NEVER happier than when directing a gory action sequence with one hand while the other tinkles the score out of an old synthesizer, John Carpenter is a stone-cold horror legend - but it's his love of videogames that has Twitter chattering.

AS THE age old saying goes, you should never meet your heroes.

BELFAST (12A, 98 mins) Drama/Comedy/Romance.

ALSO RELEASED NIGHTMARE ALLEY (15, 150 mins) Thriller/Romance.

Jason Hughes (42) performs as a highly popular tribute act, Ireland's Garth Brooks, and also keeps it country as a DJ on radio station Downtown Country, where he plays music by Mr B and other legends in two weekend shows. 

FOR so many people, the songs of Janis Ian have been a loyal companion to them, on and off, for over half a century.

YEARS & YEARS NIGHT CALL THE third studio album from Years & Years – now Olly Alexander's solo project – is a sensuous treat packed with seductive tunes.

MARY Coughlan has a date in May circled in her diary, which, unlike like many of her recent Covid-cancelled gigs, won't be struck out at a moment's notice: it is the day she turns 66 and can pick up her pension.

"HE was bleeding badly, and I had tried to stop the blood.

DON'T troll or write in, please, but I am about to be controversial - very controversial.

BEING funny is what's made Sir Lenny Henry's fame and fortune.

BOOK REVIEW Anois ar Theacht an tSamhraidh: Ireland, Colonialism and the Unfinished Revolution, by Robbie McVeigh and Bill Rolston THIS is an excellent and critically important book.

EXACTLY 50 years on from the darkest day in Derry's history, the city's Guildhall will be host to a new drama inspired by the enduring image of Fr Edward Daly waving a blood-soaked handkerchief as he led a group of people carrying one of Bloody Sunday's victims - 17-year-old Jackie Duddy -from the scene of the shooting.

1. When did you think about a career in the comedy and what were your first steps into it? I was a chubby, awkward kid, very unsure of myself.

IT'S a curious thing, adapting a play, muses prolific playwright Simon Stephens, because "you get to do what an actor does - just live in someone's imagination for a while".

DON'T troll or write in, please, but I am about to be controversial - very controversial.

GO mBEANNAÍ DIA daoibh hello to Sinophiles, Rusophiles and USA-ofiles, you’re more than welcome to the Bluffer’s Guide to Irish. However, by the time you read this, we might all be...

GO mBEANNAÍ DIA daoibh, hello to mountainy folk and sea levellers, you are more than welcome to the Bluffer’s Guide to Irish. Ar An Sliabh is a new BBC Gaeilge series following the lives...

DINNSEANCHAS  Tobernaveen – Tobar na bhFiann – Well of the Fianna Tobernaveen in CO. Antrim is derived from Tobar na bhFiann ‘well of the Fianna’ in Irish. The well whic...

GO mBEANNAÍ DIA daoibh, hello to everyone as we head into the home straight towards Christmas Day. Sooooo.... here is your annual reminder of what needs to come out of your turkey-filled gobs ...