The subtitle for Aurora is “A modern myth” and that is what drew me to the play in the first place, I pictured something serious and epic, something with great battles and heroes and that’s what I got… in a very different way than what I was expecting.  

From the moment the play starts we are drawn in as Cass (played by Meghan Tyler) addresses the audience, recounting her favourite story “The lonely tree”, and from that moment you feel as if you are a part of the community Cass is addressing as she attempts to save her tree friend by livestreaming. That connection is maintained throughout the play, and there were even some moments where I struggled not to answer directly when the audience was being addressed.  

In addition to Cass there is her brother Conn (Conor O Donnel) and her best friend Drew (Thomas Finnegan), as well as the Interrogator (Maria Conolly). All of them are incredibly funny. While dealing with subjects like climate change, corporations, and our connection to both the people around us and nature, they manage to make you laugh at least once in every scene. (The highlight for me being Drew’s increasingly unhinged behaviour). That is not to say the play makes light of these subjects, it takes them very seriously and leaves you reflecting once the story’s finished.  

Finally, the play combines gaming and animation technology, that gives us an anarcho-communist badger (arguably the funniest character in the show) and a tree that feels authentic on stage. Lights and projections enhance Cass’s mission and remind us of what nature has to offer us (and what we could lose). The humour, the acting and the technology all come together to give us a fun play which invites us to reflect on our relationship with nature when leaving the Theatre. 

From the get-go, there is something different about this production – namely, the name. Out with the detached pragmatism, in with “The Tragedy of" Richard III, which for years has been dropped for simplicity’s sake. From there, things don’t let up for interest as the house lights dim and we are met not with the famously expectant "winter of our discontent” soliloquy but instead an opening narration via sign language as conducted by the electric Paula Clarke in a gravedigger’s mocked-up surplice. This introduces us well to the altogether thornier dynamic of this thought-provoking production of the Bard's most consistently entertaining play. 

The man of the hour, Michael Patrick, infuses the timeless words with new life; see the wryly dark and no-nonsense delivery of "Chop off his head, man" when asked what should be done with a potential meddler to his kingly designs. What he lacks in typically Ricardian menace, he makes up for with a banterous Ulster charm and a nuanced sense of ennui. The second act is where these layers come to the surface most roundly and, along with some ingenious uses of mannequins-as-players make for some gripping theatre. The finale, wherein all of Richard's neurosis and self-loathing surfaces is beautifully beguiling and unexpectedly life-affirming as Patrick (who like his Machiavellian monarch suffers from Motor Neuron Disease) rounds the show out with a Hamlet-esque appeal for life and life alone, beyond the meaningless symbols and stratagems that conflict creates.

The production design has many highlights — bright electronic panels radiate block colours in various hues to usher in atmospheres of unfolding dread but the spartan sets tend to clash with the more ornate costuming decisions, which tend to straddle the line of Gilliam-esque revery and art-pop irony. A more unified vision in these two departments would have given the audience more of an inroad to the various characters' perspectives.

Overall, though the object of turning Richard III into an outright sympathetic figure is a far off thing, they have done a very admirable job of plucking it down.

Rose is always speaking, and Bud doesn’t want to hear it. We don’t want them to stop talking; Rose+Bud is acidly funny, poking fun at unexpected allies, drama classes, and Ballynahinch. But for all its irreverence and ironies, there is a warm and moving story underneath about identity, transition and reconciliation.

Bud is moving to Derry, and Rose is coming with him. Bud is trans and Rose – the woman he wants to be – terrifies him. On the interminable car journey prolonged by his heartbroken mother, at the excruciating fresher icebreaker, over the bowl of a nightclub toilet; Rose is always with him. Bud barters, Rose chides, and suddenly the wicked barbs and desperate pleas give way to harmony.

Actors Rose Coogan and Conor Cupples speak at once, their words overlap, and you see how two people might become one, or many. Rose and Conor play everyone in this production, from the boy next door to the girls in halls, and it is a testament to their committed physicality that we always know who is speaking. In both its narrative and staging, Rose+Bud is a triumph of voice.

Rose+Bud asks, what do you do with the old identity, when we embrace the new one? Rose comes out and Bud comes in, but both go home for Christmas. Rose does not know who she is and, being from here, she does not know where she is from. There is discrimination, there is transphobia; this could be a nightmare.

Out of the misery, writer Rose Coogan crafts a joyous and hilarious play. It is bold and fierce and should be toured again. Our heroine is still searching for answers but she knows enough to keep going, and I hope we hear from her again.

Initially I had not planned to write this review. Then we entered the room and I saw the box. I am a PhD student, writing poems that are shaped like boxes, and The Doppler Effect is a performance that places a dancer, actor and chamber ensemble inside a multimedia projection box. It tells the story of a PhD student who is grappling with a complex topic, the legacy of queer history, and his own desire.

The projection box was made of grey mesh, darkening the dancer who stood in the centre on a raised platform while the chamber ensemble played music around him. At times he was partially dressed, wearing only a pair of boxers. A woman’s voice spoke over the music. Transformed by the projections, the box became a nightclub, a PhD supervisor's office, a bedroom. "Feel free to move around the room" signs on the floor instructed the audience.

The voiceover spoke of isolation, of walking, with headphones in, and seeing graffiti reading “queers go home”. Of seeing two men, holding hands, having slurs hurled at them. One side of the box became a laptop screen that played a documentary about the murder of a gay man in Belfast in the 90s. “Enough” the voiceover said. “Enough of then. I wasn't there."

How can younger queer people understand the history that game before them? What does it mean to see and be seen as queer? How do observations change based on our location and perspective? These were the questions I saw the work exploring. 

I realised, after moving around the room, that it was not a voiceover. There was a woman inside the box, speaking. She was reading from a page. Closer, I could almost read the words over her shoulder.

“Feel free to move." Some people didn't move at all. Most stood in one place. When one person would move, others around them seemed to take that as an invitation. To me, there was something in this, as well. In these small movements. In one person, or one group of people, doing something different, and the ripple effect this creates. . The performance itself didn't last long, it was over after 35 minutes, and some audience members seemed struck by its brevity. Some things are made or forced to be short.