactions to the hit songs like Ghost Town, Too Much Too Young and Gangsters and fans still write to me about my rugged, energetic and fun stage presence. The way we brought ska to the mainstream was by mixing Jamaican music with the English style, which at the time was punk. A lot of young bands are now putting their own spin on ska -some with dance music and some with a rock beat. It’s all good. The music just makes you want to dance. Even when singing about tough times, every-day things or bad things, the beat and the rhythm makes you want to move. I turn all our live shows into a massive party. The crowd love it and sing along to all the tracks!”
Neville’s 2-Tone legacy is huge 2-Tone fused traditional ska music with punk rock attitude, energy and musical elements. The movement helped to transcend and defuse racial tensions in Thatcher-era Britain. The actual black and white chequered imagery of 2 Tone has become almost as famous as the music itself.
With support bands and DJ’s, this will be a celebration not just of Neville’s amazing 40-year career but also one of the greatest talents of this generation – Terry Hall.
Doors 7.30pm | Limited Unreserved seating
There is something almost excruciating about the places in between. The feeling of falling, a reassertion of gravity as one step leads to another, but just before the foot lands. The purgatory between borders, before clarity becomes whole.
Still Life, Carson McHone’s third album and first release with Merge Records, quivers like a tightrope, with songs about existing within such tension and surviving beyond the breaking point. These are stories of sabotage, confusion, and surrender. The album is a testament to the effort of reaching, sometimes flailing, for understanding and for balance. Still Life invites us to gasp at our own reflection, while acknowledging the unsettling beauty in this breath.
McHone’s 2018 internationally released Carousel was a reimagining of songs from her formative years coming of age playing in Texas bars. It established her as a shrewd artist who raises unconventional questions with language equally at home in a short story or a poem. Still Life addresses a broader picture. It is thematically more refined and yet more daring. McHone’s voice remains front and center, but it’s richer, darker. Wielded more than woven. A gorgeously wrought instrument for pushing meaning forward.
The songs of Still Life were written in quiet moments between tours and recorded away from Texas in Ontario with Canadian musician and producer, Daniel Romano. Together in a home studio they cut almost the entire record themselves, calling on two friends, the versatile Mark Lalama on accordion, piano, and organ, and David Nardi with some savvy saxophone to round it out. The phrasing and tones recall the late 60’s and early 70’s, another era of transition and innovation (think John Cale, The Kinks, Richard and Linda Thompson).
This first time collaboration brings a compelling dynamic. The musical punctuation is intricate, erratic, and at times even playful. The arrangements provide texture to the landscape of the songs while sustaining the underlying thematic tension.
The album opens with “Hawks Don’t Share” a literary allusion to the creative sabotage that often confronts artistic alliance. A pair of sparring electric guitars sets the scene, mirrored in the line, We’re both boxers babe/ we don’t make love. Bright horns pop between phrases overtop a tight rhythm section. A jangly twelve string leads us into a driving chorus with big vocal harmonies and layered synth. The title track plays out an anguished spiraling. Right at the point where language fails, the vocals break away into fuzz guitar and violent, incessant piano, as if the turmoil can only be expressed by music.
In “Sweet Magnolia” the strings, horns, and piano create a perfect orbit for the mannered intensity of a song that soars but is essentially spoken. “End of the World” builds with dark and dissonant violins over a repetitive major guitar progression leaving us hanging on its final line, tell me what do you know of restraint?
The punchy sax and tumbling toms of “Only Lovers” play into the ruse of pretending you haven’t already fallen when you have. The background vocals are like a playground taunt. “Someone Else” cuts right to the punch. I’m caught between the two/ sweet despair and hope renewed/ say it ain’t profound babe. The lyrics are wry and the vocals perfectly nail the attitude. The rollicking organ and the hammering piano conspire to bust down the door and pull us along.
There are raucous and light hearted moments but ultimately this album is concerned with serious themes. More than timeless, this record is timely, inherently modern, immediate. The final song, “Tried”, acts as a kind of eulogy for the spaces these songs embody. The bardo one must emerge from. The album challenges us to take responsibility for what we experience and how we negotiate gravity moving forward. Still Life summons us to the present in all its complexity, daring us to join in the deliberation. Here is an exposé of conscience, and a confirmation of the inherently hopeful act of creation.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
A quick return for Dark Tropics after a packed-out and stunning show in January’s Out to Lunch. This time the setting is the atmospheric St Joseph’s Church and we think it will be very special.
Drawn together by a bond that stretched from Ireland to Morocco, musicians Rio McGuinness and Gerard Sands found common ground in the form of Radiohead, Aretha Franklin and The Velvet Underground.
Armed with the influences of Somerset Maugham, Paul Auster and John Cooper-Clarke, the pair formed a partnership – one that relies equally on instinct and guile.
Their creative vision has borne fruit with timeless, cinematic pop-noir. Powered by analogue instruments and retro recording techniques the music sways and breathes naturally.
Their themes are everywhere – the burning highs of lust, the fragility of heartache, the sting of betrayal and defiance in the face of hurt.
Dark Tropics released debut album Ink in late 2021 to widespread critical praise and are currently working on its follow-up.
‘Lovely, cinematic, understated pop’ -STEVE LAMACQ, BBC 6MUSIC
‘This sounds beautiful’ – JO WILEY, BBC RADIO 2
‘Atmospheric, moody and complex with a maturity that goes beyond the realms of a debut release.’ – HOT PRESS
Doors 7.30pm | Limited Unreserved Seating
Obscure 1960’s + 1970’s Clubbing Records from Africa, The Middle East + Around the World, with a special focus on Arabic Psych – Sudanese Jazz – Ethiopian Funk – Lebanese + Armenian Stompers.
Now entering its 13th year, BGC is the premier destination for soul-fuelled clubbing records from ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s Middle-East, Africa and the rest of the world. For over a decade, the DJ collective has thrown one of the Middle East’s most popular club nights in Beirut, pioneering obscure records from Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Armenia.
Representing an underground alternative to the nightlife of Beirut through regular parties in basement clubs, alternative beach venues and warehouse spaces at the forgotten fringes of the city, the BGC has been home for genuine crate-diggers and tastemakers from all over the world.
The New York Times included the BGC club nights in their list of the “Top 15” parties around the world.
Twitch Belfast presents Johnny Aux, the man behind some of the most interesting music to come out of the UK at present with acts including Paranoid London, Warmduscher, Decius, Sworn Virgins and more!
Quinn Whaley aka Johnny Aux has gained a reputation for creating distorted masterpieces in his various groups and under various pseudonyms.
The disco and 80’s sounds of Decius alongside members of Trashmouth Records/Medicine8 and Fat White Family, the rough techno anthems of Paranoid London, the classic disco sounds of Sworn Virgins or the wonky indie-pop Warmduscher, Quinn has had his influence stamped on all of these projects.
After a sellout show at the tail end of 2021, Johnny Aux returns to Twitch for a very special 2 hour set to showcase his distorted sounds!
Support on the night comes from More Gain and Twitch residents.
Doors 9.45pm | Mostly Standing
Deployed throughout the Cathedral Quarter area, Shipsides will present a public artwork that features a series of twinned flags that play with and celebrate the expanding communicative beauty and potential of the spaces between laughter and language. A photographic series of the flags from another location will also be exhibited in the Green Room, Black Box, capturing the syzygetic unfurling and furling of the uttering of time, space, language and laughter. Ha ha.
Dan Shipsides, an artist based in Orchid Studios, Belfast, exhibits nationally and internationally and has received multiple awards. He works individually and within collaborative dynamics, notably that of Shipsides and Beggs Projects. He also teaches at the Belfast School of Art.
“WELCOME TO OIRLAND!” So opines the great Christopher Walken in the trailer to this infamous star-studded blarney from the pen of the man who brought us the equally infamous gorilla flick Congo.
The starry cast delivers a wildly diverse array of Irish accents – often at the same time and in the same scene – as they gurn and emote their way through this hokey cinematic tale set amongst the “wild mountain thyme”.
Headstrong farmer Rosemary Muldoon (Emily Blunt) has her heart set on winning her neighbour Anthony Reilly’s love. The problem is Anthony (Jamie Dornan) seems to have inherited a family curse, and remains oblivious to his beautiful admirer.
Stung by his father Tony’s (Christopher Walken) plans to sell the family farm to his American nephew (Jon Hamm), Anthony is jolted into pursuing his dreams in this unintentionally hilarious moving picture.
Join us for an unparalleled afternoon of celtic cringe, take part in our terrible Irish Accent competition and drink deep from the good stuff every time Jamie Dornan looks confused.
‘Makes the Quiet Man seem like Mean Streets’ – WHAT FILM
‘Finally, a film Christopher Walken is rubbish in.’ – CAHIERS DU CINEMA
Doors 1.30pm | Unreserved seating
Having studied music at the Belfast School of Music, Belfast fingerstyle guitarist David Browne Murray received a scholarship to attend the Berkelee School of Musicin Boston.
In 2004 he won the Ards Guitar Festival Young Guitarist Competition and in 2011 he was the outright winner of Lee Ritenour’s Six String Theory Competition.
David has been actively involved in the music scene in Belfast since his return from Berklee in 2011. Since then he has toured Ireland with some of the world’s great guitarists such as Frank Vignola, Andy McKee, Jan Akkerman and had the privilege of opening forTommy Emmanuel in a sold-out Ulster Hall.
Musical interests and inspirations couldn’t be more varied from film scores to electronica, choral and orchestral music in particular – all of which have enabled him to develop a wonderfully original take on the world’s most popular instrument.
Now, some 10 years after the release of his debut CDLift and Drag, it’s high time for a new volume aptly titledSquare One.
Recorded this year in Dock Street Studios, the new album of all original compositions contains many of the tunes that have become favourites at his live gigs over the last five years.
Doors 2.30pm | Unreserved seating
Join Elaine Farrell, Leanne McCormick and guests as they discuss ‘Bad Bridgets’ and the untold stories of generations of Irish female immigrants to the USA that history chose to forget.
Elaine and Leanne, creators of the celebrated ‘Bad Bridget’ podcast, have unearthed a world in which Irishwomen actually outnumbered Irish men in prison, in which you could get locked up for ‘stubbornness’ and in which an Irish serial killer called Lizzie Halliday was described by the New York Times as ‘the worst woman on earth.
In their book, Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women (Sandycove), they reveal the social forces that bred this mayhem and dysfunction, through stories that are brilliantly strange, sometimes funny, and often moving.
Doors 6.30pm | Unreserved seating
Enjoying a triumphant return to the Irish music scene as a solo artist, 2022 Saw Róisín O top the Irish and independent charts with her rapturously received album Courageous.
With tracks such as Heart +Bones, Still Gold, top 20 hit 2023, as well as Stolen, a co-write with Gavin James, still making waves at home and abroad, Róisín is delighted to bring her new show to CQAF.
Fresh from a world tour, Róisín entertained audiences across Europe, USA and Australia and is gearing up for an extensive Irish tour in 2023.
As well as many Irish festival appearances Róisín O has also shared the stage with a host of internationally renowned artists, including Lionel Richie, Bryan Ferry, Brad Paisley, Hozier and Colin Hay.
Róisín’s newly released album and recent world tour builds on a hugely successful musical career for the illustrious singer, but 2022 was Róisín O’s biggest year to date, with a number 1 Irish album, multiple top 20 singles and, for 2023, her renowned stage presence and electric energy is not to be missed.
Timo Vollbrecht is a Brooklyn-based saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and scholar. His music combines jazz with elements of post-rock, electronics, and instrumental songwriting. Originally from Germany, he has been a celebrated force in the creative music scenes of New York for over a decade. He has toured over 30 countries, appeared on numerous albums, and performed on landmark stages like the Village Vanguard and NYC’s Winter Jazz Fest.
Aside from his longstanding signature band FLY MAGIC, he also leads a trio with guitarist Ben Monder and vocalist Theo Bleckmann and has played with Branford Marsalis, Miho Hazama, Kenny Werner, and Ralph Alessi.
His latest recordings, Fly Magic (2016) and Faces in Places(2018), were both the featured “Jazz Album of the Week” on NDR Radio and appeared on influential playlists such as Spotify’s State of Jazz. His newest release, Givers & Takers, is coming out on October 21, 2022. The NYC Jazz Record describes Timo as a “luminously-fine” saxophonist whose music is “blessed with rhythmic fluidity and intricate twists.” As a composer, he has worked with dance, film, and podcasts and wrote a string quartet that was performed by the NYC-based JACK Quartet.
Moreover, Vollbrecht utilizes his insight as a practitioner to conduct scholarly research. He holds a Ph.D. from NYU with a dissertation entitled “Manfred Eicher, ECM Records: An Analysis of the Producer as Auteur.” It is an in vivo case study that portrays producer Eicher as an improviser whose ‘instrument’ is the studio. He was recently appointed Director of Jazz Studies at Brown University.
Website: www.timovollbrecht.com
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
ARXX are a Queer Alt-Rock Gal Pal Duo. They have been making moves all over the UK and Europe, including appearances at BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend, Great Escape, Icebreaker, and Left Of The Dial, headlining House of Vans Next Era show, supporting Black Honey, Liz Lawrence and Pillow Queens on their UK Headline Tours.
Now, having been making music together since 2017, they’ve received acclaim from the likes of BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders, Sophie K and Huw Stephens, Radio 6’s Steve Lamacq and John Kennedy on Radio X.
In 2021, ARXX have landed their first TV sync, with their single DEEP being featured on Prime Time BBC One for the Match of The Day coverage of the 2020 Euros.
They’ve received 1.7+ million streams and have been featured on editorial playlists such as New Music Friday, Hot New Bands and The Rock List.
Doors 7.30pm | Mostly Standing
‘Honestly everything about that I just love. Oh my god that one is definitely getting me super fired up, just love it.’ Jess Iszatt – BBC Radio 1
‘The duo have a knack for bruising riffs and deadpan lyrics. Their no-fucks spirit is infectious and invigorating.’ – NME
‘It cements them as one of the UK’s most exciting up-and-coming guitar acts’. The Forty Five
‘A Serenading Pop song’ –Steve Lamacq
‘ARXX are at the top of our every playlist right now. Their unapologetic attitude paired with a pop-edge, makes ARXX a vital addition to the queer music scene.’ – Diva Magazine
Aja, taken from the classic and iconic Steely Dan album, is an 8-piece musical powerhouse of a band whose members have over 40 years’ experience in the business.
They replicate in incredible detail the original recordings of the legendary Steely Dan. Aja have been performing these classic songs for 15 years and have grown accustomed to packed houses of music lovers of all ages and genres.
Original guitar, brass, keyboard solos and vocal harmonies are as true as can be to the original album recordings. Their 2-hour set generally consists of theentire Aja album in the first half and is a sight and sound to behold.
Aja are:
Gerard Farrelly – Keyboards, Alan Cunningham – Drums and Percussion, Colm Lindsey – Guitars, Mark Wilde – Saxes, Serge Stavilla – Saxes, Tommy Moore – Bass and Vocals, Sinead Stone – Vocals, John Graham – Lead Vocals.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
A euphoric record of Sheffield-based Studio Electrophonique, which nurtured a generation of superstars such as ABC, The Human League, Heaven 17, Clock DVA and Pulp.
Ken Patten was a panel beater who sported a rakish moustache and had a passion for music.
He built his own creative universe in the downstairs extension of his Handsworth council house.
It was here that he set about recording the sounds of Sheffield, nurturing a generation of nascent superstars who would go on to form some of the most iconic British bands of the 1980s and 1990s.
James Taylor’s film, the little-known story of Studio Electrophonique, celebrates a vision unconstrained by means and a name that almost died unheralded, but now survives on the outer ring road of art.
We were gutted to hear of the recent passing of the great Ryuichi Sakamoto.
One of the most important artists of our era, his career spanned from techno-pop stardom to Oscar-winning composer and anti-nuclear activist.
Sakamoto was a polymath in the truest sense of the word. Whether he was innovating with the legendary Yellow Magic Orchestra or going toe to toe with David Bowie in the movie Merry Christmas Mister Lawrence, his charisma, style and breath-taking talent shone through.
In honour of the great man, we’re showing a free screening of his beautiful 2017 documentary Coda.
This intimate, elegiac portrait explores Sakamoto’s return to music following a cancer diagnosis, leading to the creation of a haunting new masterpiece.
Rest in power.
This is a free screening, but advance booking is essential.
Join Ghouls On Film as they screen the cult classic ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ (1968), and consider the implications of a feminist reading, with a post-screening discussion facilitated by Dr. Jolene Mairs Dyer.
Rosemary’s Baby is one of the greatest movies of the late 1960s and one of the best of all horror movies, an outstanding modern Gothic tale. An art-house fable and an elegant popular entertainment, it finds its home on the cusp between a cinema of sentiment and one of sensation.
>Finally, after a decade of work, countless interviews and immersing deep into the culture, John Robb’s definitive book The History Of Goth is a journey deep into The Art Of Darkness. The first in-depth book on Goth is a deep dive into the enduring culture and the social, historical and political backdrop that created the space for the art of darkness to thrive.
JOHN ROBB is a ournalist: TV and Radio Presenter: Mentor: Musician (The Membranes), best-selling Pop Culture Author (Stone Roses, Punk Rock – An Oral History, Manchester – the North Will Rise Again): Public Speaker: Head of Louder Than Words – the UK’s biggest music and books festival: Head of the Green Britain Academy, an about to be launched scheme for training young people in Green and Eco jobs.
We think 2023 is going to be quite the year for Millisle-born artist Taylor Lally. After receiving her first guitar for Christmas at 11, she became enchanted with the instrument and, inspired by the music of James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Bob Marley, started writing her own songs. Taylor moved to BIMM (Brighton Institute of Modern Music) to study music performance and eventually graduated with a degree in songwriting.
Waiting until she finally felt comfortable and ready, Taylor started releasing her own music independently last year. Bliss-Less Musing Life is her first single and is a warm and poignant reflection on her experiences while studying songwriting in Brighton.
Recent support slots for Steve Forbert and Mary Coughlan have contributed to her growing reputation and headline slots are now beckoning, including a sold-out Courthouse show in Bangor in February.
‘‘2023 is the start. I am finally just stepping into the world.” muses Taylor “After so many years of playing cover songs in bars, studying, writing, and sculpting my style, no words can describe how that feels”
‘The singer from Co. Down has been compared to the likes of Rikki-Lee Jones with the guitar sensibilities of John Martyn. She also strikes a chord with her poignant songwriting craft. Dealing with themes of growing up in a changing Northern Ireland and healing from heartache … you can’t help but admire Taylor Lally’s impressive knack for pulling our heartstrings’ – CHORDBLOSSOM
Taylor’s performances during CQAF will be released in the coming weeks, please check back for details.
We are very proud to welcome Joshua Burnside, a former CQAF Artist in Residence, to headline the biggest stage of the festival.
Joshua has grown immensely as an artist over the past few years and it’s been a pleasure to watch him develop. In December he sold out the Ulster Hall so it seems the rest of the world is catching up.
