WRITER MAYA KULUKUNDIS INTERVIEWS FIRESPINNER, AERIALIST, AND PERFORMER, POLINA SHAPKINA.

Maya Kulukundis: Your work encompasses a wide variety of forms. I would be reluctant to pigeon-hole you into any one category, so I would like to ask how you would describe your practice.

Polina Shapkina: The way to survive as an artist in Ireland, financially, is to do a variety of different things. Officially, I’m a circus performer. I work with a variety of companies and do middle-of-the-road circus acts. Being a freelance performer is very liberating because you’re just there to have fun with an audience.

I am also the artistic director and a performer in a spectacle company called ‘VolkiDána’. We mostly do outdoor street work encompassing fire, aerial acrobatics, and storytelling. ‘VolkiDána’ is about making people mystified and bringing them into a new world. It is about experiencing joy alongside an audience.

Then, I make more experimental work, which includes aerial dance and physical theatre. For those performances, I am starting to go under the name ‘Unhinged Village’, because it feels funny putting my name on the projects when it takes a village to make them. It’s a very collaborative process.

MK: You’ve previously spoken about returning to a childhood sense of wanting to be ‘an artist’ after a long period of disconnection from art, which was at times quite destructive. How do you understand that journey now?

PS: I couldn’t be more grateful for the cards I’ve been dealt. It has taken a lot of hard work, but honestly it was by chance. I wandered into aerial arts as a hobby, and it led me away from a very self-destructive path.

I’m not sure why I was so destructive. I had a real melancholy about me as a child and as a teenager, like many people do, but it followed me into early adult life. I think that in the Western world – where we don’t have to think about starving to death, and where most of us have some form of shelter – there is a lot of space for the mind to wander. Suffering is a part of being, so if we do not have a physical form of suffering, we have a mental or spiritual form of suffering.

The physicality of aerial classes gave me a new kind of endorphin that pulled me away from the drinking, the drug-taking, the being miserable. So one addiction replaced another and then I got addicted to pushing myself physically. And then one addiction replaced another, because I got addicted to pushing myself physically. Then, I remembered that I had wanted to be an artist as a child. I had always thought that meant being a painter or a writer, but I realised: “Wait, I can express this impulse physically.”

MK: Carl Jung’s idea of the ‘shadow self’ is a recurring feature in your work. How has it informed your creative process?

PS: I first looked into Jung when I was about 14 because I loved a rock band called Tool, and they have a song about the shadow. I became obsessed with the concept, even though I didn’t fully understand it.

As I got older, I noticed I had a deep sense of shame. I was aware that I hated or despised in other people things I could also recognise in myself. So, I ended up hating both myself and the other person, because we were doing things that felt at odds with my sense of morality or fairness – things like jealousy, slyness, or aggression, traits I perceived as undesirable. These are all linked to the shadow self: repressing certain parts of yourself that feel at odds with who you think you should be. For me, engaging with the shadow was about accepting my darker instincts. Admitting that can be liberating and empowering – you have the capacity to be someone you might be ashamed of. We all do.

In my 2023 aerial performance, Makosh, which is autobiographical, I was exploring my personal shadow. Then, while I was making it, Russia invaded Ukraine, and the piece took on a societal dimension. I was born in Russia and raised in Ireland, and I have a lot of loved ones in both Russia and Ukraine, so the war created a huge internal conflict.

Growing up as part of the Russian diaspora meant being in love with where I came from and feeling proud of it. And suddenly I saw that I had been romanticising a culture that carried an immense shadow: the endless colonisation of its neighbours. I saw that this was something I had wilfully ignored for most of my life. All of this concentrated for me around the idea of a societal shadow: one that emerges when everybody agrees on one thing, and that herd mentality becomes contagious.

There’s a scene in Makosh where the characters are wearing gas masks. The masks are a symbol of uniformity, but also of protection. They protect you from admitting to the darkness within your group – because the stakes of doing so would be so high.

