London African Gospel Choir Presents The Bob Marley Songbook

The London African Gospel Choir (LAGC) are looking forward to their return to Belfast Cathedral Quarter.

This show sees the “redemption songs” reinterpreted; with the choir’s own inimitable African choral arrangements and Marley’s music stunningly arranged for the Choir’s band.

The London African Gospel Choir has gained international recognition for their critically acclaimed reworking of Paul Simon’s Graceland.

“Lively Up Yourselves” the great man said, welcome to a celebration to what is a part of many peoples lives, old and young…

Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating 

Simon Armitage

The UK’s Poet Laureate Simon Armitage is one of Britain’s most well-established and well-loved literary talents, and has been bringing us his unique blend of wit, empathy and caustic insight for more than three decades, since the publication of his debut collection of poems Zoom! in 1989.

2021 welcomed two new publications: The Owl and the Nightingale, a new rendition of a Middle English narrative poem, bringing the verse to life with energy and humour; and A Vertical Art, a collection of Armitage’s spirited public lectures as Oxford University Professor of Poetry, bringing together subjects as diverse as Bob Dylan and Elizabeth Bishop.

Simon Armitage was born in Marsden, West Yorkshire in 1963. In 2020 he published Magnetic Field, a collection bringing together all the poems has written throughout his career about his home village.

Introduced by Hilary Copeland

Doors open 6.45pm | Unreserved Seating

Kathryn Joseph

Kathryn Joseph releases her forthcoming studio album for you who are the wronged on 22 April 2022 via Rock Action.

Unspoken truths take flight in songs that simmer and seethe with quiet anger, as Joseph gives voice to those robbed of their own. This record is a statement of abuse observed; its narrative woven with pain’s complexities, futility and stasis.

for you who are the wronged is the much anticipated follow-up to 2018’s from when i wake the want is, and her 2014 debut bones you have thrown me and blood i’ve spilled, which won 2015’s Scottish Album of the Year award.

If from when i wake… was written for love to return, this is where she fights tooth and claw to protect it. And though her sparrow-boned musical structures are as slight and sparse framed as their singer – they burn with a fearsome new certainty.

The sound is spacious, honouring the rawness of her original demos, written in early 2020. The subject matter is violation – of power, of love, of access – a pain that may not belong to her alone, but she strives to make sense of what’s being enacted on others.

In crafting these songs, Joseph offers a window into these toxic patterns that she hopes could save someone.

“Partly, it feels like the only thing I can do in terms of saying it out loud,” Kathryn shares. “It’s like code. No-one will hear their name, or recognise themselves, but in years to come, they might. For me, I think maybe there’s someone who might not even realise that they’re being abused until they listen to these songs. The ones who are already – I know how strong they are. They’re in my life, and they’re surviving it.”

Jake Xerxes Fussell

Singer, guitarist, and folk music interpreter Jake Xerxes Fussell has distinguished himself as one of his generation’s preeminent interpreters of traditional (and not so traditional) “folk” songs, a practice which he approaches with a refreshingly unfussy lack of nostalgia.

By re-contextualizing ancient vernacular songs and sources of the American South, he allows them to breathe and speak for themselves and for himself; he alternately inhabits them and allows them to inhabit him.

In all his work, Fussell humanizes his material with his own profound curatorial and interpretive gifts, unmooring stories and melodies from their specific eras and origins and setting them adrift in our own waterways.

Fussell’s new album Good and Green Again is set for release on Jan 21, 2022 via Paradise of Bachelors. Produced by James ElkingtonGood and Green Again navigates fresh sonic and compositional landscapes and is his most conceptually focused and breathtakingly rendered to-date.

Fussell and Elkington enlisted a group of formidable players hailing from Durham, North Carolina (where Fussell lives) and elsewhere, including regular bandmembers Casey Toll on upright bass, Libby Rodenbough on strings, and Nathan Golub on pedal steel.

They were joined by welcome newcomers Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone) on drums, Joseph Decosimo on fiddle, Anna Jacobson on brass, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who contributes additional vocals.

If overall Good and Green Again sounds a little sadder and slower than Fussell’s past records, well, maybe we’re all a little sadder and slower these days.

A smoldering mood of regret and loss pervades. But three airy instrumentals, all Fussell originals, punctuate the program, offering respite and light in the form of crisp, shuffling play-party tunes, each in turn somewhat more hopeful and exuberant than the last.

Their resemblance to lullabies is, perhaps, not coincidental. Fussell and his partner welcomed their first child into the world during the making of Good and Green Again. These lovely songs bear that promise in letters of bright gold.

Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating

Love in Bright Landscapes – The Story of David McComb and The Triffids

Love in Bright Landscapes is the inspiring, tragic and intimate life story of David McComb, cult Australian singer/songwriter and driving force behind one of the greatest Australian bands, The Triffids.

Love in Bright Landscapes reveals the man behind the music; and McComb’s status as a quintessentially Australian artist.

Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating

Tadhg Hickey – In One Eye, Out The Other

Rescheduled from OTL ’22

Acclaimed Irish comedian Tadhg Hickey (outstanding physical and comedic performer – The Scotsman), brings a weird and wonderful part theatre, part stand-up comedy show, In One Eye, Out The Other to this year’s Out to Lunch.

IOEOTO tells the story of Feargal, the downtrodden but cheery man who fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming an alcoholic. Using the Catholic calendar as a roadmap, Feargal leads us on a surreal and hilarious journey with many poignant twists in the hope of arriving at a sort of light at the end of the tunnel for the ‘bright man’.

The show is loosely based on Tadhg’s own journey with alcoholism. During promotion of the show, Tadhg went public with his own story and has since had many mental health and alcohol action groups, as well as sufferers, reach out to him.

Tadhg is one of the brightest and bravest new stars in Irish comedy and theatre. His satirical sketches have amassed several million views online, and earned the admiration of comedy royalty like Armando Ianucci.

‘In One Eye, Out The Other’ is characteristically brave and ambitious, as Tadhg searches for cathartic humour in a surreal retelling of his own battle with alcoholism.

“Great art. A vital catharsis. I laughed until I cried. Go see it.” – Sunday Independent

“Both funny and poignant; a brave, risky performance. This is exciting work” – The Independent

“Illuminating. Affecting in surprising ways. Feargal’s story will stay with you for days” – Sunday Business Post.

Doors open 30 minutes before show | Unreserved Seating

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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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Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival / Out To Lunch Arts Festival
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Northern Whig House
Bridge Street
Belfast
BT1 1LU