Joshua Burnside is an experimental folk songwriter, singer and producer. He takes influence from alternative electronica and Irish traditional song heritages, chopping and blending them with a mixture of found sounds, world music and unorthodox production methods.
‘Joshua Burnside is the best songwriter in Ireland right now, and probably beyond’ – PHIL TAGGART, SIRIUS XM
“He creates a world and lets us live in it for a while… He’s like going to the theatre” – MARK RADCIFFE, BBC Radio 2
An hour of new material from Catherine Bohart. As seen and heard on Live At The Apollo, Mock The Week, Roast Battle, 8 Out of 10 Cats, The Stand Up Sketch Show and The Guilty Feminist Podcast.
Catherine started performing stand-up in 2015 and since then has enjoyed a rapid rise through the ranks of UK and Irish comedy.
In 2016, she was a finalist in both the BBC New Comedy Awards and Funny Women, drawing praise in the final of the former for having “a distinctive voice and a story you’d like to hear” (Chortle) and in the latter for being “pretty much the perfect comedy package” (Beyond The Joke).
Catherine was named on the BBC’s New Talent Hotlist 2017 and was runner-up in the Irish Comedian of the Year Final 2017. Catherine was selected for the prestigious Pleasance Reserve 2017 and has been named a Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year Nominee 2018.
‘Destined for stardom’ (Evening Standard)
‘The laughs keep coming and, finally, so does a tear or two. Marvellous’ ★★★★ (Times)
‘Beautifully-delivered hour’ ★★★★ (Skinny)
‘Packed full of laughs’ ★★★★ (Herald)
‘A winning mixture of self-deprecation and confidence’ ★★★★ (Beyond The Joke)
‘A fully developed comic voice’ ★★★★ (Fest)
‘Truly special’ ★★★★ (Edinburgh Festivals Magazine)
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Anne Gildea is waxing her moustache, slathering on the Oestrogel and boiling with excitement about bringing her fabulous hit show to CQAF.
How to Get The Menopause and Enjoy It has been wowing audiences and critics alike, and playing to packed house all over Ireland, since it’s sell-out launch last year.
An original, informative, wet-your-pants excursion through one of life’s last great mysteries – The Menopause! What is it? Why does it happen? Is there anything you can do about it? Why is it named after men? And why oh why is so little known about this inevitable phase of a woman’s life? Anne answers all these questions and more as she brings TMI to a whole new level.
‘This funny and taboo-busting work blasts the lid right off…Never has the female body been put under such an hilarious microscope…utterly punk’ –KATY HAYES, IRISH INDEPENDENT
What Audiences Are Saying
“I rarely find myself laughing so hard for so long at a live comedy event. Your writing, your energy and your added sparkle is worthy of the over-used term.”
“awesome…there’s nothing for it now but to bring a few buddies to forthcoming shows. I will be a How to Catch the Menopause and Enjoy It groupie.”
“Went with 10 friends tonight. Actually have a pain in my stomach from laughing n tears ran down my face! Thank u so much for this important work.”
“I enjoyed it so much I went a second time and brought the husband. He had tears streaming down his face with laughter.”
‘The funniest, most honest, and real show I have ever been to!”
“I’m sitting here today still laughing away to myself… loved every minute of last night … thank you.” “Fab night full of laughs, great for the soul.”
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage have more or less perfected a scuzzy and urban style of indie-folk – a 21st Century mash-up of Pete Seeger, R. Crumb and Sonic Youth.
A born and raised New Yorker, Lewis has been hard at work in the underground music and art world since the turn of the century – touring throughout the world and releasing eight acclaimed albums on the record labels Rough Trade and Don Giovanni.
He is also a widely respected comics artist who self-publishes a comic book series called ‘Statics’.
On stage Lewis is backed by his band the Voltage, including long-time collaboratorsBrent Cole(drums) and Mem Pahl (bass) as well as recent addition Mallory Feuer (violin and keys).
The spectacular full-length Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage albumBad Wiring was recorded in Nashville, TN with producer Roger Moute not (Yo La Tengo) and was released November 1, 2019.
Doors 7.30pm | Mostly Standing
Scaredy’s working the late shift at the cinema. Tonight’s schedule? Horror movie sexual awakenings of yesteryear. Lost in steamy recollections of Jesse Walsh dancing, Carrie and Tommy at the prom and the sinful duo of Ryan Philippe and Freddie Prinze Jr., Scaredy should be in ecstasy but evil horror host Count Calories keeps cutting in on the fun. It’s finally time for Scaredy to face their fears and stop being such a big Scaredy Fat.
Come to the movies with Scaredy as they poke fun at fat and queer representation in the horror genre, asking what it means to love a genre that doesn’t love you back.
We’re gonna need a bigger shirt…
Winner of the Les Enfants Terribles Award 2023 and the CQAF Theatre Bursary. See this Big Gay Spooky Treat before its Edinburgh debut.
Written and Performed by Colm McCready
Directed by Seón Simpson
Produced and Production Managed by Gina Donnelly
Costume Design by Níamh Kearney
Animation/Set Design and Poster Image by Fergus Wachala-Kelly
AV Design by Colm McCready
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
A series of artworks based on Amanda Dunsmore’s recollections of making the silent filmed portraits which comprise the artwork AGREEMENT.
AGREEMENT started in 2004 with an aim to film and acknowledge the important roles played by all the signatories of the Belfast ‘Good Friday’ Agreement. The resulting artwork consists of 14 video portraits through which the audience reflect on each of the sitters, as the sitters reflect silently.
This exhibition presents new work, entitled MEMENTO – AGREEMENT, involving drawing, text and printing process to revisit each of the video portraits that Dunsmore undertook between 2004 and 2022.These reflective portraits are made from a mix of typed text, pen & ink portraits and map etchings.
The drawings are accompanied by a video installation of Billy’s Museum, another artwork by Amanda Dunsmore that the AGREEMENT sitters viewed as their silent portraits were captured.
Dame Zandra Rhodes has been a notorious figurehead of the UK fashion industry for five decades, CQAF and Ulster University are delighted she joins us for this special Q and A with with Kathy Clugston on her life and career.
Setting up her own studio in 1969 and crowned Designer of the Year in 1972, Zandra Rhodes is one of the fashion world’s longest and brightest burning stars.
Zandra’s dresses and textiles have adorned some of the world’s most famous people, from Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury to Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Bianca Jagger, Kylie Minogue, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. Her vintage pieces are avidly collected by fashion heavyweights Tom Ford and Anna Sui, Zandra Rhodes really is an icon of British popular culture.
An eponymous pioneer of the British and international fashion scene since the late 60’s, Zandra’s career has seen her collaborate with brands such as Valentino, Topshop and Mac Cosmetics.
Continuing to collaborate with brands that inspire her Zandra has recently launched collections with the likes of IKEA of Sweden, Happy Socks, Free People and Fluevog amongst many other exciting partnerships and projects.
Janey Godley is ‘still alive, by popular demand’ with a brand-new show for 2023 and can’t wait to be back doing what she does best!
A few words from Janey:
‘My past year has been like a giant “Wordle” game that has swept the nation, I went from “cancel to cancer” in 6 weeks. No, I didn’t smack a man live at the Oscars, in front of millions of people, but I have apologised profusely for historic offensive tweets from over 11 years ago and ended up as the torn, worn out pass the parcel for tribal politics in Scotland. All my own doing, but now it’s time to laugh, live and celebrate after dealing with this dreadful disease.
I suffered severe mental illness during the online onslaught and whilst on my last tour in 2021 found a giant tumour in my ovary giblets and had to FIGHT to stay alive. Never one for the conventional path in life, I am still NOT DEAD YET and bringing my tour back on the road. So many stories of heart-warming love and outpouring of support to the occasional daily messages hoping I might die soon because … well I am a woman who answered back.’
‘A stand-up so personal in approach I wouldn’t be surprised if she breast-fed the front row’ – TIME OUT
‘The type of act you want to catch again and again, year after year.’★★★★★ – ONE4REVIEW
‘The Glasgow comedy queen’ – THE LIST
‘The most outspoken female stand-up in Britain… The most ribald and refreshing comedy talent to have risen from the slums of Glasgow since Billy Connolly…‘ –DAILY TELEGRAPH
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
The antithesis of a rock biography, Anonymous Club paints a raw and intimate picture of enigmatic singer-songwriter, Courtney Barnett.
At once an anti-influencer and powerful voice for our times, a recluse acclaimed by audiences the world over and a strong female artist in conflict with herself, this film lays bare the artist, the person and the image that fame creates around them.
With unprecedented, intimate access to the private life of the famously reclusive Barnett, filmmaker Danny Cohen (who also collaborated on many of her award-winning and highly imaginative music videos), Anonymous Club pulls back the curtain and invites us in…
‘Barnett works through creative crises, wrangles doubts and anguish, and the wrung-out exhaustion of giving everything to an audience of hungry strangers night after night. Anonymous Club is unusually candid and open in what it reveals about the cost of the creative process.’ –THE GUARDIAN
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
“I’ve come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum…”
35 years after its release, John Carpenter’s cult sci-fi satire about privilege, inequality and the “one per cent” is more grimly relevant now than ever.
They Live tells the story of Nada (“Rowdy” Roddy Piper), a homeless drifter who uncovers a shocking planet-wide alien conspiracy, with a little help from the most iconic shades in cinema history.
Along the way we get some razor-sharp observations, one of the greatest fight scenes ever filmed and some great one-liners. Initially ridiculed on release, it’s now regarded as a stone-cold classic. Come join is for this timely screening of one of our very favourite films.
Shades optional.
“They Live is one of the forgotten masterpieces of the Hollywood Left. The sunglasses function like a critique of ideology… When you put them on, you see the dictatorship in democracy, the invisible order which sustains your apparent freedom”Slavoj Žižek
Written and performed by Carol Murphy, The Body & Blood is a 19th Century Irish Famine Folk Fable told in verse. It is the story of Maggie Murtagh, an Irish country girl who transmogrifies into The Vigilante Cannibal Nun during The Famine, after the death of her family.
She steals from the rich to give to the starving poor. She eats the colonizers; becomes an addict; and destroys her soul on her quest to seek revenge.
The Body & Blood was launched online in January 2022 at www.thebodyandblood.co.uk. The first live performance was at The Black Box. The second performance was at VAULT Festival, London, 2023, where Murphy received rave reviews.
Gripping stage presence has you hooked from start to finish. Theatre and Tonic ****
Murphy is a whirlwind of a performer.Fairy Powered Pro ****
Murphy is a captivating performer, herself transmogrifying into the bardic role with electrifying swagger and aplomb. A Young(ish) Perspective ****
Carol Murphy is an artist, filmmaker, writer, and performer based in Belfast. She has attended numerous European art and film labs including The Atleliers, The Binger and The Turino Filmlab with numerous art and feature projects. She is currently developing the Horror/Sci Fi Feature, The Silent Tide, with Fantastic Films in Dublin, with development funding from NI Screen.
A FIERCE, FUNNY, BLOODY TAKE ON SOME OF THE OLDEST STORIES KNOWN TO WOMAN. FROM A KILLER GORGON.
What if there was another take on the Trojan War, an untold breathtaking adventure you had never heard before?
Enter Medusa. She was there.
Monstrous gorgon? Snakes for hair? A turn-to-stone glare? Perhaps. But she was there – as a bodiless head strapped to the shield of a goddess.
Her forever-open-eyes saw it all: Epic combat. Mighty swords. Giant horse-sculptures filled with men. But as the war raged on, Medusa’s petrifying gaze focused on three extraordinary women who might just hold the key to her ultimate hope.
Beautiful Evil Things is a new, high-energy, one woman show from Ad Infinitum combining physical storytelling with cut-throat wit. Coming hot on the heels of their multi award-winning hit, Odyssey, join Medusa for a thrilling adventure.
Number 4 in The Guardian’s ‘Best Theatre of 2022’
★★★★ Hair-raising, heart-quickening whirl of myths The Guardian
★★★★ High-intensity performance in Ad Infinitum’s signature style The Stage
★★★★ A Greek epic with startling modern relevance Morning Star
★★★★ A powerhouse performance The Fix Magazine
★★★★★ Up there among the best shows we’ve ever seen Lifestyle Distrct
★★★★★ Never was the story of the classical Greek heroes and villains better told StageTalk Magazine
A tour de force…an outstanding performance British Theatre Guide
★★★★★ Absolute masterpiece Fairy Powered Productions
Fast, furious and energetic…a faultless performance What’s on Bristol
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
World renowned traditional singer and flute player Nuala Kennedy grew up playing Irish music in Dundalk, County Louth and now lives in Ennis, County Clare.
Nuala is known for her creative reworking and reimagining of traditional songs and for her unique Irish flute style, formed in Dundalk and honed in her long-time adopted home of Edinburgh, Scotland.
She is a musical adventurer who is recognized world-wide as a superlative performer of traditional music. Day is Come (2022) by The Alt (with John Doyle and Eamon O’Leary) is the latest release on Under the Arch Records, an independent record label Nuala founded in 2014.
Nuala’s roots are first and foremost in Irish music, but she ‘something of a genre bender’ according to Living Tradition magazine.
Outside of traditional music, Nuala trained as a classical pianist and has toured and recorded with Will Oldham/Bonnie Prince Billie, Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), Euros Childs (Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci) and is a member of Snowflake Trio, with Norwegian musicians Vegar Vårdal and Frode Haltli.
Nuala recently sang with Janis Ian on her release The Light at the End of the Line.
Tony Byrne, Dublin guitarist, has been involved in music from a young age. Following family holidays in West Kerry, Tony developed an Interest in Irish traditional music and has been involved in the performance, recording and teaching of it since 1999. Past performances include concerts with acts such as Danu, Sharon Shannon, Michael McGoldrick, Gerry o Connor, David Munnelly Band, Matt Molloy, Paul Brady, Julie Fowlis, Lunasa and many more.
Tara Breen, a highly talented multi-instrumentalist from Ruan Co. Clare, has achieved All-Ireland titles on fiddle in every age category over the years, culminating with the All-Ireland Senior Fiddle Title in 2012. In 2014, she joined six-time Grammy award winning band, The Chieftains, and also performs with the legendary band, Stockton’s Wing. Tara recorded a wonderful duet album, Nasc, with concertina player Padraig Rynne in 2021.
‘A flute player and composer of remarkable finesse, fearless of the unknown.’ —THE IRISH TIMES
‘Cheeky, dynamic and full of ideas.’ —SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Bricolage brings together a selection of new works by some of Ireland’s freshest up and coming artists for an evening that promises to be unlike anything you’ve seen before.
Part living, moving art installation, part aerial and circus performance –Bricolage is the brainchild of Belfast based aerialist Emmen Donnelly and will transform the warehouse space of Circusful into a dreamlike landscape inhabited by roving human creatures on the ground and in the air.
This re-imagined cabaret will feature Dublin based acrobats Anja Nicholson and Jonah McGreevy from Loosysmokes, renowned for their evocative site-specific work; Chloe Commins whose piece talks about growing up as a child of deaf parents; Sacha Krohnone of Ireland’s only aerial straps artists; local juggler extraordinaire Jacob Anderson and Monika Palova and Sean McIlraith with a duo performance on themes of female experiences and relationships, explored through duo aerial rope and the rarely seen art of hair hanging.
Bricolage is supported by Arts Council Ireland
We are delighted to welcome broadcasting legend Jon Snow to Belfast for this in conversation event with Kathy Clugston.
There has been huge media curiosity about Jon Snow’s politics over the years. In The State of Us, he issues a rallying cry to tackle inequality, to fight injustice, to diversify politics and the media, recover our sense of community and, above all, to empower the news media to tell the truth about the state of our world.
In The State of Us, Jon Snow traces how the life of the nation has changed across his five-decade career, from getting thrown out of university for protesting apartheid to interviewing every prime minister from Margaret Thatcher to Boris Johnson.
In doing so, he shows how the greatest problems at home and abroad so often come down to inequality and an unwillingness to confront it.
But that is not our fate. Despite the challenges, Snow has witnessed profound social progress. In this passionate rallying cry, he argues that at its best, journalism reflects not just who we are now, but who we can be. We’ve had enough of division; the future is for us.
Biography:
Jon Snow was the face of Channel 4 News from 1989 to 2021. In that time, he reported from dozens of countries, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to Barack Obama’s inauguration, and interviewed countless world leaders including Ronald Reagan, Idi Amin, Tony Blair, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Nelson Mandela, as well as cultural icons from Malala Yousafzai to Marcus Rashford.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating
During the last weekend of Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, 6-7 May,
ceramicist Rachel Ho, artist and designer Micah Purnell and painter Orla Gilkeson
will leave 300 beautiful ‘gifts to the city’ around Cathedral Quarter to find and keep,
to remind us to embrace our stories of loss and self-worth.
Artists will leave 100 Kintsugi pots, 100 You Are Enough oak engravings, and 100 square abstract paintings which the public are invited to find, and keep as gifts. The art will be placed on the streets of Belfast around Cathedral Quarter on the final weekend of CQAF, 6-7 May.
Each gift will be accompanied by an invite to share anonymously how the artworks resonated with those who find them at www.gifttothecity.org where you’ll be able to read stories of difficulty and hope as the artworks are found.
Rachel Ho (www rachelho.co.uk) is a ceramicist who has exhibited nationally. Her work is inspired by Kintsugi, an ancient Japanese method of mending broken pottery with gold, resulting in more precious pots. Rachel explains: “I deliberately scar the porcelain pots to symbolize the fragility of our lives. These scars are then filled with gold lustre; expressing the mystery of new beginnings and new life even in our deepest pain. Everyone bears a scar, whether physical, mental or emotional. The scarred pots represent all our stories of loss and reflect the beauty of hope, healing and renewal. Just as ancient pots have told stories for thousands of years, my art continues in that tradition connecting ceramics with some of our deepest stories.”
Micah Purnell (www.micahpurnell.com), whose clients include The Guardian, Elbow and the NHS, is a text based artist who has exhibited in group shows alongside Turner prize winner Douglas Gordon and global street artist JR. The award-winning artist and designer, renowned for his typographic work that took over Wembley Park during the Euros works to bring the humanities to public spaces. His well known phrase ‘You are Enough’ has appeared across the city over the last few years as giant banners and billboards. He says:
‘My work is a lot about togetherness and self-worth. The oak reminders are made by Chapel-in-the-fields who use wood as a vehicle to work with people who have mental health vulnerabilities. I hope the phrase You Are Enough will help people to cut themselves some slack from the ever demanding voices in society and recognise the spark of beauty in themselves.”
Accompanying Rachel and Micah will be Orla Gilkeson who will be leaving 100 square abstract paintings.
Orla Gilkeson (www.orlagilkesonart.com) is a contemporary Northern Irish artist whose work explores memory and a sense of place, often through abstracted landscape paintings. This collection of 100 paintings uses salvaged wood as a vehicle to communicate the importance of restoration and hope through the connections we make with what we find around us.