MK: In Cartographies of Diaspora, sociologist Avtar Brah considers ‘home’ as a ‘mythic place of desire’ rather than a physical location. As I was researching your work, I found myself returning to this idea. But it seems like the making of Makosh and the start of the war was a break for you from this ‘mythic place’. Would you agree with that?

PS: Absolutely. It’s funny you mention that; I just got a bursary to explore a project called Diaspora. The project is about mythologising a place so much that it becomes a fantasy – a holy fantasy. We’re redesigning an aerial rig as a shrine and we plan to interview diaspora members about visual and sensory elements of their culture that they would put on this shrine, to symbolise this fantastical place that lives inside them – one at odds with the actual country.

I used to go back to Russia all the time, but when work got really busy, I gradually stopped going. Then the war started, and now I’m afraid. I feel spooked by the idea of going back. In my mind, there’s still a home there, but my family members are slowly passing away. The reality is that ‘home’ isn’t there anymore, and most of those people aren’t either. I don’t like thinking about it. It’s painful. And romanticising my home doesn’t even feel soothing anymore because there is a darkness about it. There is real darkness in the world. We can all feel it.

MK: How do you feel about creating art in that darkness?

PS: I know we should always be interrogating, always fighting for change, but there’s something to be said for keeping the general morale high too. I think of art as a spectrum. On one end is existential, introspective work, and on the other is glitter and explosions and fireworks and happiness and claps. I think all of it is valid and important. But I have started to wonder whether putting out darker material is as beneficial.

What I’m questioning is the balance between the audience’s experience and my own creative desires. What do I gain from making a show, from a performance, and what does the audience take from it? Maybe the less self-indulgent approach is to focus on the giving side: what experience do you want to give someone else? But perhaps when you remain true to yourself, what you give to the world will ultimately be authentic and powerful.

Sligo-based artist Polina Shapkina is a performer and director of Contemporary Circus. Her work spans from Spectacle to experimental theatre, and disciplines include aerial dance and experimental theatre. Through her work, she relishes exploring themes around existentialism, mythology and ritual.

@apollynaria_shhh

Maya Kulukundis is a fiction writer and critic whose work has appeared in outlets including Banshee, The Irish Times, The Lilliput Press, Books Ireland and The Irish Examiner. She is the assistant curator at the Festival of Writing and Ideas.

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WRITER RUBY EASTWOOD INTERVIEWS CABARET AND CIRCUS PERFORMER BETTY BEOUR.

Ruby Eastwood: Tell me about your journey into cabaret.

Betty Beour: I was kind of a failed drama kid. I really wanted to be singing and dancing onstage. I wanted to be in Billy Barry’s stage school, but I didn’t have the money to go. I went to a few community drama classes, but I wasn’t getting any parts in the school plays – not any good parts at least. I played a yellow brick once in The Wizard of Oz! I still remember part of the dance. That was the first time I learned how to do a jazz square, so that’s an important skill.

Then, when I was 17, I discovered hula hooping with my friends. I taught myself from YouTube tutorials and learned from the other girls in the park. I went to my first music festival when I was in fifth year and realised there was a whole community of performers. That was the first time people watched me as a performer, even though I wasn’t hired to perform. I didn’t put my hula hoop down all weekend.

I think it was when I went to that music festival that I decided I wasn’t going to stop. I met a bunch of people there and found out there were juggling festivals and circus conventions. I went to one in Belfast and became part of that community. It was such a big adventure.

I ended up kissing a boy who had been flown over to perform in the big show of the weekend. He told me he went to circus school, and I was like, “you can go to circus school? You can do a degree in circus?!” I was really amazed.

At that point I was 19 and in my first year of studying English and Culture in IADT. So, I dropped out and went to circus school at Circomedia in Bristol.

RE: What was circus school like?

