The Whistle II invites the audience to participate by following a simple rule: When you hear the sound of a whistle, close your eyes. When you hear it again, open them.
This simple rule quickly becomes a playful experiment in perception. Three performers, each playing their own game, invite the audience to co-create the piece through rhythmic “edits” of seeing and not-seeing.
Between each blink of darkness, new worlds emerge: poetic, absurd, and hilariously unpredictable. A unique, multi-disciplinary performance that explores rhythm, rules, and power (of the imagination).
The Whistle II is a Squarehead Production directed and written by Darragh Mc Loughlin.
It was made in collaboration with, and is performed by: Elysia Mc Mullen, Donal Mc Connon and Nina Illouz.
Declan Mee worked as the primary dramaturge and outside eye.
Supported by The National Circus Festival of Ireland and The Arts Council of Ireland
Susannah Dickey will be in conversation with Wendy Erskine on her latest book.
How do you mourn someone you never really knew?
Three siblings – Anna, Gemma and Matthew – will have to work that out quickly. Monday is the day of their gentle, but distant, father’s funeral, and for the first time in a long while they are under one roof with their mother, imperious Yvonne, awaiting the arrival of their aunt Amy, an award-winning poet.
Yet, as the funeral looms, their everyday concerns refuse to diminish: will newly sex-obsessed Gemma work out what she wants from life, beyond her mother’s expectations?
Can Anna maintain the fine balance between desire and nonchalance with the sort-of, not-quite-exclusive boyfriend, back in London? Will Amy’s past explode the relationships of the present? And, crucially, will Yvonne pull off her grand, post-funeral family dinner, the solution to what she fears may be an unsolvable problem?
Told from five different perspectives, into the wreck worries at the knotty complexities of one family’s bonds, written with Susannah Dickey’s trademark empathy and wit.
A rare talent, and certainly one to watch’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘One of literature’s major new talents’ OBSERVER
‘One of the funniest and most insightful novelists writing today’ NELL FRIZZELL
After a sold out, show-stopping performance during Out to Lunch, a re-staging of this celebrated show was the very least we could do.
‘Women in Black’ are four incredible musicians – Ursula McHugh (vocals), Dee Doherty (Piano), Multi-instrumentalist Jude Murphy (Bass/sax and flute) and Rebecca Montgomery (Drums).
Experience the mesmerising sound of this exciting new ensemble ‘Women in Black’.The group made their debut in May 2025 in a sell-out show in New Gate Arts and Cultural Centre as part of The City of Derry Jazz and Big Band Festival.
This powerhouse all-female quartet will sweep you away with stunning music, beautiful harmonies and exquisite melodies from the golden era – as well as modern day favourites.
The ease with which they use humour and personality to link the songs through the journey of the show creates an ambiance that captivates audiences from the very first note.
CQAF and Normal Cinema Club are very excited and slightly scared to present the Irish premiere of Alan Resnick and Robby Rackleff’s DANCE FREAK.
A man on the edge gets pushed slightly further when his girlfriend breaks up with him. To make matters worse, he is confronted by his cavorting and contorting doppelganger (the titular Dance Freak) and is soon accused of crimes he didn’t commit. Thus begins a spiralling rabbithole of government conspiracy, lab experiments gone wrong, and surreal hyper-violence. With its finger on the pulse of our current dystopia of absurdist end-times, DANCE FREAK speaks truth to the power about the freaks really pulling the strings.
This nightmarish odyssey of corrupted identity is shot through with jet-black humour, aided by its starry cast of alt-comedy favourites including Stavros Halkias, Sarah Squirm and Normal Cinema Club favourite, Conner O’Malley. Their exploits are rendered in inky black & white, recalling the oozing discomfort of Eraserhead, yet updating that dreamworld for our terminally online world, pixels and digital noise abound. This lo-fi low-budget marvel was entirely crowdfunded, an inspiration to filmmakers, filmgoers and film-adjacents everywhere.
Who/what/why is Dance Freak? You’ll simply have to come and watch to find out.
The much-anticipated film from the team of Robby Rackleff and Alan Resnick (Unedited Footage of a Bear and This House Has People in It) has an absolutely stacked cast including luminaries of the alt-comedy scene and many past, present, and most likely future Baltimoreans: Robby Rackleff, Megan Koester, Sheila Mears, Jamel Johnson, Annie Donley, Stavros Halkias, Sarah Sherman, Allen Cordell, Adam Endres, Rachel Kaly, Conner O’Malley, and Nate Varrone.
Like their work for Adult Swim, Rackleff and Resnick’s film disorients the viewer in the best possible way. Dance Freak teleports us back to childhood sleepovers with friends, staying up way too late watching something warped, forbidden, and dangerously funny long after all the boring adults have retreated upstairs to bed. (Eric Allen Hatch)
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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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