‘I have created 100 abstract paintings on wooden squares salvaged from old pallet boards. Each one bears a unique visual history of layers, marks, and scores with faint, gold lifelines of hope running through. We are replenished when we seek to salvage the lost and forgotten parts of ourselves and our worlds, creating threads of hope through connection.’
‘Gift to the City’ is a Passion Art project. It is dedicated to our late friend and founder Lesley Sutton, who passed away shortly after Gift to the City in Manchester, in the summer of 2022. Lesley founded Passion Art to build bridges between sacred and secular spaces through art. She was as beautiful in dying, as she was in living.
The project aims to help people feel seen and less alone, to recognise we all have our daily battles and to create a sense of hope and healing.
www.gifttothecity.org // #gifttothecity
PASSION ART
@PassionArtTrail twitter @passionartuk insta
Rachel Ho
www.rachelho.co.uk // rachdot@hotmail.com // @rachelhoceramics insta @rachelhoceramic twitter
Micah Purnell
www.micahpurnell.com // studio@micahpurnell.com // @micahpurnell insta
0161 236 5459 or 07990 533 749
Orla Gilkeson
www.orlagilkesonart.com orlagilkesonart@gmail.com
@orla.gilkeson.art insta
You can anonymously share how the gifts resonate with you: www.gifttothecity.org
Widely considered one of the most charismatic performers on stage, Steve Harley continues to play to sold-out venues across the UK and Europe. And with the recent release of the all-acoustic CD, Uncovered, the original Cockney Rebel shows no sign of slowing down.
The Acoustic Band finds Steve supported by long-standing bandmate, violinist/guitarist Barry Wickens, with Oli Hayhurst on double bass, and Dave Delarre on lead guitar.
Steve has been playing Live shows around the world for 50 years and the thrill of another night in another place to another audience has not dimmed at all. “We have real adventures on tour, “says Steve. “I’ve seen the Northern Lights, the Midnight Sun and dozens of wonderful galleries, museums and great cities, all on my down-time. I have a great life as a Wandering Minstrel!”
Uncovered includes a re-recording of Steve’s own highly-esteemed song Love, Compared With You with a newly composed third verse, plus his thus-far unrecorded Only You, and nine other songs he’s always wanted to perform.
The acoustic sets will include songs from the new CD, plus a selection from the vast and eclectic Harley Songbook. Mr Soft, Judy Teen, Sebastian and the legendary Make Me Smile will all be reproduced in the unique acoustic style.
Close-Up Culture stated: “It was an intimate night in the presence of a great musician. An individual whose passion for live performance and perfection (it shows in his face) remains undiminished.”.
Rod Stewart, who covered Steve’s song A Friend For Life, describes him as “One of the finest lyricists Britain has produced.”
MOJO said simply, “Harley creates rock songs that are proud, lyrical and full of yearning.”Steve has also been described as “A consummate performer at the top of his game,” and this show will bear that out.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Sarah Firby has been a favourite on the NI comedy scene for 5 years, and is the founder of Coven Comedy Club.
Sarah is one of Belfast’s most exciting new standup comedians and is performing her debut solo hour for CQAF. Don’t Threaten Me With a Good Time is about Fun, not having fun and the inner peace that comes from finally admitting you don’t want to. It’s a brand-new show infused with joy, wisdom, compassion and dark wit (as well as a disturbing amount of cat material).
“It’s about bloody time this show happened. Sarah is funny, smart and doesn’t have time for your nonsense.” – Teresa Livingstone
Supported by The CQAF Creative Bursary programme.
Promising to be one of the most significant local jazz releases in many years, Linley’s new album Ginger’s Hollow is a tour de force featuring Derek DOC O’Connor (tenor sax), Cian Boylan (piano), Mark Egan (bass) and Adam Nussbaum (drums).
Linley Hamilton is a trumpeter, educator and broadcaster from Belfast who has been part of the jazz scene for over 35 years. He has recorded 5 studio albums and has just finished recording Ginger’s Hollow with his quintet, a post-bop follow-up to the acclaimed For the Record.
Linley has maintained an academic path following up his 2009 Masters in Jazz Performance from DIT and Medal for Academic Excellence, with a PhD from Ulster University Magee in 2014, and a full-time position there as Lecturer in Music.
Linley also has a jazz show on BBC Radio Ulster, Jazz World with Linley Hamilton, which broadcasts on Saturday nights at 9pm.
In recent years, Linley has set up Magy’s Farm with his wife Maggie, a performance space mostly for jazz from around the world.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
piglet is the project of Irish songwriter and producer Charlie Loane, born and raised in Belfast and based in South London.
His new seven songs EP is a collection of tracks that detail his experiences of mental health, substance abuse, affirmations of self-identity, trans experience and friendship.
The EP includes re-recordings of previously released solo singles ‘mill’, ‘dans note’ and ‘oan’; songs which lead to a deal with London label Blue Flowers (Puma Blue, Nilüfer Yanya, Westerman) in early 2022.
These songs were captured in a live session by NTS Radio of piglet’s expanded 9 piece band featuring members of Goat Girl and caroline.
piglet released his first EP alex’s birthday in February 2020 on South London DIY label Double Dare, a warm set of songs which, like his writ- ing with past project Great Dad, reflects themes of queer/trans experience, but with more of a personal focus. Two collaboration tracks with friends Porridge Radio were released in February 2021 through the Secretly Canadian label.
“indie bedroom-pop artist on the rise”PAPER
“music that wastes no time in getting the point across”Loud & Quiet
“scrappy and melodic songs try to make sense of the world surrounding him”FADER
“playful at times, thought-provoking at others, unfiltered and honest throughout”So Young
“There’s something of the Xiu Xius to the way piglet combines the delicate and the disarming”DIY
Award winning, US singer songwriter Diana Jones is known for her gritty, literary, Appalachian influenced songs.
Adopted as an infant and raised in Long Island, NY, the fact that Diana couldn’t get enough of her brother’s Johnny Cash records finally made sense when she found her birth family and musical roots in the Smoky Mountains of Eastern Tennessee.
Her maternal grandfather, who had formed his first teenage band with a young Chet Atkins, was happy to pass on the culture and the music that he loved to his granddaughter. Diana’s first album My Remembrance Of You (Proper Records) in 2006 garnered rave reviews internationally and set her on a path which would see her release four further critically acclaimed albums: Better Times Will Come (2008), High Atmosphere (2011), Museum Of Appalachia Recordings (2013) and Live In Concert (2016).
She has toured the globe, including performances at prestigious events such as Cambridge Folk Festival, Galway Arts Festival, Levon Helm’s Ramble in Woodstock, NY, and Bimhuis in Amsterdam, and shared stages with the likes of Richard Thompson, Janis Ian and Mary Gauthier.
She has also appeared on world-renowned TV and radio showsLater With Jools Holland, BBC4Folk America, BBC4’sSongwriters Circle and BBC Radio 2 Country with Bob Harris.
Diana’s progressive, yet historically rich, songs have been recorded by artists including Joan Baez and Gretchen Peters and have won her awards from Kerrville Folk Festival, New Song Festival and nominations from International Folk Alliance.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
“You’d have to be as heartless as Hans Gruber not to be touched and uplifted.”
James Seabright presents
Yippee Ki Yay
by Richard Marsh
Acclaimed retelling of classic film Die Hard from Richard Marsh – Fringe First-winner, London poetry slam champion, BBC Audio Drama Best Scripted Comedy Drama award-winner and New York cop (one of these is untrue). This joyfully funny show heads out on tour following rave reviews for its premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe, which also won it a London transfer.
When gunmen seize an LA skyscraper, off-duty policeman John McClane is the hostages’ only hope. This uplifting action romp (and unauthorised parody) pays affectionate tribute to the iconic 80s festive fan favourite. Essential viewing for Hans Gruber superfans and newcomers alike.
Content warning: divorce, foot trauma, German terrorists.
“Whether you’re a Die Hard fan or not, it guarantees happy trails.”
★★★★ The Guardian
“Epically entertaining show is a love letter to a masterpiece.”
★★★★ The Times
“Playful, inventive… genius creation.” ★★★★ Mail on Sunday
“An exciting, poetic dramedy gem… simply to Die Hard for.” ★★★★ Scottish Mail
“Rollicking fun!” ★★★★ British Theatre Guide
“Absolutely glorious! His rhyming Bruce Willis is spot-on, but it’s the concurrent love story that really pulls you in.” British Comedy Guide
Critic’s Choice – The Stage, Time Out, Telegraph
Cast and Creative team
Written and performed by Richard Marsh
Alternate performer Darrel Bailey
Directed by Hal Chambers
Movement and Associate Director Emma Webb
Lighting Designer Robbie Butler
Sound Designer and Composer Ben Hudson
Ykylive.com
The Crowd Show is a comedy/theatre/spoken word show about crowds, people and connection. The Crowd Show is a show suitable for anybody who has been in a crowd or wants to be in the crowd for this show.
Rob Auton is an award-winning writer, actor and podcaster, named the “Brian Cox of Comedy” by the Guardian.
Rob has written eight hit Edinburgh Fringe shows, which have led to nationwide tours and television/radio appearances. Rob has had four collections of poetry and illustrations published byBurning Eye Books and Harper Collins.
In 2020, Rob started The Rob Auton Daily Podcast which went on to amass over two million listens and win a gold award for Best Daily Podcast at the British Podcast Awards.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
‘A genuine original. Poetical, philosophical, humane, completely charming and funny to boot.’ – THE GUARDIAN
‘Makes laughter out of wonder and brings us all together. We need him.’ –THE SCOTSMAN
‘Something that’ll leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy round the edges.’ – THE HERALD
‘Brilliant.’ – STEWART LEE
Celebrating the music of Afghanistan and Beyond
Saphwat Simab (Rubab virtuoso)
An official disciple of the world’s foremost Rubab master, Ustad Homayoun Sakhi of Afghanistan, Saphwat Simab is a British-born-and-bred artist who has been learning and playing the Rubab since the age of 10.
Saphwat’s tone and melodious playing has captured the hearts of audiences at every performance, his on-stage confidence and command on the instrument as well as his command on the rhythmic cycles whilst improvising in any composition with the Tabla accompaniment is mesmerising.
Saphwat has been accompanied on stage by some of the world’s most renowned Tabla masters, such as Ustad Sukhvinder Singh “Pinky”, Pandit Sanju Sahai and Ustad Shahbaz Hussain.
He has performed at some prestigious venues, such as the Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, the National Court Theatre, and the Nehru Centre, as well as at some other relevant venues in the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Canada.
JUNAID ALI
Junaid is a tabla player amongst the younger generation. Being born and raised in London, Junaid is the student of Ustad Shahbaz Hussain and the son of Ustad Zeeshan Ali, a prominent ghazal singer. Junaid is a young exponent of the Punjab and Delhi Gharana of Tabla. Junaid hopes to carry on the legacy of his teacher and grand-father gurus, namely: Ustad Faiyyaz Khan, Ustad Allarakha Khan and Ustad Mian Shaukat Hussain Khan.
In partnership with Alghochak (Afghan Association) & Beyond Skin.
Under the current regime in Afghanistan music is forbidden. This event is Belfast sharing its City of Music status to preserve and celebrate Afghan culture.
Fern Brady will be in conversation about her brand new memoir, Strong Female Character. Fern will be in conversation discussing the different facets of Strong Female Character including growing up as a working-class Scottish woman, her comedy career, and her autism diagnosis.
About Strong Female Character:
If you’ve ever been on a night out where you got blackout drunk and have laughed the next day as your friends tell you all the stupid stuff you said, that’s what being autistic feels like for me: one long blackout night of drinking, except there’s no socially sanctioned excuse for your gaffes and no one is laughing.
A summary of my book: 1. I’m diagnosed with autism 20 years after telling a doctor I had it. 2. My terrible Catholic childhood: I hate my parents etc. 3. My friendship with an elderly man who runs the corner shop and is definitely not trying to groom me. I get groomed. 4. Homelessness. 5. Stripping. 6. More stripping but with more nervous breakdowns. 7. I hate everyone at uni and live with a psycho etc. 8. REDACTED as too spicy. 9. After everyone tells me I don’t look autistic, I try to cure my autism and get addicted to Xanax. 10. REDACTED as too embarrassing.
Fern Brady Author
Fern Brady is a woman. She is also autistic. She was born in Scotland (no, not Glasgow). She has no presets for being a ‘good woman’ – she never hated her body or indulged in messy millennial shame. She now lives out of wedlock in London. She has zero children.
Fern’s caustic wit, exceptional writing and electric stage craft has made her one of the UK’s hottest comedy stars. As seen on Live from the BBC, Live from the Comedy Store, The Russell Howard Hour, and Live at the Apollo. She’s had viral success with her BBC Life Lessons and supported Frankie Boyle and Katherine Ryan on tour. She was recently a contestant on Taskmaster on Channel 4.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Japan’s legendary BORIS are greeting their 30-year career as one of experimental music’s most forward-thinking, heavy, and innovative bands. Continuing to expand their prolific catalog, the group returns with Heavy Rocks (2022) (via Relapse Records) and once again channels the classic proto-metal sounds of the 70’s into something all new.
Boris formed in 1992 and eventually arrived at the band’s current lineup of Takeshi, Wata, and Atsuo in 1996. In the years since, Boris has tirelessly explored their own rendition of what is heavy through methods entirely their own.
Though the depths of their “heaviness” may intensify, their unique musicianship defies classification in any one genre or style, so let’s just call it real “heavy music” in extreme color. Their music has been called a “game changer” – at the leading edge of the world’s rock scene, and that influence is limitless.
They enter realms that cannot be described simply in terms of the “explosive sound” or “thunderous roars” that have become their trademark.
Recently, the group ramped up during the pandemic and released the most extreme album of their long and widely celebrated career, NO, a self-released the album, desiring to get it out as quickly as possible but intentionally called the final track on the album “Interlude” while planning its follow-up.
It’s successor came with W, their 2022 release for Sacred Bones Records. NO and W weave together to form NOW, a duo of releases that respond to one another. In following their hardest album with this sensuous thundering masterpiece they are creating a continuous circle of harshness and healing, one that seems more relevant now than ever and shows the band operating at an apex of their musical career.
Doors 7.30pm | Mostly Standing
in partnership with the Japan Foundation
An issues-based music collective from Teesside in the North East of England. ‘We write songs about the urgencies that concern us. These songs are loud.’
Forming in 2019 and consisting of Kingsley Hall on vocals, Robbie Major and Hugh Major on synths and noise with Cat Myers on drums, they quickly evolved from a fairly standard IDLES-lite shouty punk rock outfit to a highly politicised group that merges noise, hip hop, industrial rock, electronica, garage and an angry twitter feed to get it’s point across.
A resolutely DIY outfit and despite having little radio play (due to the nature of their lyrics),through their releases they have managed to gain fans as diverse as Sleaford Mods, Black Francis, Garbage, Billy Bragg and Elijah Wood as well as getting significant features in the NME, Rolling Stone, and the Quietus.
Now a formidable live outfit with numerous sold out shows and tours under their belt they aim to keep the momentum going into 2023.
Doors 7.30pm | Mostly Standing
From the North Coast of Ireland, ferna tells the stories that otherwise get lost in the noise.
On a mission to amplify quiet sentiments and shift focus to hidden characters, ferna delivers a remarkable sound that merges the organic and the electronic, filled with conflicting emotions, fragile beauty and powerful hooks.
The musical alias of composer & singer-songwriter Hannah McPhillimy, ferna has performed alongside the likes of Foy Vance and The Gloaming, and more recently took home the NI Music Prize for Single of the Year for her first official single Wasting.
To celebrate the release of her debut album Understudy, ferna will perform a rare full-band show in the iconic setting of the Belfast Empire.
‘the future’s bright for ferna’ – BBC INTRODUCING
‘a bit of a wonder’ – THE IRISH TIMES
‘Beautiful and arresting’ – RADIO NOVA
Doors 7.30pm | Mostly Seated
Kate Rusby, hailed as the ‘First Lady of Folk’ and a Mercury Music accolade to her name, has forged an impressive 30-year, headlining career.
A folk singer at heart, she’s taken the genre to new heights appealing way beyond the folk scene and her Yorkshire roots, headlining in the UK and internationally, performing with other big names in music across genres.
She has a number of TV, radio and film credits to her name as well as her own record company and a festival, Underneath the Stars.
2023 brings to a close a year of celebrating 30 years in the business with a new album ’30 : Happy Returns’ featuring guests: Richard Hawley, KT Tunstall and Ladysmith Black Mambazo to name a few.
This follows the success of her 2020 Top 10 charting covers album Hand Me Down. Kate will be joined on stage by her band, each a virtuoso in their own right including her husband and producer Damien O’ Kane.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating
Julie Campbell, known as LoneLady, is an artist from Manchester. Her music is influenced by the post-punk era, later integrating dance and funk influences.
Self-taught on many instruments including guitar, bass, synths, drum machines and later learning cello, Julie writes all the parts and plays all the instruments on her recordings, with the exception of real drums.
Created on electronic sequencers, synths and drum machines in a basement bunker beneath Somerset House, London, LoneLady’s 3rd studio album Former Things is a tour-de-force of punch-and-crunch electro, r’n’b and pop, shot through with mournful eulogies to the lost golden age of childhood and youth.
She has released 3 critically-acclaimed albums on Warp: Nerve Up (2010), Hinterland (2015) and Former Things (2021).
LoneLady’s influences include Nico, Colin Newman, Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, A Certain Ratio, Public Image Ltd. and Gang Of Four.
Doors 8.45pm | Mostly Standing
Dates and Times
Friday, 5 May 2023, 14.00-16.30
Saturday, 6 May, 10.00-12.30
Meeting Point
Clifton House
2 North Queen Street
Belfast
BT15 1ES
Please arrive 10-15 minutes before the start of the tour.
Parking
Onsite parking is available
Description
Experience Mary Ann McCracken’s Belfast, as you walk in the footsteps of this remarkable abolitionist, philanthropist and social reformer. Mary Ann McCracken, who was born over 250 years ago, is intrinsically linked to the city of Belfast. She lived her fearless life championing causes, moving from place to place, always on a mission to make life better for those less fortunate than herself.
Hear too about her more radical nature. Her role in the work of the United Irishmen, the 1798 rebellion and beyond. How she was devoted to her older brother Henry Joy – hanged for his leading role in the rebellion.
This walking tour takes in the locations linked to her life, her endeavours and that of her family. You will be led by an experienced guide through the same streets she walked over 200 years before. This new walking tour starts at Clifton House, where Mary Ann’s thirst for philanthropic causes first began, and where her impact can still be seen today, and finishes near Belfast City Hall.
Booking link
https://maryannmccrackenfoundation.org/events/upcoming/
Early Show – 7.00pm
On Friday 5 May, U.S. indie-rock royalty Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss aka Quasi play their first Belfast show in 17 years at the Ulster Sports Club. After nearly three decades of launching drums and distorted pianos through the shifting interzones of harmony and chaos (moonlighting along the way with the likes of Sleater-Kinney, Elliott Smith, Jon Spencer and the HITmakers, Wild Flag, Built to Spill and a long list of others), the duo continue to be a genre of their own.
