Ian Reynolds

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At the third of 3 great exhibitions from the Belfast Archive Project @ulstermuseum.org - Bill Kirk and Frankie Quinn before - and today the Bell Archive. Beautiful, rich, evocative documents of times and people past. An excellent series.

Live theatre - caught up in a story, enraptured in a moment caught on stage by the production team, the actors and the writer- literally on the edge of my seat and sharing it with others in a darkened room - feels so alive and exciting, a transcendent togetherness.

I engage with theatre (and art in general) to hear stories from all people and culture. But it is also a pleasure in the last month to have seen 2 plays by writers from my own area and relevant to my own story.

Thrilling theatre at Bright Umbrella tonight with David Ireland’s Ulster American - shocking, visceral and hilarious. Go see - gripping drama.

Nice to be back at the Strand Arts Centre for 2 good events today - talk on the building’s past and future and a showing of Singin’ in the Rain, preceded by a performance from the Soda Popz.

Belfast TradFest looks great this year so I probably should have made to more than this event but tonight’s - Brighde Chaimbeul and Chris Stout & Catriona McKay - was excellent.

It is great to see this particular experience (which is beginning to slip from living memory) being captured for posterity but also we don’t here enough of these kind of stories (to the detriment of the community).

At the opening night of Sam Robinson’s Spacebucket Rides Again - 2nd of his plays about growing up in Ballybeen. Great night’s theatre but difficult to be objective as this is basically my story

Ulster Consort gigs always have good music (tonight’s at St Patrick’s with pieces associated with the Sistine Chapel) but you also get to experience (and very definitely to hear) great church architecture. Allegri’s Miserere in particular was spine-tinglingly good.

What algorithm ( “or who?) decides the price of second hand books on Amazon? Bought Ladybird in a Loony Bin by Ian Cochrane last week for £4.99 plus P&P. Now available only for £42 (around what I had seen it for before). Other 2 Cochranes that I have read but don’t own are £60 and £87.

For someone who goes to a lot of theatre and lives in Ballybeen/Dundonald it has taken me a ridiculously long to catch up with the DLA but saw it tonight at @themacbelfast.bsky.social and there were some great laughs and both performers were good.

Congratulations to all. Well made film and some eye opening historical research. I eagerly await what comes next.

Excellent short film telling a story of forgotten local history. Very promising start to a project and account worth following.

This is great - so wide ranging, so entertaining, such a love of music and pop culture combined with insight and erudition.

A.I. n’t Written - improv with a twist (scripts by ChatGPT) at The Mac tonight - performed with great verve and funny,if not entirely successful. Promise for more shows.

Pruning bookshelves is difficult. Very rarely reread but difficult to give away a good book even if all it will do is gather dust. Then there are the ones that I will get round to reading someday 😁.

Good idea. Occasionally see the idea of the human library at festivals where you can talk to someone, usually of a different outlook or culture, for 15m or so. All art to some degree though is like this in that it tells stories and puts you in people’s heads.

Interesting exhibition at Titanic Belfast of etchings by Lucian Freud with several accompanying short films. Usual problem though with the large print catalogue of merely reproducing the blurbs and not indicating how they relate to the paintings on the walls i.e. start on your left and go clockwise

11 events at the book festival and thoroughly enjoyed them. Such a diversity of ideas, emotions and people that I have engaged with in the last 8 days. A strong, very well run festival that is a tribute to the vibrancy of our cultural sector here. Thanks to all. #belfastbookfestival

It is the respect between the artists, the cross disciplinary discussions and the insights in to their various processes that make them fascinating.

Events at the book festival with the Seamus Heaney fellows are always a highlight - tonight’s with Declan Lawn & Adam Patterson, Fiona Benson and @jancarsonwrites.bsky.social - provided a good ending to a great festival. #belfastbookfestival

New novel from Wendy Erskine

Thought this would be the highlight of the book festival - @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social new book- and after the launch tonight I eagerly look forward to reading it. #belfastbookfestival

The friendship between @lucycaldwell.bsky.social and @wednesdayerskin.bsky.social, the fun they have in chatting and their obvious intelligence and insight makes events between them a real pleasure. Tonight’s, on the latter’s new novel did not disappoint. #belfastbookfestival

Day six #belfastbookfestival and an event with Paul McVeigh - a writer I only know from his play Big Man but will have to read more of.

Was in the audience. It was a great event - thanks to you both.

*Darran Anderson, apologies

Thank to the very kind and helpful volunteer at the book festival tonight who asked if I needed a seat at the front because of my poor eyesight and then found me one. Exceptional stuff. #belfastbookfestival

2 more events at the book festival. Living on the Fringes with the always interesting Darren Anderson and Eoin McNamee (relatively little known to me). Then an eloquent, funny and insightful chat with Roddy Doyle conducted by Glenn Patterson. #belfastbookfestival

Agreed, awesome talent. Has any band ever announced themselves so magnificently in how they sounded and looked and what they said as they did with Dance to the Music? Not to mention the probably even better Everyday People.