Entertainment

Essential festival: Out to Lunch 2018

Moon Duo will be among the musical guests at next year's Out To Lunch Festival in Belfast
Moon Duo will be among the musical guests at next year's Out To Lunch Festival in Belfast Moon Duo will be among the musical guests at next year's Out To Lunch Festival in Belfast

THE Out to Lunch Arts Festival returns to Belfast in 2018 for its 13th year of music, comedy, theatre, literature and food.

Running from January 5 to 28, the programme includes musical treats as diverse as folk legend Shirley Collins, Kraftwerk man Wolfgang Flür, acclaimed psychedelic twosome Moon Duo and DJ Yoda’s Stranger Things Mixtape.

The spoken word and literature programme features poets Bernard MacLaverty, Hollie McNish and Tony Walsh, acclaimed Belfast-bred storytelling night Tenx9, writer and film-maker Jonathan Meades and ex-Throbbing Gristle post-punk icon Cosey Fanni Tutti.

There will be also be plenty of comedy on offer from top names including Andrew Maxwell, Fern Brady, Dave 'I, Daniel Blake' Johns and Iain Lee's Rabbit Hole Podcast.

Out to Lunch Director Sean Kelly comments: "Brexit may have put paid to our European Capital of Culture ambitions but the Out to Lunch ethos remains unchanged: to make Belfast feel like a truly European city with a vibrant, year-round cultural life.

"Out to Lunch offers sustenance for the mind and body during January, always the darkest month. For £7, we're offering audiences a tasty lunch and a world-class show – a tidy little deal we're particularly proud of.

"People should move quickly though, the 'sold-out' signs are going up already on shows we've announced."

You heard the man.

:: Full ticket and programme details available now at CQAF.com