Hosted by self-confessed Quasi evangelists The Thin Air, this early show is part of a EU/UK tour, celebrating Breaking the Balls of History, their tenth record – and Sub Pop debut – which lands ten years after their last record, on February tenth. Three tens, which aligns with the thirty years they’ve played together. Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss have become Pacific Northwest icons, and Quasi has always felt so steadfast – their enduring friendship so generative, their energy infinite, each album more raucous and catchy and ferocious and funny than the last.
Tickets £14.
Support From COWTOWN
Ever evolving rock band from Leeds consisting of Jonathan Nash on guitar/vocals, David Michael Shields on drums and Hilary Knott on keybass/vocals. They began life as a bizarre grungy noise duo before adding Nash and succumbing to the influence of late 70’s/early 80’s punk, post-punk and new wave; Devo, B52’s, Pere Ubu, Walls Of Voodoo, ESG, Liquid Liquid, Black Flag, Minutemen, Tom Tom Club etc, and the soundtracks that galvanised their earliest listening experiences; Teenwolf, Karate Kid, Gremlins, Beverley Hills Cop, Ghostbusters etc. Couple that with an obsessive fascination with They Might Be Giants (which explains away their namesake) and you have some idea of what to expect from the trio. Four albums in with a fifth on the way, there’s a chance you may be stuck with COWTOWN indefinitely…sorry”
Press for Breaking The Balls of History
“Breaking the Balls of History is a gritty rendering of Quasi’s classic garage sound, spearheaded by the blistering single “Nowheresville,” serving as a long-awaited return to form for the band—who bring a triumphant masterclass to the forefront of Sub Pop’s modern catalog 10 years after their last record, Mole City.” [“The 33 Most Aniticpated Releases of 2023”] –PASTE
“[Queen Of Ears] Has all the Quasi earmarks: pointed lyrics, jagged melodies, skronky organ, bashing drums, and Sam & Janet’s distinctive harmonies.” – Brooklyn Vegan
“Lead single “Queen Of Ears” finds Coomes and Weiss bashing away on their keyboard and drums, respectively, lending a raw edge to an otherwise bright and poppy song. The backing vocals are clutch on this one.”- Stereogum
“A punchy blend of state-of-things stream of consciousness and melodic brightness signals the much-awaited return of Pacific Northwest legends Quasi.” – Shindig!
On their sophomore album Omens, siblings Kim and Mike Rauss AKA Kayam set off on an ethereal, psychedelic journey of self-discovery building on the success of debut albumSand to Snow.
From the intimacy of folk to indie-pop, Kayam’s sound reflects a lot of nuances and originality rooted in their multicultural upbringing in places like England, Germany, and Israel.
It is in their live performances that Kayam really excel. Kim, who provides stunning vocals, also plays the Celtic Harp.
Mike is a versatile performer who plays guitar and sings. In addition, he also builds intricate fabrics of looped parts, often using his guitar as a percussive instrument and even beatboxing from time to time. One of the hidden gems of the festival we think.
Not Now is a sharply written, heartfelt comedy about the past, identity and moving on – from David Ireland – the multi-award-winning author of Cyprus Avenue.
“You’re an Irish Daniel Radcliffe.” “I’m British!” “You’re a British Daniel Radcliffe. From Ireland.”
The morning after his father’s funeral, an unsure and still grief-stricken Matthew prepares to fly to London to audition for the prestigious drama school, RADA.
When his painter-decorator Uncle Ray interrupts his private rendition of Richard III’s opening monologue to offer some unwanted direction and dubious career advice, Matthew starts to doubt whether he should really be leaving Belfast in the first place.
Or is Belfast where he truly belongs?
David Ireland’s dialogue is nonstop sparkle; the development of the play is beautifully judged in Max Elton’s production, as the boy (Matthew Blaney) moves from gangle and sullenness to candour and the uncle (Stephen Kennedy) from joviality to reluctant disclosure.
There is, as always with Ireland, an unflinching look at Protestant politics, but Not Now adds different notes. His greatest play so far, Cyprus Avenue, was a satire fuelled by an imaginative flight of which Jonathan Swift would have been proud. This drama has a new warmth. It also clinches on a beautiful reanimation of Shakespeare’s words about changing “dreadful marches to delightful measures”. The Guardian. Review of Glasgow production.
★★★★★Five Stars, London Theatre 1
★★★★★Five Stars, Close Up Culture
★★★★The Guardian
★★★★Four Stars, The Observer
★★★★Four Stars, The Stage
★★★★Four Stars, Daily Mail
★★★★Four Stars, Morning Star
Off West End Award Nomination for LEAD PERFORMANCE IN A PLAY Matthew Blaney
Off West End Award Nomination for LEAD PERFORMANCE IN A PLAY Stephen Kennedy
This production was first produced in association with Neil McPherson at the Finborough Theatre’
Approximately 50 minutes with no intervals.
Production Team
Director: MAX ELTON
Designer: CECI CALF
Sound Designer and Composer: JACK BAXTER
Lighting Designer: MATTIS LARSON
Associate Producer: BRIAR KNOWLES
Producer: SARAH ROY
Continuing on from one of his biggest years yet, which included a mini UK & IRE tour and not only performing but being nominated in two categories at the NI Music Prize, Leo Miyagee is one to watch.
Having established himself locally, Leo’s reach is growing across the water, with his rhythmic flow, poetic one-liners and picturesque sounding beats. He’s fast becoming one of the faces of urban music in the north.
Doors 7.45pm | Limited Unreserved Seating
Jolie Holland grew up playing music in Houston, Texas and was a traveling musician as a teenager. She formed The Be Good Tanyas with Samantha Parton in Vancouver in 1999. Shortly before The Be Good Tanyas released their debut record, Blue Horse, in 2001, Jolie Holland settled in San Francisco. It was there that she recorded the songs that eventually became Catalpa, released in 2003
Over the span of her career, Jolie Holland has knotted together a century of American song—jazz, blues, soul, rock and roll—into some stew that is impossible to categorize with any conventional critical terminology.
This is her burden and her gift, to know all of these American songs of the last ten decades in her head and her heart, and to have to wrestle with their legacy. She dives straight to the pathos of a song the way the very greatest singers, singers like Mavis Staples, or Al Green, or Skip James, or Tom Waits do.
As evident on her first recordings, Holland has no fear of the truth, and there is no emotional core that she cannot reach in song. In fact she thrives on the red hot centre of a musical composition, in all its strange and brutal detail.
Which brings us to Wine Dark Sea. Listeners to Holland’s work will recognize how her writing over the years has deepened and matured. The classic Holland lyrical concerns are evident in songs like Palm Wine Drunkard, and St. Dymphna, and Out on the Wine Dark Sea, all of which mix a density of literature and poetry to brutalities of romantic love, to the fragmentation of self and narrator in a torrent of loss and grief.
There has been no album of the recent decade with quite this sonic ambition, with quite this command of what a rock and roll song is and ought to be, but Wine Dark Sea is all of that.It is the album of a lifetime with a lifetime of work in it.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating
is a project which features the music of Kevin Murphy, a celebrated cellist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and songwriter from Cork Ireland.
He is also a founding member of critically acclaimed Irish experimental bands Slow Moving Clouds and Seti The First. Blind Stitch has just released its debut album – The Emperor’s Lung.
Kevin has featured as a guest musician with many Irish and international artists such as The National, Bon Iver, Jenny Lewis, Lisa Hannigan, Gavin Friday, Rick Danko, Seamus Fogarty, Adrian Crowley and Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode.
He has also collaborated with Irish traditional and folk musicians such as John Spillane, Cathy Jordan, Phil Callery Cormac Breathnach, and Ger Wolfe in live settings and on recordings.
His band Seti The First co-wrote two songs on The Waterboys 2017 album Out Of All This Blue. He also participates in the People collective spearheaded by Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) and Bryce and Aaron Dessner (The National). This has resulted in collaborations with the above artists and others in festivals across Europe in recent years including the Funkhaus in Berlin 2018 and Sounds from a Safe Harbour Cork in 2017 and 2019.
He has co-composed the score for Michael Keegan Dolan’s Swan Lake/Loch na Heala hailed by the Guardian Newspaper as the second best dance production of the 21st Century.
Kevin co-composed the score for feature film Tomato Red (2017) directed by Oscar long listed director Juanita Wilson and The Lodgers, (2018) which featured at the Toronto Film Festival. He has just finished co-composing the score for acclaimed Irish director Kim Bartley’s new feature documentary True Grit released in 2022.
Glasshouse is a Dublin–based music ensemble and arts organisation. Their mission is to elevate Irish music through commissioning and collaboration. They combine sound, space and visual design to create unforgettable live music experiences.
This event features chamber ensemble and electronics, accompanied by striking visual projections. Enjoy Glasshouse’s lush and soaring take on Aphex Twin, one of the most influential figures in electronic music.
‘Glasshouse are among the highest calibre of musicians the nation has to offer.’ NIALLER9
Damon Gough aka Badly Drawn Boy has embarked on a a series of intimate shows to celebrate 25 years of releasing music. The shows will feature a career-spanning set of hits and fan favourites as well as being his first full headline tour since 2020’s album Banana Skin Shoes.
“I’ll be playing songs from across my career, including favourites and some rarities and deep cuts. I’d like to think this is the tour I’d want to see if I was a long-time fan. Very much looking forward to it and hope to see you there.” – Damon Gough (aka Badly Drawn Boy)
It’s hard to predict what he will play from such a beautiful and eclectic discography that over nine albums has earned him the reputation as one of the U.K’s most treasured songwriters.
From his still-towering, Mercury Prize winning debut The Hour Of Bewilderbeast in 2000 to the enthralling soundtrack to Nick Hornby adaptation About A Boy (from 2002,) Have You Fed The Fish? (also 2002) which featured You Were Right, his biggest single to date.
Then there was the mental-state-of-the-nation epic Born In The U.K. (2006) and his most recent album Banana Skin Shoes which was met with great acclaim from critics.
Damon is expected mix it up each night and when you’ve got a repertoire like his, why wouldn’t you?
Doors 7.30pm | Mostly Seated
On the eve of her birthday Rose pricks her finger on her birthday badge, propelling her into a sleepy state where she is mystically enticed from slumber into fairytale land.
Whilst there, Rose makes some new friends who aren’t all what they appear to be. With the help of fantastical flying orbs, a shape-shifting witch, and a neurotic knight, Rose meanders her way through the mystical magical land, returning home to Dad with a big message.
This modern musical adaption of the classic fairytale places deaf and hearing artists together in central roles. Featuring sign song, music, an interactive vibrational sound experience, and puppetry. It’s for all the family and is played in a relaxed environment, making it accessible to all audiences.
Doors 10.30am | Unreserved seating
The sons of Windrush parents, Cymande’s music combined influences from funk, calypso, soul and jazz, rock and African rhythms. Their sound ended up being one of the building blocks of hip hop, house and garage, sampled by the likes of De La Soul and Wu-Tang Clan. The story of Cymande is the story of the struggle of black British music, with some banging tunes along the way.
The first British band to play at Harlem’s legendary Apollo, their message of peace, love and funk sailed far beyond Britain’s shores and helped shape music for five decades. Long after they stopped playing in the 1970s, their innovative jazz-rock-funk music played on, with tracks including the iconic ‘Bra’ sampled by the likes of De La Soul, Wu-Tang Clan, the Sugarhill Gang, MC Solaar and the Fugees, so they returned to play some more. In Getting it Back, their story is told on screen for the first time, with tributes from a galaxy of musicians and producers influenced and enthralled by their music, includingMark Ronson, Norman Jay, Jazzie B, DJ Maseo of De la Soul, Jim James and Louie Vega.
Doors 12.30pm | Tickets £5.00
A moving and exhilarating celebration of the greatest rock guitarist that ever drew breath. Featuring classic concert footage of Hendrix from 1967 to 1970, including the Monterey Pop Festival the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, Woodstock and a Berkeley concert. Join us for a rare screening.
Made fifty years ago – and just three years after his untimely death, Jimi Hendrix is a moving and exhilarating celebration of the greatest rock guitarist that ever drew breath.
Co-directed by legendary music producer Joe Boyd, this wonderful film contains classic concert footage of Hendrix from 1967 to 1970, including the Monterey Pop Festival the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, Woodstock and a Berkeley concert. There are interviews by Hendrix’ contemporaries, family and friends. Others appearing in the film include Paul Caruso, Eric Clapton, Billy Cox, Alan Douglas, Germaine Greer, Hendrix’ father, James A. “Al” Hendrix, Mick Jagger, Eddie Kramer, Buddy Miles, Mitch Mitchell, Juggy Murray, Little Richard, Lou Reed and Pete Townshend.
Join us for a rare screening of this priceless musical document in remembrance of a stone-cold legend.
Doors 2.30pm | Tickets £6.00
WINNER: Dave’s Best Newcomer at Edinburgh Fringe 2022
Lara’s a small Latin American girl (woman?) who won the Funny Women 2021 (right, ‘woman’) Stage Award and is now doing a show about what it’s like to be Latin and deaf and a girl who’s now a woman at the same time.
You know, minority jokes for majority crowds. If you read this and you don’t come, what’s that say about you? Huh? You hate disabled people? Maybe come and prove you don’t. Love you.
‘LARA RICOTE IS SEEMINGLY BLESSED WITH FUNNY BONES.’ ★★★★ Fest
‘WICKEDLY BLACK SENSE OF HUMOUR.’ Scotsman
‘GRL/LATNX/DEFIS A GIGGLING HOUR OF JOY.’ Time Out
As seen on E4, Comedy Central and Dave.
Performance captioned by Claire Hill: Wed 25 Jan, 8.30pm
Doors 1.30pm | Unreserved Seating
Susan has spent the last few years honing her craft as a solo performer. A songwriter of hidden depths, with a timeless voice that is equal parts balm and blowtorch, she is audacity personified, a free spirit; a real performer.
As of now she is Ireland’s best kept secret, however with the release of In The Game her collaboration album with Mick Flannery that has all changed.
In The Game saw Susan receive nominations for theChoice Music prize and the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards for ‘Album of the Year’, ‘Female Folk Artist’ of the Year, and take home the Best Original Folk Track award for the collaborative song Chain Reaction.
Susan was also shortlisted for the Vanda and Young Award for her song These Are the Days. The collaboration album ended up being the biggest selling Irish independent record of 2021.
Susan’s song Now you see It from her EP of the same name won the 2022 RTE Radio 1 ‘Best Original Folk Song’ of the year.
Doors 1.30pm | Unreserved seating
‘Superb” – Clash Magazine
“Sorrowful Masterpiece” – American Songwriter
“I love this fucking record” – Phoebe Bridgers
★★★★“Two stars are reborn” – The Irish Times
9/10 “Electrifying energy” – Hot Press
★★★★ “Exquisite” – Sunday Business Post
★★★★“Seductive, beautifully crafted album” – The Sunday Times
★★★★‘It’s been a long long time since a record like this has come around”- The Independent
“The most beautiful duet album to be released this year” – Heaven Magazine
We are delighted to welcome writer Jude Rogers to CQAF to discuss The Sound of Being Human–a brillant memoir which explores how music influences and shapes our lives.
Blending memoir, incisive music criticism and scientific analysis– with the help of psychologists, biologists and academics – Rogers anatomises the powerful effects of music on its listeners. There’s a magic to the way that music makes us feel, and Rogers’s fascinating research only intensifies it.
Since 2005, Jude has written for the Guardian, the Observer, the Sunday Times, the Times Saturday Review, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, MOJO, Q, NME, The Quietus and The Gentlewoman.
She has written many cover stories and interviews, as well as many personal, heartfelt pieces about her love of music. Jude’s favourite anecdotes include Chrissie Hynde spontaneously painting her portrait in her flat at the end of an interview; sharing a Pret fish salad in New York with Björk after been flown over to America by her; Robert Plant making her a cup of PG Tips in Nashville while singing a Welsh hymn, and Lady Gaga feeding her whisky backstage at the O2, while she danced over her lap in her pants.
‘Too often we treat popular music as wallpaper surrounding us as we live our lives. Jude Rogers shows the emotional and cerebral heft such music can have. It’s a personal journey which becomes universal. Fascinating.’ – Ian Rankin
‘A stunning hybrid of memoir and music, sound tracking the indelible nature of sound. Rogers’ moving, lyrical sentences sing and stop you in your tracks.’– Sinéad Gleeson
‘Moving and absorbing, The Sound Of Being Human mixes memoir, analysis, anecdote and personal chronicle into a mosaic that evokes what music means to the individual and the human tribe. A candid, beautiful read.’ – Stuart Maconie
‘Personal but universal,The Sound Of Being Human is a moving, funny and very smart exploration of what music does to you and how it does it.’ – Alexis Petridis
‘A perfect blend of the personal and the scientific, this is a fascinating and quietly brilliant book.’ – Brett Anderson
A New Statesman Books to Read in 2022
A GuardianBook to Watch in 2022
Doors 2.30pm | Unreserved seating
Tim Key (Alan Partridge, The Witchfinder,Tim Key’s Late Night Poetry Programme) is back with an all-new show. Ruminations about the great indoors with a bit of stamping around. Velour tracksuit, continental lagers, some “poetry”.
‘The greatest stand-up response to Lockdown so far’★★★★★The TimesKey’s new book,Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, is available to buy at all good bookshops and at www.utterandpress.co.uk
Presented by The MAC and Plosive Live in association with PBJ Management
Doors 7:15pm | Tickets £18
Written over a period of over a year in lockdown, At the Hotspot, produced by Joe Goddard and Al Doyle of Hot Chip, takes the raucous energy Warmduscher solidified on their critically acclaimed 2019 release Tainted Lunch, and injects it with a slightly more polished, ‘80s funk sound, kind of like stumbling home to your squatted loft after a drunken night at the local disco.
It’s crunchy on the outside, smooth on the inside, and might be the most immediately enjoyable music Warmduscher have ever graced us with.
The bulk of Warmduscher’s discography – the aforementioned Tainted Lunch, as well as 2018’s Whale City and 2016’s Khaki Tears – were produced by London stalwart Dan Carey, who was instrumental in helping the band hone their fuzzed out sound.
Unfortunately, at the beginning of At the Hotspot’s recording process, Dan caught COVID, and the band found themselves having to leave their comfort zone and find a new producer fast.
Luckily, they found two, under serendipitous circumstances. “I was in the studio with Joe and Al of Hot Chip, doing an electronic project with Igor Cavallera of Sepultura and his wife, artist/musician Laima,” explains Clams. “When I got the message saying Dan couldn’t do the album, I was like, ‘Aw, fuck!’ Then Joe and Al were simply like, ‘We’ll do it!’ It was this really weird, happy accident.”
While At the Hotspot is still very much a Warmduscher album, with all its cracks and crevices oozing garage rock bravado, the production values buff out those jagged edges in a way only these two virtuoso producers could have pulled off.
“We’re just really psyched to play this whole thing live now,” states Clams matter-of-factly. “And it’s a whole revamp—new label, new producers, new logo—new everything.”
