HOW are artists emerging from lockdown? More surefootedly than our governments, it seems.
Adrian Margey, the Portrush artist who makes you see Northern Irish landscapes via a different, slightly Fauve palette, is staging his comeback show at the Drawing Office at the Titanic Hotel this weekend (adrianmargey.com).
No sinking feeling but, as he says, it's great to be back after two years. So has lockdown proved stimulating? "It's given me time to think, produce some new work. The Titanic's got great light."
Striking canvases in this selling show (£400-£1,000 for original oil paintings, £200 for prints) show a Belfast cityscape, with the Lagan snaking through it.
Water is very difficult to commit to canvas (I've tried) but top tip from Mr Margey: "It's easy really, just a few horizontal strokes, then one or two verticals." In the right shade, of course.
The Ulster Orchestra kicked off the BBC's 100th birthday bash. It took over from the BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra and our great players provided a local programme.
Sorry to say this (and am sure it's me) but the Hamilton Harty was, I felt, underwhelming although he was a very popular composer in his time. Much bouncier was Democracy Dances by the super-talented Conor Mitchell.
As John Toal pointed out on Radio 3, it resembled the great US composer John Adams in its rhythmic approach. Significant, anyway, and Mitchell's Abomination: A DUP Opera about the argument over conversion therapy, returns to Belfast soon. Fair play to Stephen Nolan, whose interview with Iris Robinson provided many of the quotes for the work.
On the theme of arguments, a good literary falling out follows Rosemary Jenkinson's publisher's possibly misguided decision to withdraw her debut novel contract after she argued in a forceful piece in Fortnight that writers here should move on from the Troubles. Apart from freedom of speech, what about the memo saying 'No publicity is bad publicity'?
Trouble in theatreland. Really sorry to hear the five-star performance of Stephen Sondheim's magic musical Into the Woods cut short at the Lyric last Saturday by misbehaving spectators.
This can happen, but they missed a treat in the subtle second act. Apparently The MAC decided a while ago not to continue hosting the wonderful Maggie Muff, whose outings relocated to the GOH. This was because the stalls may not always have been left the way the audience had found them...
Storm Franklin not only felled trees, it postponed the start of Catch Me If You Can with Patrick Duffy at the Grand Opera House. Due to open on Monday, the production was delayed as the set was stuck on a boat somewhere between Stranraer and Belfast.
But Duffy and his co-star - and real life partner - Linda Purl (ex-Happy Days) are good sports and put on a rehearsed reading of AR Gurney's Love Letters. It was funny, tender and gave the lie to the idea that America is a classless society. No reviews allowed (this isn't one, honest...) but if we were reviewing, I would have given it full marks.
