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| On my radar: Colm Tóibín’s cultural highlights | On my radar: Colm Tóibín’s cultural highlights |
| (3 days later) | |
| Writer Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford and graduated from University College Dublin in 1975. After spending three years in Barcelona, he returned to Ireland to work as a journalist, becoming features editor of InDublin magazine in 1981 and editor of the Irish politics and current affairs magazine Magill in 1982. Since publishing his debut novel, The South, in 1990, he has been shortlisted for the Man Booker prize three times, and in 2009 his novel Brooklyn was named Costa novel of the year. A stage adaptation of his 2012 work, Testament of Mary, was nominated for three Tony awards, including best new play. Tóibín, also a short story writer, travel writer, essayist and critic, has taught at Princeton University and the University of Manchester. Tóibín will appear at the FlipSide family arts festival at Snape Maltings, Suffolk on 3-5 October, and will launch his latest novel, Nora Webster, on 7 October at the London literature festival. | |
| Art: Dorothy Cross | Art: Dorothy Cross |
| Dorothy has two shows in Ireland at the moment, one in the Kerlin Gallery in Dublin and the other in Lismore Castle in Co Waterford. She lives beside the sea in the west of Ireland and much of her imagery – she works in many different forms – comes from salt water, from fish, from material that you find on any lonely stretch of coast. She loves sharks and bits of boats as much as she loves sexual symbols and placing objects in odd and ingenious juxtapositions. Her show in the Kerlin uses a clothes-hanger and an old door to great effect, and then, surprisingly, includes two very beautiful photographs of the western seaboard. Cross’s show in Lismore is called Eye of Shark and takes place in a church where she has put nine old baths in a row with gold along the scum line. | Dorothy has two shows in Ireland at the moment, one in the Kerlin Gallery in Dublin and the other in Lismore Castle in Co Waterford. She lives beside the sea in the west of Ireland and much of her imagery – she works in many different forms – comes from salt water, from fish, from material that you find on any lonely stretch of coast. She loves sharks and bits of boats as much as she loves sexual symbols and placing objects in odd and ingenious juxtapositions. Her show in the Kerlin uses a clothes-hanger and an old door to great effect, and then, surprisingly, includes two very beautiful photographs of the western seaboard. Cross’s show in Lismore is called Eye of Shark and takes place in a church where she has put nine old baths in a row with gold along the scum line. |
| Opera: Wexford Festival Opera | Opera: Wexford Festival Opera |
| This starts on 22 October and puts on three operas which are not part of the common fare that you get year-in year-out in most opera houses. This year’s programme has Salomé by Antoine Mariotte (1875-1944), Don Bucefalo by Antonio Cagnoni (1828-1896) and Silent Night by Kevin Puts (born in 1972). The opera house in Wexford is one of the few success stories of the Celtic tiger, an intimate space with a wonderful acoustic. The town, which is on the east coast of Ireland, close to where I am from, is beautiful in late October, and the general air of welcome and the good food and drink make you glad that the summer is over and that winter will be upon us soon. | This starts on 22 October and puts on three operas which are not part of the common fare that you get year-in year-out in most opera houses. This year’s programme has Salomé by Antoine Mariotte (1875-1944), Don Bucefalo by Antonio Cagnoni (1828-1896) and Silent Night by Kevin Puts (born in 1972). The opera house in Wexford is one of the few success stories of the Celtic tiger, an intimate space with a wonderful acoustic. The town, which is on the east coast of Ireland, close to where I am from, is beautiful in late October, and the general air of welcome and the good food and drink make you glad that the summer is over and that winter will be upon us soon. |
| Place: Point Reyes | Place: Point Reyes |
| Two hours out of San Francisco, this is the most beautiful place I have ever been. I used to go there on a Saturday when I lived in the city and stock up with cheese from the dairy in the village and books from the great book store there, and eat grilled oysters outside the supermarket on the Main Street. But the best part is the drive to the beach itself and the sheer power and inhospitable drama of the Pacific Ocean, with warning signs on the beach not to go too close to the water - no swimming, no surfing, no paddling. Too much danger and too much beauty to match it. | Two hours out of San Francisco, this is the most beautiful place I have ever been. I used to go there on a Saturday when I lived in the city and stock up with cheese from the dairy in the village and books from the great book store there, and eat grilled oysters outside the supermarket on the Main Street. But the best part is the drive to the beach itself and the sheer power and inhospitable drama of the Pacific Ocean, with warning signs on the beach not to go too close to the water - no swimming, no surfing, no paddling. Too much danger and too much beauty to match it. |