Doors 7.30pm | Mostly Standing
Joby Fox’s new album I Once Was a Hawk Now I’m a Dove was recorded in Denmark with a young jazz group and in collaboration with one of Denmark’s top producers, Søren Mikkelsen in Medley Studios, Copenhagen. The songs are a great amalgamation of two cultures, fusing folk, pop and jazz.
Joby Fox is a native of Belfast, a songwriter, musician and storyteller, and a humanitarian; A diverse artist living between Belfast and Denmark with his roots firmly in Irish soil.
Joby is playing CQAF as part of a series of acoustic solo performances, stripped back to the bare bones which exposes the quality and raw power of the songs.
‘He has always been an emotional artist, but this is exceptional work.’ – STUART BAILLIE, BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Folk and traditional Irish singer-songwriter Bernadette Morris is an engaging performer who takes audiences on an emotional journey with a repertoire of songs that speak from and to the heart.
Bernadette is not only an extremely talented singer, performer, fiddle player and entertainer, she is also an exceptional songwriter.
Ten years on from the release of her critically acclaimed debut album at the CQAF, this is the launch of her latest album To the Well for Water recorded with Ben McAuley.
The recording has an array of talented musicians including Seán Óg Graham and Gerardy Thompson on guitar, Marie Morris on fiddle, Ryan Beagan on Bass, Enda Scahill on banjo and Rohan Young on bodhrán.
The album is a stunning mix of self-penned songs and co-writes with Johnny Brady, Cormac Neeson and Matt McGinn, amongst others.
‘Bernadette Morris is an amazing artist. She’s a powerful voice and a powerful female voice in Irish music.’ – RALPH McCLEAN, BBC
‘Pure of pipes, like an Irish Kate Rusby’ – THE SCOTSMAN
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Shauna and Robbie are expecting… different things. Shauna expects motherhood won’t be easy. Robbie can’t wait to be a dad. Then she arrives.
Encountering financial difficulties alongside the arrival of baby Aisling and the barriers Shauna faces, Robbie spirals. Can Shauna and Robbie adjust their expectations and find a way back to one another? Break down barriers with C21 Theatre Company in an accessible new show as Shauna and Robbie plunge into parenthood. Will they sink or swim?
Directed by Stephen Kelly.
Please note: Both performances will be BSL interpreted.
Bone Machine are a band of internationally renowned touring and recording musicians who perform a rebrand, melancholic, and punk jazz set of Tom Waits songs.
Whether or not the songs of Tom Waits play a central roll in your music collection, you simply have to experience this show live to feel the heaven-opening maelstrom of beauty scarcely captured by a live band.
From hits such as Martha, to I hope that I don’t fall in love with you, to Downtown Train, Bone Machine bring the heart, sweat and soul to performances brimming with a ramshackle sophistication and honesty as well as the renowned Waitsian monologues full of the funny anecdotes – for which Mr Waits is universally celebrated.
Their version of What’s He Building in There? has been critically applauded from Durban to Doolin!
From bourbon soaked ballads to evocative Godliness and anarchic elegance, there has never been a show that has captured the golden thread of what makes Tom Waits such a legend until now!
Ladies and gentlemen, let us present to you… BONE MACHINE!
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Elixir live hip-hop Showcase is delighted to make a return to this year’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival hosting Children of Zeus at the Oh Yeah Centre.
Children of Zeus are a soul / hip-hop group from two of Manchester’s most respected artists Konny Kon and Tyler Daley. With both being recognised MCs and beat makers in their own right, the music they make is a reference / reflection and a nod to the music of their childhood influences and their taste for timeless sounds.
Children of Zeus came to break the trend and bring a soulful music to the forefront which was felt with the introduction of Story so Far and repeated with Travel Light providing a much needed continuation of Manchester’s rich musical history. Working with the likes of Beat Butcha on their latest project Balance, Children of Zeus have built up a solid fan base and reputation for a serious live show.
We are delighted to welcome multi–instrumentalists, Belfast Groove Collective on support, specialising in Hip-Hop, Jazz, soul and R&B with guest vocalists.
Northern Irish DJ collective Antidote DJs will host the night and fill in the blanks before, after and in between live performances.
Tom Hingley is the former frontman of one of the founding members of Manchester’s The Inspiral Carpets.
Tom was the frontman during their most successful period from 1989 – 1995 finally leaving the band in 2011, singing on iconic tracks such as ‘This Is How It Feels’, ‘She Comes In The Fall’, ‘Saturn 5’, ‘Joe’, ‘Sackville’ and many more.
He’s since toured the world as a solo artist as well as with his bands ‘The Lovers’ & ‘The Kar-Pets’ and brings his new show of Inspiral’s classics and solo material to CQAF.
Doors 7.30pm | Limited Unreserved Seating
Brian Bilston has been described as Twitter’s unofficial Poet Laureate; with over 200,000 followers on social media, Brian has become truly beloved by the online community.
His first collection of poetry, You Took the Last Bus Home, was published by Unbound. Diary of a Somebody (Picador) was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the McKitterick Prize. Alexa, What Is There To Know About Love?, his last collection, was described by one reviewer as ‘the funniest collection of humorous verse I have seen in a long time’. His poem ‘Refugees’ was set to music by Mark-Anthony Turnage for his 2019 song cycle of the same name, and Fifty Ways to Score a Goal, a collection of poems about football for children, was published in 2021.
Days Like These: An Alternative Guide to the Year in 366 Poems is his latest book and is out now in hardback, a brilliant collection of poems that will take the blues out of Monday, flatten the Wednesday hump and amplify that Friday feeling, from January through to December.
Brian Bilston is a poet clouded in the pipe smoke of mystery. Very little is known about him other than the fragments of information revealed on social media: his penchant for tank tops, his enjoyment of Vimto, his dislike of Jeremy Clarkson.
Doors 1.30pm | Unreserved Seating
A delicious feast of Americana by two of Belfast’s finest singer-songwriters.
Paddy Godfrey:
Paddy Godfrey is a solo country/folk singer from Belfast with a range of original songs in which he has taken inspiration from the likes of Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. He has been playing around the country for a number of years from the corners of traditional pubs to the stages of festivals such as Stendhal.
Matt McCrum
Lisburn-based singer songwriter Matt McCrum is equipped with an arsenal of cowboy lullabies depicting a life of desperation, addiction, isolation and everything in between while navigating your way through adulthood.
Taking inspiration from the likes of John Prine, Willie Nelson and Townes Van Zandt, Matt has been steadily gigging around Belfast for many years.
Doors 1.30pm | Unreserved seating
Niamh Dunne of Beoga fame has released her first solo project of self-penned songs to a rapturous critical welcome. The album Tides was released September 2022.
After Beoga’s six albums, a shortlist for a Grammy and numerous international tours, Niamh is no stranger to reaching a wider international audience as a result of the band co-writing Ed Sheeran’s massive hits Galway Girl and Nancy Mulligan and appearing as Ed’s special guests on his headlining Glastonbury 2017 performance and subsequent Irish tour.
This is Niamh’s first solo project in ten years and her first ever album made up entirely of self-penned songs.
The album is in two halves; one based on story songs inspired by traditional Irish songs and the other half based on singer-songwriter style, introspective songs that look at lived experience, feminism, family, history and connection.
Both halves are a reflection on her life as a musician, from her traditional roots with the Traveller family The Dunne’s right up to writing with contemporary acts like Foy Vance and Ed Sheeran in recent years. This album is a chance to lend her own voice, with all its contradictions and nuances, to the musical landscape.
‘An unhurried, thoughtful collection that’s full of heart and soul. A long player to be savoured deep into the night.’ **** IRISH TIMES
Doors 2.30pm | Unreserved seating
Tim Key (Alan Partridge, The Witchfinder,Tim Key’s Late Night Poetry Programme) is back with an all-new show. Ruminations about the great indoors with a bit of stamping around. Velour tracksuit, continental lagers, some “poetry”.
‘The greatest stand-up response to Lockdown so far’★★★★★The TimesKey’s new book,Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, is available to buy at all good bookshops and at www.utterandpress.co.uk
Presented by The MAC and Plosive Live in association with PBJ Management
Doors 7:15pm | Tickets £18
The town of Blaine, Missouri may be small, but eccentric stage director Corky St. Clair (Christopher Guest) always dreams big.
Determined to get back to the bright lights of “off-off-off-off-Broadway,” he casts a ragtag group of amateur actors in Red, White & Blaine, a musical celebration of the burg’s 150th anniversary — and when word gets out that New York talent scout Mort Guffman will be in the audience, Corky’s hopes of stardom just might come true.
Shot in 29 days in a small suburb near Austin with one Super 16 camera and no script, director-star Guest’s cult-hit mockumentary was created entirely in collaboration with a superstar cast of improvisational talents, including Eugene Levy, Fred Willard, Bob Balaban, Parker Posey, and, supremely, Catherine O’Hara, as travel agent–cum–theatrical hopeful Sheila Albertson; her audition duet of Midnight at the Oasis with her husband Ron (Willard), performed in matching windbreakers, is so marvellously painful you can’t wait for the mainstage production.
The film that no less than Meryl Streep once as named as her favourite, Waiting for Guffman is both hilarious and heart-warming. Join us in the Green Room for the best movie ever made about theatre!
‘A superb send-up of small-town amateur dramatics’ – Empire
‘…the unmistakable delusions of grandeur that are shared by amateurs and professionals alike. All that, and we are treated to the sight of The Remains of the Day lunch boxes. What more could you want?’ – The Independent
Doors 5.30pm | Unreserved Seating
The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival is delighted to present this special evening in the company of one of Canada’s greatest songwriters as he marks the release of new album The Vivian Line.
The Vivian Line is the 17th album entry in Ron Sexsmith’s compelling discography, one matched by very few contemporary singer/songwriters.
His catalogue has earned him immense peer respect and a loyal international following, and this new release (February 2023) captures Ron at the top of his creative game.
These new songs all flowed from Sexsmith’s fertile musical and lyrical imagination in a short period of 2021 during covid. “The songs came out of nowhere,” Ron explains. “I wasn’t really writing after the [2020] release of my previous album, Hermitage. The older I get, the more I think ‘maybe this is it,’ but then I find myself with new ideas again and got excited.”
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Otoboke Beaver are a punk-rock-garage quartet from Kyoto, Japan. Formed at Kyoto University’s music club, the band consists of Accorinrin (Lead Vocal & Guitar), Yoyoyoshie (Guitar & Vocals), Hirochan (Bass & Vocals) and Kahokiss (Drums & Vocals).
Acco’s off-kilter, self-taught, compositional and confrontational performance skills, together with the band’s incredible musicianship make for a thrilling and unmissable live act.
Damnably Records released the compilation Okoshiyasu!! in March 2016, which was championed by Gideon Coe and Tom Ravenscroft on BBC6Music and John Kennedy on XFM.
2017 was a breakthrough year for the band, with attention from Pitchfork, NPR, i-D and The Fader and more, acclaimed debuts at SXSW and FujiRock Festival, a sold-out show in London’s legendary 100 Club, and their Love Is Short 7” charted in the UK for 4 weeks.
In 2018 the band’s ‘ATTYUUMA’ tour saw them travel over 24,000 miles in a week on a brief UK tour that was bookmarked by slots at Coachella Music Festival. Recent converts include Tadanobu Asano, Aidan Moffat and The Cribs, the latter describing them as “PUNK AS F*CK”.
After kicking things off at the SXSW 2019 music opening party and a run of wild showcases, the band released new album ITEKOMA HITS in April on Damnably, receiving widespread acclaim from the likes of Pitchfork, Stereogum, NYLON, BrooklynVegan and many more.
They made their European debut at Lowlands Festival in The Netherlands, appeared as part of the line up at Koyabu Sonic Festival in Japan, and composed the opening theme song for Japanese comedy series Susumu Inomata & 8 Mojo.
In 2020 the band were about to embark on a world tour. They completed a two week tour in Europe and were getting ready to start their first US tour when the world locked down due to the pandemic.
With touring no longer possible during that time, the band worked on new music. In preparation for the release of their new album, the band are looking forward picking up where they left off and will finally be on their way to world domination in 2023.
Doors 7.30pm | Mostly Standing
in partnership with the Japan Foundation
Critically acclaimed Japanese singer, guitarist and composer Ichiko Aoba has announced a short tour of the US and continental Europe.
2022 was a momentous year for Aoba, with her US, UK and EU tours selling out and thousands of new fans falling for her unique and utterly spellbinding brand of music that crosses the boundaries of ambient folk, psych, jazz and classical.
Her live shows have spawned viral buzz across social networks, where she plays favourites from 10 years worth of rich catalogue as well as from her latest opus, Windswept Adan.
Ichiko Aoba’s work gained greater exposure during the pandemic as the need for comfort grew while we sequestered in solitude. She has a rare musical gift that is matched only by her ability to hone it into meticulous craft.
Her music embraces and elevates alone time to a generous and tranquil place. In it, listeners are invited to feel a sense of consolation and possibility – a sensation which is mirrored in her live performances.
Doors 7.30pm | Mostly Standing
in partnership with the Japan Foundation
Alice and Jamie are putting on a party (and it’s on Jamie’s Birthday!)
Words, performance, theatre by Alice Malseed, music by Jamie Nevin.
Sticky City by Alice Malseed is an in-progress rehearsed performance of a new piece exploring dating, imperialism and chaos.
This is Alice’s candid, visceral and fresh theatrical response to being told by some men that she can’t write, while others think her writing is all about them. It asks what will Belfast be without its gory core? Do we risk becoming somewhere boring like Milton Keynes? What happens to people and places, when they stop craving chaos?
From the theatre maker/writer behind The Half Moon, Anthem and Jellyfish.
Dramaturg and Director – Katherine Nesbitt
Sound Design and Composition – Sophie Price
Alice will be joined by Jamie Nevin, her boyfriend (a lovely non-chaotic man who provides no juicy content for her writing).
Jamie is a DJ who’s been collecting and performing music for over 14 years – boasting a singular, uncompromising, necessarily eclectic sonic palette that spans the far reaches of the world and always finds soul, familiarity, space and depth.
Supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland
Cá a ndeachaigh mé? Where am i going?
“Cá a ndeachaigh mé?” is a 16mm experimental film that delves into how emigration can transform our sense of self, sometimes requiring us to leave not only our home geographically but also linguistically. The film follows a young couple’s emotional journey from the countryside of Donegal to Glasgow, as they navigate new cultural landscapes.
Through a dynamic and poignant soundscape, the film highlights the challenges that come with moving and acclimatising to a new place, and how this often can lead to a morphing of both identity and relationships.
Artists
Fionnuala McCormack – Director
Lia Campbell – Producer
Étáin Saoirse Sweeney – Audio Director & Co Creator
Production Company: Dumbworld
Funders
With support from Bòrd na Gàidhlig, Meath County Council Arts Office and Creative Ireland
Since his arrival in the UK Reginald’s searingly honest observations both onstage and on TV have garnered him a cross-generational fan base.
His TV appearances have included Have I Got News For You?, and two series of the BBC2’s hugely popular Reginald D Hunter’s Songs Of The South & Songs of The Border, documenting Reginald’s epic road trip through 150 years of American popular song.
Reginald has been performing comedy in the UK for over 20 years. During that time he has become one of the Comedy industry’s best-known performers for his distinctive take on the most diverse range of subjects.
His work can be brutally honest and is often considered to be controversial but it is always meticulously thought out and he has never been afraid to face challenging issues head on even when the focus is on his own principles or beliefs.
Doors 3.30pm | Unreserved Seating
‘ Reginald D Hunter joins the top rank of stand-up working today…a comedian going for broke, flying in the face of received opinion in a way that is simply exhilarating…this is comedy of a rare scope.’ THE TIMES
‘Compelling onstage charisman. He remains a towering presence in absolute control.’ EVENING STANDARD
Since his arrival in the UK Reginald’s searingly honest observations both onstage and on TV have garnered him a cross-generational fan base.
His TV appearances have included Have I Got News For You?, and two series of the BBC2’s hugely popular Reginald D Hunter’s Songs Of The South & Songs of The Border, documenting Reginald’s epic road trip through 150 years of American popular song.
Reginald has been performing comedy in the UK for over 20 years. During that time he has become one of the Comedy industry’s best-known performers for his distinctive take on the most diverse range of subjects.
His work can be brutally honest and is often considered to be controversial but it is always meticulously thought out and he has never been afraid to face challenging issues head on even when the focus is on his own principles or beliefs.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating
‘ Reginald D Hunter joins the top rank of stand-up working today…a comedian going for broke, flying in the face of received opinion in a way that is simply exhilarating…this is comedy of a rare scope.’ THE TIMES
‘Compelling onstage charisman. He remains a towering presence in absolute control.’ EVENING STANDARD
Dirs. Anne Cutaia, Sophie Peyrard / France / 2022 / 54 mins
Landing in New York upon the ashes of post-hippie culture, twenty-year-old Patti Smith, will upset all the existing codes: cliché rock’n’roll, the overly prosaic poetry, the perpetually elitist culture, and the restrictive idea of gender.
During her fifty-year career, with only one commercial hit, she achieved the feat of becoming a living legend without ever leaving the fringes of society. A punk at heart, she positions art as a political force and freedom as a necessity.
Doors 1:30pm | Tickets £6.00
Miki Berenyi is a singer, songwriter and guitarist, best known as a member of the indie band Lush and currently a member of Piroshka.
Described as “an extraordinary life story” by MOJO Magazine, her critically acclaimed autobiography, Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me from Success tracks the trials and tribulations of being a female singer-songwriter rising to fame in the 90’s.
The book begins with her childhood of extremes. From the bohemian lifestyle of her father’s social circle to the glamour of her mother’s acting career, Miki’s young life was a blur of travel, celebrities and private schooling.
But frequent relocation, parental neglect and the dark presence of her abusive grandmother resulted in crippling shyness, mental health issues and a vulnerability to exploitation. The route out of this hole was music – a passion shared by schoolmate Emma Anderson. The teenagers began attending gigs together and would eventually go on to form Lush.
Peppered with anecdotes involving a cast of hundreds (including Blur, Sean Connery, Tracey Emin, Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers), this uncompromising autobiography documents Lush’s thrilling rise, dispiriting fall and subsequent bounce back, reliving the tours, recording sessions and problematic managers they experienced along the way.
At the heart of the book are Miki’s own battles: the conflict between her mouthy public persona and her thin-skinned private identity; the trials of being a woman in an infuriatingly male world; the struggle to find a middle ground between safe indie obscurity and sell-out international success.
The memoir also explores Miki’s complex relationship with Emma – one that has fluctuated between camaraderie and rivalry over the years – and addresses the most devastating tragedy of all: the suicide of her soulmate, Lush drummer Chris Acland.
Told through frank confession, wry humour and emotional honesty, this is the incredible tale of a trailblazing woman and a seminal band.
Doors 3.45pm | Unreserved seating
Belfast songwriterAndy White’snew album This Garden is only Temporary is out now on vinyl release and we’re delighted he’s coming to Out to Lunch for its launch and his first Belfast show since before the pandemic.