BB: It was crazy. I am a plus-sized gal, and I was in a class with people who were training for the Olympics, real gymnasts. It was really disciplined, but also kooky and silly because it’s literally clown school. We studied mask and mime, which definitely come into practice now because burlesque is often a non-speaking endeavour – you’re emoting a lot with your face. I studied Marcel Marceau. We trained in a deconsecrated church, and people were playing show tunes on the organ at lunchtime. I got exposed to a lot of different people there and different ways of life. There were lots of kids who had been homeschooled. But I was just a working-class girl from Dublin.

The course was expensive because I wasn’t British; five grand for one year, and I had to pay for it myself. I was working at Wetherspoons while also going to circus school full-time. It was also my first time living away from home. It was the most broke I’ve ever been.

But Bristol is a city full of performers and artists, and I got exposed to shows that altered my brain chemistry forever. I saw a girl do a hand-balancing act about being a geologist who was sexually attracted to rocks. I thought, “I don’t know what this is, but I know it’s for me. This is where I belong.”

RE: I’m curious about the practical aspect. Is it something you’re able to do full-time?

BB: That’s an important question. The money side of it. I remember when I was in circus school, they sat us down and told us, it doesn’t matter how amazing you are, unless you go to Cirque du Soleil, which is 0.1 per cent of people, you’re going to make most of your money from stilt walking. So, you’d better get good at stilt walking. They were mostly right. It’s a lot of side gigs, and the side gigs often pay more. I do a bit of stilt walking, I teach circus workshops, and I do a lot of walkabout entertainment and fire dancing at city festivals. I was doing life modelling for a long time, which felt natural because I work with my body.

I do a lot of children’s entertainment too: face painting, balloons, glitter. Obviously, I keep this very separate from my cabaret. I have two different personas and names because I have common sense. But that overlap is actually extremely common because there are similar skillsets involved: big sparkly costumes and wanting to connect with people.

Face painting and children’s performing really prop us up. Going into cabaret is money-losing. Burlesque is expensive. I got a bursary from the Arts Council three years ago, which was amazing. But now that I have transitioned more into cabaret, it’s harder to get funding. It’s Ireland, it’s taboo, but it’s also often seen as entertainment, and the Arts Council wants to fund more traditional arts. This year I’ve taken a horrible job at a factory, working crazy night shifts and day shifts on a production line. I’m saving up for a year because I want to take my career to the next level.

RE: How do you put together a show? Who are your influences?

BB: For me, the costume comes first. That’s influenced by drag and old movies, and then I experiment from there. Once you know what the character looks like, you know who she is. Is she romantic? Is she sassy or domineering? What is her song? Is it slow and soft, or fast and sharp? Who are you embodying?

I buy the base and then bedazzle. I try to support local designers like Mary McGuinness in Kilkenny. Margaret O’Connor is a great milliner. I try to keep it Irish, interesting, and as sustainable as possible. My neighbour is Bella Agogo, the longest-performing burlesque performer in Ireland. She’s been doing burlesque for 20 years. She helped me lace up my first corset and taught me how to sew.

With burlesque, the costume is often the idea. The silhouette is very important. I’m influenced a lot by RuPaul’s Drag Race. I come from a very supportive queer family. My uncle, who I grew up with, is gay. I found out later in life that I’m bisexual. We’ve been going to Pride together since I was four years old.

My mum is a bit of a style icon as well. Any chance she gets to put on a sparkly hat and show up and show out. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I was dressed up as Audrey Hepburn as a child because my mum was obsessed. Her friends were DJs. She and my uncle spent their 20s in London as ravers.

Now my mum is an accountant. When I told her I was dropping out of college, she wasn’t super impressed. Then when I transitioned away from classic circus into taking my clothes off, she definitely wasn’t super impressed. But she came around. I think she absolutely loves it now. If I’m doing shows in Dublin, my family make signs with my name in sparkly letters. I’m very lucky to have them.

Betty Beour is a Club Kid, international Cabaret Queen and Emerging Circus Artist from Dublin,Ireland. She shares her passion for self expression with the world at many queer nights across Ireland including: Dyke night, Ping Pong Disco and her residency at Rathaus Dublin. Betty has recently started producing her own Circus and burlesque cabaret accompanied by live jazz band @wearelavery keep an eye out for ‘Climbwallscabaret’ at Jazz and arts festivals around Ireland.

