Something For The Weekend: Derbhle Crotty's cultural picks

Derbhle Crotty is a renowned, award-winning Irish actress, of whom Fintan O'Toole once wrote in The Irish Times, 'as well as being the finest Irish actor of her generation is also the bravest'.

She has twice won best actress at the Irish Theatre Awards, in 2008 for an Abbey production of The Three Sisters and in 2015 for her Henry IV in DruidShakespeare.

This November she makes a welcome return to the stage in Dolores, an immersive feminist reimagining of Nabokov's poetic and disturbing novel Lolita work from dance theatre innovators Junk Ensemble.

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FILM

I'm looking forward to seeing Pedro Almodovar's The Room Next Door. I've religiously gone to see his work in the cinema, from the early days of Women On The Verge, there's a special humanity in his work that needs to be shared. He has exceptional empathy with his characters and so the films can explore deeply ambiguous territories. The Room Next Door concerns a woman who is contemplating assisted dying, and I know he will treat the people and the subject with compassion and robust humour.

BOOK

I'm reading Red Love by Maxim Leo. It's a family memoir concerning the lives of three generations in the German Democratic Republic. It's a place and period that fascinates me, a dream turned rancid, so many lives curtailed and compromised, and the book is a deeply personal account of a family tossed about by ideas and forces beyond their control. Anna Funder's Stasiland is another terrific read on this subject.

THEATRE

Emma at the Abbey Theatre. This is going to be a delightful night out. There's an A-team coming together to breathe new life into this classic and they're promising to rip the bodice of tradition! The director Claire O'Reilly and the designer Molly O'Cathain have collaborated on seven shows with their company Malaprop and have developed a unique language to address the challenges and complexity of contemporary life, and their leading lady Toni O'Rourke is an electric performer. I'll be there early and often!

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ART

Dublin became a poorer place last year when Hang Tough Contemporary closed their Exchequer St. gallery. It was always such a pleasure to pop into their monthly solo exhibitions of mainly young artists' work. Pallas Projects continues to spotlight such early/mid-career artists with their gallery programme of 8 x 3 week exhibitions, titled Artist Initiated Projects. Their upcoming show is Conor McIvor's The Estate, an immersive virtual game experience exploring the ideas and values surrounding young working class men in Belfast growing up during the pandemic period.

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PODCAST

I'm addicted to the form, and listen to all the big politics and history shows, but I love the quirky corners most. Chief among these is Love and Radio, an American podcast which features in-depth, otherworldly-produced interviews with an eclectic range of subjects from the seedy to the sublime. Amongst my favourite episodes are Calling Hours, centred around a particularly open-minded funeral parlour, and No Bad News which recalls the extraordinary relationship between a news-shy hypnotist and Uday Hussein.

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Dolores is at The Chocolate Factory, Dublin from November 8th - 15th, and at the Black Box, Galway on November 19th & 20th - find out more here.