Touring Canada, Andy met LA producer Steve Dierkens. They hit it off and these songs came together in Calgary, Melbourne, and Belfast. They feature Andy’s long-time collaborator Rod McVeyon keys and Kent McRae on drums. This Garden is only Temporary was released during lockdown to rave reviews and is available on vinyl in time for the tour.
Andy first arrived as a punk poet with an acoustic guitar and debut album Rave on Andy White, recently reissued in a deluxe vinyl edition. Since then he has toured the world many times over, recording with Sinead O’Connor and Billy Bragg, writing with the likes of Peter Gabriel, Allison Russell and Neil and Tim Finn.
Political, literary, wearing his influences proudly on his sleeve, Andy has been compared with Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg and Lloyd Cole. A man of his time and place, reflecting the chaos and beauty of the world we live in. Twenty albums in, things are getting interesting.
‘One of the finest songwriters of his generation’ –R2 MAGAZINE
‘The heart is open and the words are a tumble of sentiment’–BELFAST TELEGRAPH
‘Effortless and captivating’– IRISH TIMES
There is a growing resolve in the classical music world to shine a light on composers and performers who have been unjustifiably neglected or, worse still, deliberately written out of that genre’s history. Works by female composers and composers of colour are being given a new prominence and celebrated as they always should have been.
The work of Louise Farrenc has featured in recent Ulster Orchestra Seasons and her colourful, dramatic writing is a welcome addition to the UO’s repertoire.
Piano teacher extraordinaire, composer, equal pay campaigner, Farrenc was a force of nature to be reckoned with in the musical circles of 19th Century Paris and we’re passionate about making sure our audiences get to know more about this inspirational woman.
Her Nonet was one of her most celebrated pieces in its day, with the premiere involving the star violinist of the time, Joseph Joachim. It’s a warm and upbeat work, full of imaginative writing for an unusual combination of instruments. We look forward to introducing you to this remarkable woman and her wonderful music!
Alongside the Farrenc will be some other hidden gems of the chamber repertoire, performed by some of the Orchestra’s versatile and talented players.
Doors 12.30pm | Unreserved seating
Ever since she can remember, Isy has been searching for ways to make her life more exciting: ouija boards, exploring derelict houses and jumping off things for a bet. She often meets others who share the same love of pushing the boundaries: the Welsh taxi driver who found a mischievous way of brightening up his day, and a neighbour who created a network of tunnels beneath his house just for the fun of it.
Now, things have changed: she’s got children of her own and a partner who detests surprises. In her return to live stand-up, she asks whether it’s enough to try and find that buzz on mums’ weekends away or on family walks in the woods, and quite why she continues to hunt for it at all costs.
As seen as Dobby in Channel 4’s Peep Show, Esther in Shameless, Ally in Man Down, on Would I Lie To You, 8 Out of 10 Cats,Hypothetical, Q.I. and much more, Isy has been nominated for three British Comedy Awards, and won a gold Sony Award for her BBC Radio 4 series Isy Suttie’s Love Letters. The paperback of her second book, Jane Is Trying, was released in spring 2022.
‘Suttie’s eye for revealing detail yields plenty of laughs’ – The Guardian
‘The perfect concoction of warmth and grit’ – The Independent
Doors 7:30pm | Unreserved Seating
Louise Kennedy
The Black Box
Wednesday 11 January, 1.00pm
It’s been a remarkable few years for Holywood-born author Louise Kennedy. Her debut collection of short stories, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac was described by The Guardian as ‘A dazzling, heartbreaking debut collection’ while the Sunday Times said ‘Kennedy’s voice, and her unforgiving gaze, are electric.
Louise Kennedy’s recent novel Trespasses, is a stunning and devastating love story set against the backdrop of The Troubles. She has written for the Guardian, the Irish Times, and BBC Radio 4. Before becoming a writer, she worked as a chef for almost thirty years.
‘These stories sing, haunt and inspire laughter … One of the best collections I’ve read in years’ Sinead Gleeson
Tickets £10.00 (including lunch)
Doors 12.30PM | Unreserved Seating
Fresh from the success of her sell-out Edinburgh Fringe run, Julie Jay brings Oops, This Is Toxic to the Out to Lunch Festival.
This dark-comedy love letter to Britney Spears is a nostalgia-fest for anyone who has ever dropped to that ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ beat and for anyone who came of age against the pernicious backdrop of 90s/00s misogyny. Expect post-Caesarean twerking! Jared Leto! Felony Arson! Dizzying double-standards! More Jared Leto! Snakes! (not just the Timberlake kind).
Oops, This Is Toxic is a celebration of surviving sexism and toxic situations. But most of all, it is a celebration of Britney. Warning: this show contains references to 00s fashion which some people may find offensive.
“One of Ireland’s leading comedians” – The Journal
“A joy to watch” – Joanne Mc Nally
“The funniest thing I’ve seen in a long, long time” – Tommy Tiernan
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating
Award-winning singers Michelle Baird, Ceara Grehan and Lynne McAllister have brought their rich voices, unique harmonies and versatility to the stage as The Leading Ladies for twenty years.
One of the first vocal harmony groups of the time, they have won much acclaim with multiple performances in venues including NEC Birmingham, Royal Horseguards London, Dublin’s National Concert Hall and Waterfront Hall.
They also achieved a sell-out concert with the Galway Tenors at the Ulster Hall, shared the stage with the Three Tenors Ireland at Dublin’s National Concert Hall, performed at Belfast’s Opera in the Gardens, Derry Jazz Festival and have made numerous appearances on television, radio and online.
Join The Leading Ladies for a special lunchtime treat that offers something for everyone! From classical crossover and musical theatre, to 40s/50s swing, Celtic and chart hits – all performed in their own inimitable vocal arrangements and close harmony style!
***** “Individually excellent, collectively brilliant!”– Belfast Telegraph
Doors 12.30pm | Unreserved seating
Fresh from his multi-award-winning BBC Radio 4 series Rob Newman On Air, the comedian’s epic new stand-up show goes from cave paintings to car-free cities, by way of Homo Erectus dance steps,Julius Caesar’s traffic ban, rewilding and Rapper’s Remorses.
‘Refreshingly intelligent and hugely entertaining!’ -The Guardian
Doors 7:30pm | Unreserved Seating
Tickets £12.00
Harry Bradley and Dónal O’Connor first met in the late 1990’s on the vibrant Belfast traditional music session scene. A common grá for the music of South Ulster and North Connaught was the thread on which they shared interests. However, they ventured on their own unique musical journeys thereafter.
Since Harry’s recent return to Belfast, they have rekindled a musical friendship and are mining the rich repository of northern music which has been left by the likes of Andy Dixon, Cathal McConnell, Ciaran Carson, Desi Wilkinson, Tara Bingham, Johnny & Seán Maguire, Gary Hastings and many more. Today’s performance is a new musical coming together with one of Ireland’s finest young musical accompanists Libby McCrohan.
Harry Bradley was born in South Belfast. The vibrant recording heritage from the 1920s and 30s has had a huge influence on his flute-playing style. Noted for his unique tone and driving rhythm, Harry has come to be recognized as one of the most distinctive flute players in Ireland today. In 2014 he was the recipient of the TG4 Gradam Cheoil Traditional Musician of the Year Award.
Dónal O’Connor has inherited a musical legacy of five generations of fiddle playing. His style is heavily influenced by his family, the Oriel tradition and the great northern fiddle masters such as Seán Maguire, Bríd Harper and Tommy Peoples. Having toured the world and recorded critically acclaimed albums with groups such as Lá Lugh, At First Light and more recently Ulaid, he has since established himself as one of Ireland’s leading television and music producers. He has composed music for theatre, television and film and has presented and produced music programmes for RTÉ, BBC ALBA, BBC NI, TG4, BBC Radio Ulster and Raidio Na Gaeltachta.
Libby McCrohan is a bouzouki player from Dublin. She plays an original round back Greek bouzouki. Her approach to accompaniment is sensitive, subtle, and rhythmical, taking inspiration from the regulator playing of uilleann pipers. Libby has performed all over Ireland and abroad and has featured on two albums to date – the critically acclaimed Heard a Long Gone Song by Lisa O’Neill and Not Before Time… 39 Years in the Making by Páraic Mac Donnchadha.
Doors 12.30pm | Unreserved seating
A young married woman begins an intense affair with an older man as a way of escaping her manipulative mother. But she comes to realise that her lover is a mirror image of her mother – just as seductive, just as demanding, and ultimately just as dangerous.
Set in modern-day Ireland, this unsettling novel from Belfast journalist Fionola Meredith charts the course of a deeply dysfunctional ‘age-gap’ relationship to its inevitable conclusion.
Disturbing yet entertaining, forensic but somehow compassionate, this compelling debut unflinchingly reveals what lies at the heart of the male fear of intimacy, and the hidden impulses which can drive our most fatal attractions.
Fionola Meredith is a writer, broadcaster and commentator, based in Belfast. A former academic, with a PhD in Philosophy, she is a long-established contributor to the Irish Times, BBC Northern Ireland, and writes a weekly opinion column in the Belfast Telegraph. The Stamp of Beauty is Fionola’s debut novel.
‘At last we have the opportunity to jump head first into the warped, seductive and darkly humorous mind of Fionola Meredith.’ – DAVID HOLMES
‘Fionola Meredith creates a visceral story of mistaken love that both manages to disturb and entertain.’ – DAVID PARK
Event includes DJ set by Tanya Mellotte
Admission free but ticketed
“Bless me father for I have sinned. And I’m about to sin again…”
Vicor Blackley/ Michael Flatley – Blackbird
We invite you to strap on your fedora, bowtie and big man girdle for one last job and join us for this very special Out to Lunch screening.
Blackbird, the feature directorial debut of famed, flame-footed Lord of the Dance and Riverdance legend Michael Flatley. is “a spy thriller of the classic genre,”. It’s also a movie what he wrote, produced, self-financed and – you’ve guessed it – stars in.
Victor Blackley (geddit?) is “a troubled secret agent” whose life of retirement running a “luxurious nightclub in the Caribbean” is turned upside down when “an old flame arrives and reignites love in his life, but she brings danger with her”.
Have a drink every time someone tips their hat. Throw your own hat in the ring for our ‘moody-turning-to-face-the-camera-wearing-a-fedora’ competition. Enjoy a specially made Blackbird cocktail (shaken and stirred) and celebrate all things Blackley in this very special screening. Because Flatley my dear, we DO give a damn.
“The acting and writing are like the non-sexy bits that come between the sexy bits in a porn film made in 1985”The Guardian
“Holy Fuckballs” Screen International
Swordfishtrombones was first released in 1983 on Island Records. It had been previously rejected by Asylum Records as too weird for the masses and not enough ‘Martha’.
All the songs were written during a two-week trip to Ireland and produced by Tom Waits. The record is bursting with unusual and sparse instrumentation, at times heartfelt and haunting.
It peaked at no 164 in the Billboard Pop Album Charts but was lauded by NME, Spin and Pitchfork as one of the best albums of all time from one of the best American pop songwriters of all time.
We have invited a varied section of the musician community here to offer their spin on this cult classic album. Kyron Bourke, Duke Special, Clara Tracey and Mike Mormecha will all offer their versions onstage as part of this Out to Lunch special presented in association with the Oh Yeah Centre.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
‘A kaleidoscopic swirl of urban life in motion.’ – FAR OUT MAGAZINE
‘…weirdness, heartfelt lyrics and haunting instrumentals adds up to a superior LP…’– ROLLING STONE
Support by DJ Sarge
After years of parties in Belfast, Superfly Funk and Soul Club are joining forces with Deptford Northern Soul Club with support from DJ Sarge.
Deptford Northern Soul Club are childhood friends, Will Foot and Lewis Henderson, whose early love of soul developed after discovering Lewis’ Dad’s record collection. After finally bringing their musical heritage to the forefront with their debut DJ set at Deptfords Bunker Club 4 years ago, they have since taken their unique club night around the UK, performing at the likes of Glastonbury festival and Green Man, alongside a residency at Manchester’s YES, their beloved Bunker Club and London’s Moth Club.
Whether behind a turntable, dancing out front or in discussion, their sheer love and passion for soul is infectious, as is the spark of friendship and mutual musical appreciation between the two of them. 27-years-old but with old heads on their young shoulders, they have emerged as the new face of Northern Soul, bringing the movement back into the conversation of modern dance music.
Superfly Funk and Soul began as just another regular soul night in the city but has fast become an established brand, combining a popular online radio show with a website packed with interesting content, a range of merchandise and a high energy club night.
The club nights have proven to be one of the best nights out in Belfast and have continued to grow in both stature and in popularity featuring quality acts such as The Allergies, Smoove and Turrell and Crowd Company. Local bands such as The Organauts, Freedom 35s and Supertonic Sound Club have all played, helping to play their part in some brilliant nights.
Doors 10.00pm | Mostly standing
Emer Maguire flawlessly blends laugh out loud musical comedy, science, and Northern Irish charm.
Her debut solo show Emer Maguire: Hilarious Humans enjoyed a sell-out run at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Hilarious Humans takes an uproariously funny (and sometimes scientific) look at the oddities of human behaviour through Emer’s ingenious musical comedy.
Her most recent shows In Her Element and Up to High Dohhave sold out the Ulster Hall and the MAC respectively so this is a rare opportunity to experience Emer in the intimate venue where her comedy career first began.
Doors 2.00pm | Unreserved seating
‘Emer Maguire is one of the most unique comic prospects in the country.’– BELFAST TELEGRAPH
‘A person so relatable, daft and plain old funny – there’s no need for fake wigs or silly voices. Just Emer, unfiltered – a truly Hilarious Human.’ - DAILY MIRROR
‘An indie Victoria Wood’– BBC
Nine Below Zero are one of Britain’s most respected R&B bands, famous for their no-frills, punchy and direct approach.
Forty years since Nine Below Zero first offered a rhythm & blues alternative to the punk-pop of the mainstream, the south Londoners make a welcome return to Out to Lunch with their Are We There Yet? tour.
Formed in 1979 and named after the famous Sonny Boy Williamson song, in 1980 they signed to A&M Records and released the seminal Live at the Marquee album. By the end of that year, they had moved from selling out the Marquee to selling out the Hammersmith Odeon.
With a reputation as “one of the best blues bands around today” for their scintillating live performances, this show will not disappoint – expect a fearsome, supercharged set from start to finish.
Doors 1:30pm | Limited Unreserved Seating
Nine Below Zero are one of Britain’s most respected R&B bands, famous for their no-frills, punchy and direct approach.
Forty years since Nine Below Zero first offered a rhythm & blues alternative to the punk-pop of the mainstream, the south Londoners make a welcome return to Out to Lunch with their Are We There Yet? tour.
Formed in 1979 and named after the famous Sonny Boy Williamson song, in 1980 they signed to A&M Records and released the seminal Live at the Marquee album. By the end of that year, they had moved from selling out the Marquee to selling out the Hammersmith Odeon.
With a reputation as “one of the best blues bands around today” for their scintillating live performances, this show will not disappoint – expect a fearsome, supercharged set from start to finish.
Doors 7:30pm | Limited Unreserved Seating
Swordfishtrombones was first released in 1983 on Island Records. It had been previously rejected by Asylum Records as too weird for the masses and not enough ‘Martha’.
All the songs were written during a two-week trip to Ireland and produced by Tom Waits. The record is bursting with unusual and sparse instrumentation, at times heartfelt and haunting.
It peaked at no 164 in the Billboard Pop Album Charts but was lauded by NME, Spin and Pitchfork as one of the best albums of all time from one of the best American pop songwriters of all time.
We have invited a varied section of the musician community here to offer their spin on this cult classic album. Kyron Bourke, Duke Special, Clara Tracey and Mike Mormecha will all offer their versions onstage as part of this Out to Lunch special presented in association with the Oh Yeah Centre.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
‘A kaleidoscopic swirl of urban life in motion.’ – FAR OUT MAGAZINE
‘…weirdness, heartfelt lyrics and haunting instrumentals adds up to a superior LP…’– ROLLING STONE
The formation of Dark Tropics was inevitable. Drawn together by a bond that stretched from Ireland to Morocco, musicians Rio McGuinness and Gerard Sands found common ground in the form of Radiohead, Aretha Franklin and The Velvet Underground.
Armed with the influences of Somerset Maugham, Paul Auster and John Cooper-Clarke, the pair formed a partnership – one that relies equally on instinct and guile.
Their creative vision has borne fruit with timeless, cinematic pop-noir. Powered by analogue instruments and retro recording techniques the music sways and breathes naturally.
Their themes are everywhere – the burning highs of lust, the fragility of heartache, the sting of betrayal and defiance in the face of hurt. A meld of contemporary and classic, individual and universal, the scope of Dark Tropics is limited only by how far down the rabbit hole you wish to follow.
Dark Tropics released debut album Ink in late 2021 to widespread critical praise and are currently working on its follow-up.
Doors 7.30pm | Limited Unreserved Seating
‘Lovely, cinematic, understated pop’ -STEVE LAMACQ, BBC 6MUSIC
‘This sounds beautiful’ – JO WILEY, BBC RADIO 2
‘Atmospheric, moody and complex with a maturity that goes beyond the realms of a debut release.’ – HOT PRESS
Andy Irvine has enjoyed a long and hugely successful career as a traditional Irish musician. He has travelled the world as a solo artist and as a member of legendary Irish groups such as Planxty and Patrick Street and more recently Mozaik.
Throughout his extensive career he has maintained and developed the qualities in his music, which endear him to his audience and fellow musicians alike.After his introduction to the world of touring with Sweeney’s Men in 1965, he continued to travel the world, leaving the band in 1968 to pursue his wanderlust. He travelled through Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia, studying the music traditions and styles of these nations.
On his return to Ireland, Andy formed Planxty with fellow musicians Christy Moore, Donal Lunny and Liam O’ Flynn. Planxty went on to achieve huge success and legendary status, reigniting traditional music as a popular genre. While Planxty took a break in 1967, Andy took the time to record another piece of work with Paul Brady. The two recorded a classic album together, simply entitled Andy Irvine & Paul Brady.
As a member of Irelands first traditional “super group” Patrick Street with Kevin Burke, Jackie Daly and Arty McGlynn, Andy toured the world and released 8 incredible albums.In 2002, Andy finally formed his dream band, Mozaik, with Donal Lunny, Dutch guitarist Rens van der Zalm, Hungarian bagpiper Nikola Parov and American fiddler Bruce Molsky. The group have completed tours of Australia, Europe and America and have released two highly acclaimed albums
Andy continues to tour the world with Mozaik as well as Patrick Street. He has also completed a series of reunion concerts with Planxty and Paul Brady in the last few years. His constant touring is testament to the fact that he is still as passionate about his music as when he began.
As a musician and a living icon, Andy Irvine will remain in the Irish music scene for a long time to come.