@climbwallsweird

Ruby Eastwood is a writer and arts reporter.

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WRITER LAUREN O’NEILL INTERVIEWS NICOLE MARTIN ABOUT HER LIGHT SCULPTURES

Lauren O’Neill: How did you get into making light sculptures?

Nicole Martin: I just liked light sculptures; I really was drawn to them in the festival scene. I think they’re very impactful, beautiful, and stand out in a dark field. I love that they come alive at night. It sounds a little silly but I’ve always been drawn to lights. I’m half South African, half Madeiran Portuguese, and when I was in South Africa, I have a memory of driving outside of Johannesburg as a little kid and looking out the back window. I saw the lights of the city and then all of a sudden, lightning came down – I was just fascinated with all the lights. When I went to some festivals in Europe, I was more drawn to sculptures that were light based.

I studied Jazz and Contemporary Music Performance in DCU. I was a musician for a really long time. Being in the music scene and playing various types of gigs, including festivals, introduced me to a lot of different people. I discovered that art installations for festivals were a thing when I went to a drum and bass gig, and this girl (now a best friend), Chloe, was DJing. She was so good, and after her set, I asked her to jam. We had a really good time playing music. Then I met her at a party a couple of weeks later. I asked her, “what do you actually do?” And she said that among a few things, she builds art installations for festivals. I didn’t realise that that was a career and something sparked inside of me.

I was with Chloe at Fuinneamh Festival in Dundalk and she told me about another festival in Galway called Éalú Le Grá. She said if you want to build an art installation, you should talk to Tommy, the founder. She pointed him out to me. I beelined for him and I said, “hi Tommy, my name’s Nicole Martin and I want to do an art installation for your festival.” I had some paintings up in a festival gallery space, run by an art collective called VisionÉire. I literally grabbed his hand and pulled him into the gallery and said, “this is my work.” He enthusiastically replied, “sure, let’s make it happen.” I went to the Éalú Le Grá workshop for a month and that’s where I built the illuminated owl sculpture. I learnt so much during that time.

LON: During the creative process, do you consider the warmth or colour of light?

NM: I tend to do warmer colours. In theory, I could programme my lights to flash, but I don’t because I want to create this glowing, ethereal creature. With the owl, I always tend to use warm colours because they suit her personality. The snail is a bit cheekier, so I’ve put hot pink lights in her at times. I did the moon blue, which I thought was really beautiful. The colour of the lights is mainly chosen onsite, based on what will fit. You’re also consulting with art directors about what kind of lights or colours work well in the space. I’m very versatile.

LON: What do you think attracts people to your pieces?

NM: I feel the reason they’re successful within festivals is because they create a different atmosphere. There’s flashing lights everywhere; it’s kind of chaotic. Then you go into the forest and walk by a giant owl, snail, moon, or delicate flowers that are glowing with light. You can have a moment to sit there by yourself and stare for a little while before returning to madness. I have videos of people sitting in front of the owl. There’s a funny one of a guy dancing to the owl. The first year, someone put a feather in a rock and left it behind the owl. People were going there and maybe doing some good intentions, manifestations, or leaving little notes. I love that interaction – that space to think. It’s fun to see the differences in how people interact with my sculptures and use them in different ways. As an artist, you need to allow people to have their own connection with your work.

LON: Does the exhibition of your work influence the creative process?

NM: I’m sure people would have the same conversations in front of my pieces at a wedding as they would at a festival. I like the impact of it. I love that feeling of awe as a festival goer, standing in front of giant illuminated art. I want to bring a bit of joy to the passerby and bring people together. At a wedding, my sculptures are a connection point – something for people to talk about. I love doing weddings and am always honoured to be a part of someone’s special day.

LON: What draws you to explore natural themes through the medium of light?