| Book: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr | Book: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr |
| I did a reading the other day with the American novelist Anthony Doerr, which meant I was able to sit in the audience and listen to him explain the inspiration and sources for his novel All the Light We Cannot See. I know from his other work how sharp and lyrical, poetic and rooted, his prose style is, and the amount of care taken over every sentence and every image. This new novel is set in the second world war and deals with the relationship between a young French girl who has lost her sight and a German boy who is a radio wizard. The book has an intricate plot, with much carefully researched detail. It was fascinating to find out the amount of visual material he used to help him work. Much of it is set in St Malo in Brittany, which is a beautiful walled city on the coast, restored after bombing in the second world war. | I did a reading the other day with the American novelist Anthony Doerr, which meant I was able to sit in the audience and listen to him explain the inspiration and sources for his novel All the Light We Cannot See. I know from his other work how sharp and lyrical, poetic and rooted, his prose style is, and the amount of care taken over every sentence and every image. This new novel is set in the second world war and deals with the relationship between a young French girl who has lost her sight and a German boy who is a radio wizard. The book has an intricate plot, with much carefully researched detail. It was fascinating to find out the amount of visual material he used to help him work. Much of it is set in St Malo in Brittany, which is a beautiful walled city on the coast, restored after bombing in the second world war. |
| Theatre: The Pearl Oyster Bar | Theatre: The Pearl Oyster Bar |
| I discovered this place in Cornelia Street in New York one day when I was wandering around the West Village, thinking I was too late for lunch. It is small, just a counter on one side, and a few tables on the other side of the bar. It is busy with a village feel and does not take reservations. I use it as a reward for a good day’s writing, which means I use it sparingly. I like how plain and simple and perfect the food is, no mad sauces, or vile experiments, or staff coming every second to ask if you are happy. They know you are happy, especially if you have ordered a selection of the oysters and then a full lobster, grilled, with a little bowl of melted butter beside it, plenty of lemon, and skinny chips. | I discovered this place in Cornelia Street in New York one day when I was wandering around the West Village, thinking I was too late for lunch. It is small, just a counter on one side, and a few tables on the other side of the bar. It is busy with a village feel and does not take reservations. I use it as a reward for a good day’s writing, which means I use it sparingly. I like how plain and simple and perfect the food is, no mad sauces, or vile experiments, or staff coming every second to ask if you are happy. They know you are happy, especially if you have ordered a selection of the oysters and then a full lobster, grilled, with a little bowl of melted butter beside it, plenty of lemon, and skinny chips. |
| Play: A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee | Play: A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee |
| This begins in preview on Broadway on 22 October and opens on 20 November, just as I arrive to sell my book to the American people. An even better play than Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, it has a number of superb parts for women, who are being played this time by Glenn Close, Clare Higgins, Lindsay Duncan and Martha Plimpton. There is a moment I love when one of the characters is pouring drinks and, just as she is about to hand a glass to a female guest, pours its contents on the ground, snarling: “And there’s your drink.” I wish I had written that, and am looking forward to seeing it enacted again. | This begins in preview on Broadway on 22 October and opens on 20 November, just as I arrive to sell my book to the American people. An even better play than Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, it has a number of superb parts for women, who are being played this time by Glenn Close, Clare Higgins, Lindsay Duncan and Martha Plimpton. There is a moment I love when one of the characters is pouring drinks and, just as she is about to hand a glass to a female guest, pours its contents on the ground, snarling: “And there’s your drink.” I wish I had written that, and am looking forward to seeing it enacted again. |
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