Doors 1.30pm | Unreserved seating
‘Andy Irvine’s live solo performance was informative, witty, intense, full of a love for the music, which he transmitted to the audience with an honesty that only the truly committed can attain.’ – AUKLAND FESTIVAL
‘His forte, his genius is playing his mandolin, mandola and bouzouki.I have never heard such clarity of sound, such perfect and precise rhythmic variations or such brilliant melodic figures from this family of instruments.’ – SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
The Noam Chomsky of Irish Balladry chisels out a new motherlode of sung literature….
A bloody masterpiece – IRISH TIMES
“Is it about a bicycle?”
It is – and much more besides…
A thriller, a hilarious comic satire about an archetypal village police force, a surrealistic vision of eternity, the story of a tender, brief, unrequited love affair between a man and his bicycle, and a chilling fable of unending guilt, ‘The Third Policeman’ is comparable only to Alice in Wonderland as an allegory of the absurd.
Distinguished by its endless comic invention and a delicate balancing of logic and fantasy, The Third Policeman is unique in the English language and is described as a masterpiece of black humour.
Presented here for musical ensemble and narrator, this production has been hailed as “An exceptional event” by BBC Radio Ulster
READ BY Phelim Drew. Live Score by Colin Reid.
Doors 7:30pm | Tickets £12.00
After a fully sold out run with extra shows added at Edinburgh Fringe 2022, Vittorio brings his debut stand-up show to Belfast.
Irish-Italian comedian Vittorio Angelone went to see Brian Friel’s Translations’ at the National Theatre in London. He loved the play, still does, but was deeply disturbed (read: pissed off) by the reaction of the English audience. Join him as he tackles being Irish in England, identity, and the sad comedy shows that seem to win awards.
“Outstanding”
★★★★★ – The Student
“Just wow.”
★★★★½ – Chortle
“Come for the caustic wit, stay for a poignancy that never strays into shameless pandering.” – Rolling Stone Magazine
“So much better than he has any right to be at this stage of his career” – Adam Rowe
“British stand-up’s new wonderkid. Emphasis on the British please. Underlined.” – Fin Taylor
As seen on: BBC One, Channel 4, Have a Word podcast
Tour support for: Adam Rowe, Jason Manford, Dan Nightingale and Shane Todd
BBC New Comedy Award Regional Finalist
British Comedian of the Year Semi-Finalist
NOMINEE: Dave’s Best Newcomer at Edinburgh Fringe 2022
Doors 7:30pm | Unreserved Seating
Join us for an hour of glamour and sparkle, taking you back into the worlds of Kurt Weill, Jaques Brel, Noel Coward, Cole Porter, Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich.
Join us as part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival’s ‘Out To Lunch’ programme, with captivating performances featuring cabaret classics staged by Northern Ireland’s award-winning national opera company.
A decadent lunch included in the ticket price.
Doors 12.30pm | Unreserved seating
Dir. Niall Trask, 2021, UK, 35 min
Out to Lunch presents the Northern Irish Premiere of this incendiary film about one of the most incendiary bands of the last decade.
Moonbathing in February is described by Lias Saoudi of the unapologetically anarchic South Londoners Fat White Family as “a no-budget DIY film about the ‘throwing shit at the wall until something sticks’ stage of the album-making process”.
He adds that it “also serves as a portrait of just how hard it is to get your rocks off at the bitter end of a winter lockdown and what, if anything, it means to be in a band at this abysmal juncture in music history”.
A short, sharp blast of undiluted creative mayhem.
Footage and Film of Fat White Family before the main feature. 25mins.
Tenx9 is teaming up with Out to Lunch Festival and as it’s our first event of 2023 our theme is Fresh Start. Get in touch with your true stories at tenx9.com/submissions and join us in the Black Box on January 18 2023.
Tenx9 is a storytelling evening where nine people have up to ten minutes each to tell a true story from their own life. It was created in 2011 by Pádraig Ó Tuama & Paul Doran in the Black Box in Belfast. It aims to strip away the barriers that prevent people from sharing their experiences. It is always free of charge.
Medusa is one of the most recognisable figures in Greek Myth: her face has stared out at us for millennia, from Agamemnon’s shield in the Iliad to Versace’s logo now.
Gorgons and gorgon heads were an enormously popular feature on ancient statues and temples. So was Medusa always the terrifying monster we have made her?
Natalie Haynes takes you on a fast-paced tour through the history of Medusa, who she was and why we still see her all around us today. From the author of Pandora’s Jar and the new Medusa novel, Stone Blind, Natalie Haynes shows you how to survive contact with someone who can turn you to stone with a glance.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Poet Damian Gorman is also an acclaimed playwright, and a noted encourager of writing in others.
His selected poems and memoir As If I Cared: Poems and Other Parts of a Life (“beautiful, heartfelt, true…”, BBC) was launched at the Seamus Heaney Homeplace in October 2021.
His rendering of his brother Gerard’s life story, So Young: The Taking of My Life by the Catholic Church was published in May 2022. (“Courageous, unflinching, dignified – words cannot do Gorman justice”, The IRISH TIMES; “This book is an inspiration”, STEPHEN REA.)
Gorman is renowned for his readings, in Ireland and much further afield. He is a Fellow of the Oxford Initiative for Global Ethics and Human Rights and is currently working on the book and lyrics for Beyond Belief, a stage version of the life of John Hume for production in Derry’s Guildhall at the end of March.
Doors 12.30 | Unreserved seating
The Skallions are a Belfast based 8-piece Ska, Reggae powerhouse, bringing bags of energy and stacks of attitude.
Bursting onto the Belfast music scene in late 2017 opening for New York rocksteady legends, The Slackers, The Skallions have wasted no time bringing their unique brand of perfectly balanced fun and mayhem to audiences across Ireland.
Since that incendiary debut there have been major shows with Jaya the cat, David Rodigan, King Kong Company and The Specials.
Released during the pandemic, debut album Skallion Battalion has caught the attention of ska fans from all over the world. The band has achieved all this with the old punk ethos of DIY, supporting themselves through hard work and determination.
Ska at lunchtime? Makes perfect sense to us.
Doors 12.30 | Unreserved seating
Ross Wilson aka Blue Rose Code writes songs straight from – and to – the heart. They address universal themes of love, loss, travel, home, accepting the past and embracing the future in a deeply personal way.
His music seamlessly blends folk, Americana, jazz, soul and pop influences into something truly unique. A magnetic performer who loves to connect with his audience, Ross and Blue Rose Code are now firmly established as one of UK’s most uplifting and powerful live acts.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Carol Hodge is a seven-fingered, piano-pounding, Yorkshire-dwelling Singer-Songwriter. Think Regina Spektor meets Billy Bragg, but with fewer digits and a continuous existential crisis, sandwiched between bitter irony and relentless optimism.
Active as a solo artist since 2016, Carol’s third studio album The Crippling Space Between was released in 2021. Produced by Dave Draper ( The Wildhearts, The Professionals, Dodgy, Terrorvision), The Crippling Space Between is an unashamed exploration of the emotional rollercoaster that was 2020.
Carol flits between musical styles, bridging the gaps with her astute lyricism. A fierce believer in remaining independent, the album was released on Carol’s own label Midnight Stamp. Lead single Moan Of A Thousand Years was named Track Of The Week by Classic Rock magazine readers in October 2021.
Previous albums Savage Purge (2020) and Hold On To That Flame (2018) featured on several Top Album end-of-year lists, and 2020 single Stopped Believing In You received signifiant indie and online radio play, including from BBC Manchester and BBC Bristol.
Carol has collaborated continuously with other artists over the past ten years, and is perhaps best known for her work with Crass founder Steve Ignorant. She took lead vocals on the Last Supper tour in 2011, singing the songs of Crass all over the world, a role which is being reprised in 2021/22.
Carol is the pianist in Steve Ignorant’s Slice Of Life and has performed across the UK and Europe since 2012. When not dabbling in anarcho-punk, Carol provides live keys and BVs for Texan country-rock star Ryan Hamilton and makes occasional guest appearances on keys with The Membranes and The Ginger Wildheart Band.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Five Women. Ten instruments. Wookalily.
With awe-inspiring four-part harmonies, low-bowed double bass, flutes, trumpet, banjo and more, Wookalily create a masterful and sweeping sonic tapestry that will leave audiences rapt with wonder, and wanting more.
This is an ambitious folk music. Daring to dissolve musical and generic boundaries. Irreverently intertwining the disciplines of blues, rock, punk and more to create a unique and singular musical menagerie that must be witnessed to be truly experienced. Audiences are left spinning with transcendent melodies and floating on ethereal vocals.
Wookalily have performed in session for the BBC, UTV, RTE and Sky. Notable live performances include support for Martha Wainwright at Soma, IBMA Songwriter’s Showcase in Nashville and more recently at Electric Picnic County Laois.
Doors 12.30pm | Unreserved seating
Mungo’s love soundsystem culture to the core – from its Jamaican roots to raves, club and festivals.
When performing as DJs, playing on their heavyweight soundsystem, producing music, collaborating with vocalists and releasing artists on their label, Scotch Bonnet, they create a uniquely uplifting experience.
Dougie No Pain, Craigy Wonder, Breezak Bass and Tommy Danger are the Scottish collective known as Mungo’s Hi Fi.
Explosion Soundsystem are Northern Ireland’s original heavyweight Soundsystem, dedicated to promoting Jamaican music and soundsystem culture since 2012.
Doors 7.30pm| Limited Unreserved Seating
Out to Lunch presents a special festival edition of Coven, a monthly comedy show dedicated to foregrounding women and LGBT+ performers. Adam Laughlin hosts a stellar lineup of new and established acts including David Doherty-Jebb, Rachel McPeake, Laura Conlon, Sarah Firby and Pete Giffen.
Hosted by Sarah Firby.
Doors 12.30pm | Unreserved Seating
Dir. Michelle Heighway, 2022, UK, 70 min
Out to Lunch is delighted to present the Northern Irish premiere of this powerful film about one of music’s great forces of nature – the ever-enigmatic Damo Suzuki.
Energy is an existential journey through the power of healing with the former lead singer of krautrock legends CAN.
The film follows Suzuki over five years of his life in Germany and the UK as he confronts cancer and attempts to continue a never-ending global tour.
Critically acclaimed directorMichelle Heighwayhas been working with the mercurial Japanese-born musician since 2014, culminating in the fascinating insights of this incredible documentary.
Doors 2.30pm | Unreserved Seating
It’s Neil Young day at Out to Lunch. Ahead of the (sold out) show by Harvest later this evening, we are screening this immersive, fly-on-the-wall portrait of one of the world’s great artists at the peak of their creative powers.
Created between January and September 1971, this docu-film takes us on an intimate journey to Young’s farm in Northern California for the ‘Harvest Barn’ sessions, to London for an iconic performance with the London Symphony Orchestra and to Nashville where the then 20 something Neil Young worked on various tracks of this signature album.
The feature is a fan piece that has never been seen before. Performance and rehearsal content is intertwined into creative storytelling and includes most of the tracks from album Harvest (released in 1972) including Heart of Gold, A Man Needs A Maid, Alabama and Old Man. Get a drink, sit back, and enjoy.
Doors 1.30pm | Unreserved seating
Harvest are an 8-piece band who have been thrilling audiences and fans of Neil Young for 14 years.
Formed in 2009, the band have played sell-out shows all over Ireland, including a performance of arguably Young’s greatest album Harvest in full at Vicar Street in Dublin in 2018. The band have also played numerous festivals including Electric Picnic and appeared on national TV and radio.
The band embrace the mercurial Canadian’s multiple genres and styles, from the gentlest acoustic country/folk workouts to the noisiest ‘Crazy Horse’ rock epics, and everything in between.
A rare chance to celebrate Youngless peerless legacy through beautiful renditions of the timeless classics Heart of Gold, The Needle and the Damage Done, Old Man, Helpless and many others.
If you like Neil Young, you will love Harvest.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating.
Singer and songwriter Siobhan Brown aka Manuhunney was born in London of Jamaican heritage and has lived most of her life in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
Her band Manukahunney have been lighting up dance floors across Northern Ireland since 2012 and Siobhan’s shows are legendary for her unique infectious performances which always touch your soul.
As a recent awardee of the prestigious MOBO Help Musician Fund, Manukahunney will soon release an exciting 2nd EP later in 2023 which represents her re-emergence as an independent artist following a quiet spell over the last few years of lockdown.
A precursor to her EP Release Manukahunney’s single and music video launch party for her stomping tune Overcomer will be a night to celebrate. Overcomer is an upbeat feel-good single with leanings towards classic 90’s Dance soul.
The song is an anthem that celebrates our resilience and the desire and strength of our communities to acknowledge and lift each other up, no matter our differences and to overcome the challenges we face together. We are Overcomers!
This is music inspired by a wide range of artists such as Rachelle Farelle, Anita Baker, Sharon Jones, Angelique Kidjo , Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Aretha Franklin and Gregory Porter.
As well as sold out festival appearances across Northern Ireland, Siobhan also has her our soul show on BBC Radio Ulster – The Siobhan Brown Soul Show now in its 4th series and currently airing on Sundays at 4pm.
Tonight’s event will be supported by Manukahunney Soul DJ – DJ Dee, playing his infamous selection of soul classics to get your feet tapping and your body moving.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Father Earth is the true story of one man’s attempt to help save the planet, by converting a derelict church on the Orkney Isles into an eco-friendly recording studio.
It’s also a fascinating study of a psychological power struggle between a character comedian – Graham Fellows, and his long-standing creation – John Shuttleworth.
Father Earth is also about family relationships – specifically between fathers and sons – and it explores the paradox: how in the battle against extinction we are often distracted by personal and family issues, as they appear more important and pressing than the future of the planet.
Funny yet moving, and filmed mainly in the Orkney Isles over a 10-year period, Father Earth is Graham Fellows’ most thoughtful and accomplished movie to date. Previous work includes It’s Nice Up North filmed by Martin Parr (2004) and Southern Softies (2008).
Father Earth features guest appearances from Sooty and Sweep, and a virtuoso performance from Graham’s mathematically driven elderly father Derek.
This 83 minute documentary will be followed by a Q&A with performer/director Graham Fellows.
PG Certificate
Doors 2.30pm | Unreserved seating
A collection for solo traditional musicians and computer with Paddy Glackin (fiddle), Saileog Ní Cheannabháin (piano), Tiarnán Ó Duinnchinn (uilleann pipes), Pauline Scanlon (voice), Jack Talty (concertina).
‘Aonaracht I is a collection of six pieces for solo traditional musician and computer. Each piece is a unique combination of the traditional musician, their instrument, and electronics.
Traditional music is often thought of and enjoyed in group contexts. I wanted to think of the traditional instrument as it is to the player – first and foremost a private relationship between one person and their instrument.
What might it be like if something of that relationship was heard alongside the acoustic instrument? Can technology be used to sound the world of traditional music beyond the tunes?
Each piece has a different theme, exploring Irish traditional music and improvisation, poetry, artificial intelligence, feminism, instrumentation and community . Each features a custom made relationship with the computer, involving fixed media, electroacoustic sound, field recordings, improvisation and live electronics. I worked on this collection with specific players in mind, and shaped the coding and sound for each.’ – Úna Monaghan
This event will feature tracks performed live by Paddy Glackin, Pauline Scanlon, Úna Monaghan and Jack Talty. Singer Síle Denvir will host a discussion with the artists on the making of the album, and combining traditional music with technology.
Doors 2.30pm | Unreserved seating
A true-crime podcast with a twist…of lime.
On the back of their Edinburgh Festival run, double British Podcast Award nominations, and tour, Drunk Women Solving Crime come to Ireland for the first time when they appear as part of the Out To Lunch Festival.
Each episode sees the boozed-up panel of writer/comedian hosts Hannah George, Catie Wilkins and Taylor Glenn test out their drunk detective skills and solve true crime cases, along with a star-studded roster of guests, who have included Katherine Ryan, Ricki Lake, Deborah Frances -White, Sara Pascoe, and Shazia Mirza among many others.
Plus, the audience gets the chance to have any unresolved crimes against them solved by our sloshed sleuths….whatever happens, they won’t make things worse.
Doors 2:30pm | Tickets £12.00
A true-crime podcast with a twist…of lime.
On the back of their Edinburgh Festival run, double British Podcast Award nominations, and tour, Drunk Women Solving Crime come to Ireland for the first time when they appear as part of the Out To Lunch Festival.
Each episode sees the boozed-up panel of writer/comedian hosts Hannah George, Catie Wilkins and Taylor Glenn test out their drunk detective skills and solve true crime cases, along with a star-studded roster of guests, who have included Katherine Ryan, Ricki Lake, Deborah Frances -White, Sara Pascoe, and Shazia Mirza among many others.
Plus, the audience gets the chance to have any unresolved crimes against them solved by our sloshed sleuths….whatever happens, they won’t make things worse.
Doors 7:30pm | Tickets £12.00
Have you ever wondered where Steven Seagal gets his ideas from?
What does it take to write a book goodly?
Join us on this evening of spoken word readings from some of the finest fantastically written works of literature from the likes of Morrissey, Nadine Dorries and Naomi Campbell…
A group of professional readers will guide us through the process as we tackle the tricky, thorny task of writing using alliteration. The fine art of belles-lettres for the bedroom and the how of how to write action sequences like Proust…
Come on down and explore this catechism of cliche.
“Eliza’s breasts barrel-rolled across Ezra’s howling mouth and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement as it smacked its way into every muscle of Eliza’s body except for the otherwise central zone.” Morrissey. The List of the Lost.
“One of our own has been murdered in a graveyard, had his dick hacked off and fed to a cat. We have no idea who did it”. Nadine Dorries. Shadows In Heaven.
‘When Kitty sings, music stops to listen’ – Jazz in Europe Magazine
London based singer Kitty La Roar makes her Belfast debut at Out to Lunch – singing, scatting and free-styling at the drums.
Originally inspired by Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, stylish UK-based singer Kitty La Roar’s unique talents are not just as silky voiced songstress, scat-singer and drummer: she has an spellbinding ability to freestyle lyrics to melody on the spot, telling stories that are not only relevant to the song she is singing, but often weaving in references to life, love, nature, politics, current events, and even to people in the audience.
She performs highly original songs by Kitty and her pianist Nick Shankland and although the genre is clearly jazz, this unpredictable and eclectic music entrances and engages the audience.
The band will be showcasing original compositions from the album Valentine’s Eve, as well as original lyrics to the music of Monk, Ellington, Strayhorn and Sonny Rollins.
Kitty La Roar – vocals / drums
Nick Shankland – piano vocals / bass keys
Doors 12.30pm | Unreserved seating
“A force of nature” – Michael Feinstein
“Simply mesmerising!” – Rye Jazz Festival
“Chic chanteuse” – The Independent
“Fantastic!” – OK Magazine
“Seductive.. world class vocals” – Penthouse Magazine
Presented by Out To Lunch, Queen’s Film Theatre and the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s
Paul Muldoon and Director Alan Gilsenan will take part in a Q and A following the screening.
A feature-length documentary on the Armagh-born poet Paul Muldoon in which key moments in his creative life, which began with him writing poems in Irish as a schoolboy, is explored by many of the musicians Paul has worked with over the years.
The film creatively composes the story of his life through poems and special performances. Directed by renowned Irish documentarian Alan Gilsenan, Muldoon himself narrates this unique Irish language film, which is an expression of his deep love of song lyrics and poetry. Featuring Liam Neeson, Paul Simon and PJ Harvey, amongst others, and using Muldoon’s own words to explore key moments in his creative life, the film is an imaginative and innovative tribute to a great literary mind.
A BelowTheRadarTV Production for BBC Gaelige, TG4, NIScreen and BAI
Director: Alan Gilsenan
The Special Consensus is a bluegrass band that has achieved a contemporary sound in over four decades of performing, making their music a modern classic. Band members include leader Greg Cahill (banjo), Dan Eubanks (bass), Greg Blake (guitar) and Michael Prewitt (mandolin).
Special Consensus has released 20 band recordings and received six awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) and two Grammy nominations. Greg has also received the prestigious IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award.
Chicago Barn Dance, released by Compass Records in 2020, is the 20th Special C recording that celebrates both the 45th band anniversary and the long-standing connection of country and bluegrass music with Chicago from the time of the WLS “National Barn Dance” that was a precursor to the Grand Ole Opry.
The title song Chicago Barn Dance received the 2020 IBMA Song of the Year award. A band who are at the absolute top of their game.
Doors 12.30pm | Unreserved Seating
October 2022 marked 60 years since The Beatles first record, Love Me Do. It hit the chart in week 1 and they’ve never really left them since.
Now, in the wake of Peter Jackson’s jaw-dropping Get Back trilogy and Sir Paul McCartney’s 80th birthday celebrations, world leading Beatles author Mark Lewisohn will present a new format show, screening curated riches from his incomparable archive to speed-deliver 62 fascinating history bites about one year.
EVOLVER:62 is 62 sharp vivid moments that add up. It’s Beatles on the launchpad and detonation time for our huge cultural shift. Lovingly sharing items from his filing cabinets, Lewisohn will guide audiences through a galaxy of real-life moments, letting authentic archival gems transport you back where they once belonged, to see and feel how it all was before it was.
People can expect to be well informed after a single two-hour show, tugged by 62 fast-moving stories of lives, loves, laughs, drama, death, beauty and music, one incredible engaging episode after another.
The bottom line? Whether you’re new to the Beatles or think you’ve seen it all, come and love it a whole lot more … and be completely enthralled. The deeper you go, the higher you fly.
Mark Lewisohn is the acknowledged world authority on the Beatles. His books include Tune In (which is the first volume in his historical trilogy The Beatles: All These Years) as well as the bestselling and influential Recording Sessions, The Complete Beatles Chronicle and (as co-author) The Beatles’ London.
He was consultant and researcher for all aspects – TV, DVDs, CDs and book – of The Beatles Anthology. A photographer in the little spare time he allows, his work appears in the photo book An Englishman In Mons.
Tickets £12.00
Doors 7.00pm | Unreserved Seating
When our only dedicated women’s hostel is threatened with closure, six determined workers rise together to fight against a failing system and an uncaring establishment. For 12 weeks they live, work, and breathe resistance.
Standing up to a management structure refusing to find solutions.
Standing up for the women they protect.
Standing up for essential services.
Standing up to shout: NOT ON OUR WATCH
Followed by a post-show discussion.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Please Note: The Bar is open before the show but not during.
Teresa Livingstone is a classy lady, at least she tries to be despite everything being a 40-something Northern Irish woman throws at her.
She spent her thirties being delighted by the success of others and her ever-fluctuating weight but her forties are here and there’s no time like the present to rewrite the rules.
One of Northern Ireland’s top comedy acts, Teresa is bringing her unique blend of stand up, songs, gin and ‘going out’ leggings to The Black Box for one afternoon only!
As seen on BBC’s The Blame Game, Soft Border Patrol and Late Licence.
‘One of the few Belfast acts moving away from traditional stand up’ – THE GUARDIAN
‘With hilarious songs like “Cake and Wine” and “Nice Ladies”, no one escapes Teresa’s commentary.’ – BELFAST LIVE
Doors 12.30pm | Unreserved seating
A unique performance celebrating these wonderful artists collectively and individually.
In the height of lockdown ’21, a small window opened for four incredible musical artists to meet up. It was not known what would come out of the writing retreat, but the results were astonishing.
Their first collective release was called True Love. Written by all four members of CEITHRE CINN, it was recorded live moments later. The song became one of the most played songs on BBC Radio Ulster and RTE Radio 1 that year, having been playlisted on both.
Ciaran Lavery is an NI Music Prize winner for Best Album. Suzanne Savage is a virtuosic vocalist and first call for Paul Brady, the RTE Concert Orchestra and many more. Finnian is one of Ireland’s fastest rising musical stars. Matt McGinn is an award winning and prolific songwriter from the Mourne Mountains. Together they are Ceithre Cinn.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
‘After defeat, re-enchantment is necessary’, said Lola Olufemi. This thought inspires Josie Long’s brand-new show of stand-up infused with humanity, compassion and some brief political rants.
The triple Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee, underdog Fringe hero and delirious new mother (the first person to have two babies) returns with a show about the changes wrought by time, passion, moving to Scotland, and loving the world under – let’s face it – difficult circumstances.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
Pay What You Can
10% of our tickets for Josie’s show will be released on a Pay What You Can basis
Support from The Brigideens, an experimental-folk duo comprising Catriona Gribben and Aoife O’Reilly, will present a performance of stories and songs exploring the ancient Celtic calendar celebration of Imbolc.
This new record from Myles McCormack comprises 10 carefully crafted songs which are characteristically philosophical, playful, introspective and moving.
It features re-worked versions of previously released singles Comfort Zone and The River Rises, as well as the particularly expressive One Day.
New songs Thing Of The Earth and Every Time explore romantic themes with maturity and lyrical precision, while tracks such as Julie and Back To The Stream are great examples of Myles’ unusual guitar styles.
Although rarely flashy, there is some unique and intricate playing on both acoustic and electrics across the record. Sparing use of piano and organ parts add colour and depth while percussion varies from intimate brushes and claps to bodhráns and full drum kits.
Rough edges are laid bare and soft touches are favoured over soaring solos. While far from today’s pop sounds, the songs are subtly catchy with delightful earworm moments which will reward repeat listens.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
If you are an arts student, please contact arts.culture@ulster.ac.uk with your student number to reserve a free ticket.
The ‘Rembrandt of the housing estate’ found lyricism in Tile Hill, capturing a changing Britain. In this informal illustrated Q and A, George Shaw talks about his work and influences.
Shaw, who was nominated for The Turner Prize in 2011, is known for his highly detailed approach and suburban subject matter.
His favoured medium is Humbrol enamel paints, more usually used to paint model trains and aeroplanes. This gives his work a unique appearance.
Shaw will talk about his work and influences, not just visual artists but music and culture that were formative experiences. From the music of The Fall, The Specials and Joy Division to Ladybird books and badge design.
While the landscape is his subject, he focuses on the suburban surroundings of his childhood rather than the countryside. His paintings and drawings depict bus stops, phone boxes, pubs and graffiti against a backdrop of semidetached homes, blocks of flats and expanses of grey sky.
This view of England is not always flattering, but it offers a detailed study of the changing nature of social housing; these unconsidered or neglected landscapes are suddenly elevated by the poignancy of personal memory.
Presented by Out to Lunch and Ulster Presents.
Doors 12.30pm | Unreserved Seating
EARLY JAMES
Rising star Early James has just released his second album, Strange Time To Be Alive to even more positive reviews than his brilliant debut, Singing For My Supper.
With the charmed eccentricity of a true poet, the Alabama-bred singer/songwriter takes in the endless absurdity he sees around him, then alchemizes his unease into a glorious patchwork of musical idioms: forsaken blues and contemplative folk songs, brooding murder ballads and lovestruck piano tunes.
The lyrical wordsmith conjures the ghosts of great southern gothic writers from Eudora Welty toWilliam Faulkner, while channeling the haunted spirits of Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt.
Produced by Dan Auerbach, the album evokes a timeless amalgam of forsaken blues, wistful folk and Tin Pan Alley crooning, anchored by the singer’s unmistakable voice that sways from gravel-filled shouts to a pained, forlorn whisper.
‘No one can do what Early James does…taps into Easy Eye Sound’s signature greasy soul and his own brand of warm, elastic blues.’– NO DEPRESSION
‘James’ eclectic approach is brilliantly idiosyncratic. No one sounds like him. Or even comes close.’ – American Songwriter
LIZZIE NO
New York singer-songwriter, harpist and guitarist Lizzie No is one of the most exciting new voices in contemporary Americana music. Her 2017 debut album Hard Won was hailed as “simultaneously understated and fervent” by Billboard Magazine.
No’s 2019 album Vanity was a hit at college radio stations across the country, cracking the NACC Top Adds Chart. Rolling Stone called the first single Narcissus a “crisp alt-rock gem” and a “Song You Need To Know.” After dropping a surprise home-studio-made EP in 2020, Lizzie is currently working on her third album due for release in 2023.
Lizzie has toured with Iron & Wine, Adia Victoria, Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, and has showcased at festivals like Newport Folk Fest, AmericanaFest, South by Southwest, and the Mile Of Music Festival.
‘Lizzie No has been quietly making superb records largely on her own over the past several years.’ – ROLLING STONE
‘Lizzie No has picked up the musical baton of greats like Linda Thompson and Sandy Denny, spread it thick with a shadowy relevance born of her New York background, and unleashed what amounts to a new sub-genre of folk with a country tinge.’ – AMERICANA UK
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating
Arco String Quartet is one of the country’s leading professional and dynamic string quartets, having gained a fine reputation in Ireland both North and South for excellence and creativity. Recent collaborations have included Foy Vance, Villagers, Soak and The Darkling Air.
The Quartet continue to push the boundaries of its art, specialising in the arrangement and performance of all music genres, particularly rock and pop.
All the players are graduates of major music conservatories in England and Ireland, and have performed all over the world, as far afield as China, USA, Malaysia and South Africa, with orchestras including The Ulster Orchestra, The RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Ireland, The Irish Chamber Orchestra, The Halle Orchestra, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, Northern Ballet and Manchester Camerata.
Arco String Quartet, before moving home to Northern Ireland, also appeared at Covent Garden and held a residency in the famous Claridges Hotel in London.
Doors 12.30pm | Unreserved seating
Out to Lunch is delighted to welcome multi-platinum selling artist Mick Flannery to Belfast for this rare and intimate show.
To date, Mick has released eight studio albums, three of which reached No. 1. His latest full length In The Game, a collaboration with Susan O’Neill, was the biggest independent selling record in Ireland in 2021.
Mick has been described by Clash magazine as ‘a complete master of his craft’ whilst The Sunday Times says of his songwriting that he ‘conjures up exquisite story-telling’. Mick is often cited as one of Ireland’s most gifted songwriters to date.
Mick is currently recording his 9th studio record due out later in 2023.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating
This new walking tour uncovers the history of the city’s emergent Cultural Quarter. Your guide will help you to see and appreciate more of what is in plain sight on our streets – if we only look up, or down.
Starting from The Black Box, the group will stroll down narrow entries, cross open squares, view historic and landmark buildings, public artworks and lively music venues – thoroughly exploring the Cathedral Quarter.
The tour will take in Writer’s Square, The Common Market, the Oh Yeah Music Centre, The MAC and Exchange Place.This entertaining and insightful ‘Cathedral Quarter Arts Trail’ will:
Tickets £12.00
PRACTICAL DETAILS
Saturday 28 January, 1-2.30pm
Tour starts from and returns to: The Black Box, Hill Street
Duration: approx. 90 minutes
An Out to Lunch Festival debut for a band starting to make a serious waves on the Irish Blues scene following the release of their incredible 2021 album Revelator.
The 2:19 are influenced by everything blues; from the crossroads of the Delta through the 60s Blues Boom to Stevie Ray Vaughan and beyond.
Today’s show will feature songs from Revelator and brand new songs from their forthcoming 2nd album. A treat is in store for the Blues convert or just fans of great music.
Doors 1.30 | Unreserved seating
‘The musicianship is top-notch, the songs are all strong, and the arrangements just work. Go buy this album.’DOWN AT THE CROSSROADS
Hosted by Belfast Comedy stalwarts Alan Irwin (Chortle Student Comedian of the Year Runner-Up) and Ronan Linskey (Bulmer’s Irish Comedian of the Year 2015)
Kill Your Darlings has been running for the last 6 years in the Black Box, and it has become one of Belfast’s most loved comedy clubs. It features new and established comedians doing all new never heard before material. Previous acts include Colin Murphy, Shane Todd, Colin Geddis, Theresa Livingstone.
Doors 2.30pm | Unreserved Seating
Hailed by Hotpress Magazine as ‘One of Northern Ireland’s most exciting bands to emerge in recent times’, No Oil Paintings are a vivacious, dynamic, alternative-folk band from Belfast.
Their mix of folk instrumentation, four-part harmonies and high energy live shows serves to create their own brand of genre-bending roots music. The band switch and share lead vocals with each member delivering their own style to the songs they bring to the table.
During their career they have had many notable successes, some of which include headlining stages at Stendhal Festival, Sunflower Festival, and Open House Festival. Other live accomplishments include supporting The Dead South at a sold-out show in The Limelight – Belfast, and being chosen by Hannah Peel to partake in the Mix the City project joining 95 musicians and curators in 12 locations to create a creative platform representing Belfast.
Their proudest creative achievement to date has been collaborating with Grammy award winner Joss Stone during her world tour. The band were chosen to be accompanied by Joss on one of their original songs God Only Knows. The collaboration was recorded and videoed live and has received over 300,000 views online.
‘One of Ireland’s finest, most forward-pushing alternative folk outfits.’ – THE THIN AIR
‘The band are at home on a live stage, particularly when the audience can give it back like they do tonight.’– BBC (Across the Line)
Doors 2.30pm | Unreserved seating
With heart-wrenching songwriting and luscious harmonies combined with the natural storytelling of folk, the rhythms of Americana and catchy pop hooks, Madison Violet have been captivating audiences and critics alike for two decades.
Brenley MacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac met in Toronto in 1999, only to discover that their fathers sat next to each other in high school nearly 2000km away in Cape Breton. That longstanding, deep-rooted history is what ties the duo’s harmonies so tight, and lies at the core of their unparalleled musical connection and enthralling live show.
Following the release of their most recent record, Eleven, Madison Violet received a hat-trick of nominations in the 2023 Canadian Folk Music Awards, adding to their impressive list of accolades that includes a Juno nomination, a Canadian Folk Music Award for Best Vocal Group Album, a Critic’s Choice Award from Country Music People’s Magazine, and the John Lennon Songwriting Grand Prize.
Madison Violet’s songs have featured in influential music magazine MOJO’s Top 10 playlist, as well as CBC Radio 2’s Top 20, and received a mass of international acclaim from outlets such as the BBC, Maverick Magazine, NPR and Germany’s WDR, where the duo feature on the station’s list of ‘Best Bands of All Time’.
In a brief sojourn from their signature roots-based sound, their 2014 single These Ships was remixed and released on one of the largest US dance labels, Ultra Records, garnering over 1.2 million plays on Spotify (for that track alone), and counting.
Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating
‘Heartaching harmonies and tunes make Madison Violet a must-see act.’ – THE INDEPENDENT
‘Madison Violet are a joy to experience… there are few other acts that can provide such a strong statement of quality musicianship coupled with songs of the highest caliber.’– LONESOME HIGHWAY
Social media sensation and Chortle Award winner Rosie Holt tours her hour of character comedy based on her hit satirical videos.
A right-wing “opinionist” distorting the news, an MP desperately defending a failing government, a left-winger wanting to say the right thing but scared of getting it wrong.
‘The Thick of It levels of writing and performance applied to a very 2022 flavour of political bullshit.’- THE TIMES
‘A wonderful showcase for the woman that the pandemic turned into a sensation with her hilarious but also chilling realistic takes on a dissembling rising Tory star.’ -THE NEW EUROPEAN
‘If she can stay in character long enough, she’ll have a Telegraph column and a seat on Question Time by teatime’ – JAMES O’BRIEN, LBC
★★★★ Time Out ★★★★ Broadway Baby ★★★★ The Arts Desk ★★★★★ Lost in Theatreland
Doors 1.30pm | Unreserved seating
Stuart Braithwaite will participate in a Q and A about his new book and his work with Mogwai.
Born the son of Scotland’s last telescope-maker, Stuart Braithwaite was perhaps always destined for a life of psychedelic adventuring on the furthest frontiers of noise in MOGWAI, one of the best-loved and most ground-breaking post-rock bands of the past three decades.
Modestly delinquent at school, Stuart developed an early appetite for ‘alternative’ music in what might arguably be described as its halcyon days, the late ’80s. Discovering bands like Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and Jesus and Mary Chain, and attending seminal gigs (often incongruously incognito as a young girl with long hair to compensate for his babyface features) by The Cure and Nirvana, Stuart compensated for his indifference to school work with a dedication to rock and roll . . . and of course the fledgling hedonism that comes with it.
Spaceships Over Glasgow is a love song to live rock and roll; to the passionate abandon, we’ve all felt in the crowd (and some of us, if lucky enough, from the stage) at a truly incendiary gig. It is also the story of a life lived on the edge; of the high times and hazardous pit-stops of international touring with a band of misfits and miscreants.
Let Us Be Seen is a rally cry demanding that people in Belfast who campaign tirelessly for change are finally seen and heard.
It is a splash of colour, showcasing the creative ways individuals provide an alternative to the binary politics in Belfast, dealing with the myriad issues affecting feminists in the North of Ireland.
Documenting how activists, artists and educators join forces to make change, this film contains art and music from many talented local individuals including bands:Gender Chores, Problem Patterns, Strange New Places and Sister Ghost.
Join for a special screening followed by an intimate gig from feminist punk trio Gender Chores.
Director Elspeth Vischer will be around to discuss where things are at over three years on from the decriminalisation of abortion and legalisation of same-sex marriage via Westminster ruling on 21st October 2019 and answer any questions.
Doors 7.00pm | Unreserved Seating
Having built their reputation as one of Ireland’s top entertainment acts, the pandemic forced Anna’s Number back to their humble busking roots. Now, having sold out two of Belfast’s most iconic venues over the past year, we’re delighted to have them close the Out To Lunch Festival.
Bringing the ‘showband’ into the Instagram generation, Anna’s Number are renowned for their expansive, inventive setlist – from 60s rock ‘n’ roll and 70s funk/soul classics to noughties Clubland bangers and viral TikTok hits.
With Anna’s Number you just don’t get their chemistry, you get the whole periodic table!
This will be another live gig to remember with the bunsen burner turned all the way up to eleven!
Check out Anna’s Number at: https://www.annasnumber.com
Doors 7.30pm | Limited Unreserved Seating
The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival and Out To Lunch are annual festivals of music, comedy, theatre, art and literature which take place in January and May in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival / Out To Lunch Arts Festival
Unit 8
Northern Whig House
Bridge Street
Belfast
BT1 1LU
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