NM: Studying jazz was extremely fundamental to my creative process. One of my college exams involved composing a piece of music in response to an abstract variable, like a squiggle, or the colour orange. It was fantastic because it taught me how to create my own inspiration. I have developed so many sculpture ideas using this method.

For example, when I had made the structure for the owl sculpture, I was trying to think of what to paint on its surface. It’s a lantern, so I wanted to block some of the light with a design or pattern. I was sitting outside, drinking a coffee, and this tiny black and white bird scurried past me on the ground. I thought, “I love the texture of this bird,” so I knew I wanted it to be black and white. I tend not to overthink too much; I feel like perfectionism kills creativity.

LON: Are there any upcoming projects that you’re developing and where will they be exhibited?

NM: I’ll be at various festivals this summer, including Kaleidoscope (3 to 5 July, Russborough House, County Wicklow), All Together Now (30 July to 2 August, Curraghmore Estate, County Waterford), and Electric Picnic (28 to 30 August, Stradbally Hall Estate, County Laois). I’m also doing the RDS Wedding Show from 5 to 6 September in Ballsbridge, Dublin.

Nicole Martin is a Light Artist. She brings spaces to life with her giant lit up lantern sculptures. She will be performing at Culture Night, 18 September 2026, with Motion Chapel, an artist residency space in Roscommon.

nicowlmartin.com

@nicowl_art

Lauren O’Neill is a writer and reporter.

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COMMISSIONING EDITOR THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS COMEDIAN AND CAMPAIGNER AILISH MCCARTHY

Thomas Pool: How did you get your start in comedy?

Ailish McCarthy: In 2018, I joined the Gaiety School of Acting short course for comedy, because, when I went to college, I turned my back on being creative. But when I finished my masters, I thought “remember when you had fun?” So, the comedy course was a really good way to restart my creativity. I’d set aside time, three hours a week, to write, to laugh. It was a great course. I would recommend it to anybody. I think it’s still running, which is a great indicator of success for the school and those delivering the course.

At the very end of the course, we all got to present our ten-minute standup to friends and family. I then started to approach comedy clubs, asking if I could do a five or ten-minute set or participate in an open mic. After doing this for a while, I was approached by another club who asked me if I wanted to come and do a short set on their stage.

Then it just snowballed from there. I kept getting invited, I kept showing up, I kept on going. Then I started to apply for stages in Vancouver, Scotland, England, and all over Ireland.

TP: You’ve been helping lead the campaign to get comedy included in the Arts Act. How did you first become involved in this effort, and how do you feel it is progressing?

AMcC: It was January 2023 and I wanted to write a show. I thought about applying for the Arts Council Agility Award, in order to develop and research the new show, with the aim of touring once it was finished. Then I learned that the Arts Council doesn’t fund comedy, so I shelved my idea of writing a show just to investigate this. I had a look at the Arts Act, and comedy wasn’t explicitly listed the way theatre, music, and visual arts are, despite the fact that it is a performing art form.

I wrote to the Department of Culture, Communications, and Sport, and wrote separately to the Arts Council of Ireland, to ask whether they regard comedy as an art form. The Department came back and said, yes, it is technically in the Arts Act under theatre as a subgenre. The Arts Council, however, came back to say that they don’t fund comedy because they don’t fund commercial arts. However, I noticed that there are other art forms that have a commercial aspect, like music, that they do fund. So, I began this crusade, to get comedy explicitly included in the Arts Act.

As an artist, I put my practice on the backburner to discover why this group of artists are being excluded. Thankfully, I got some support from Minding Creative Minds at the very beginning. They gave me a platform at their annual summit to discuss art forms that are also feeling excluded, like musical theatre or line dancing. Their director, Emma Olohan Sarramida, introduced me to TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh in 2024, and I spoke to him about the dilemma comedians in Ireland were facing.

There’s nothing explicitly stating that comedy should be excluded from Arts Council funding; I think this was just a decision made years ago that hasn’t been challenged. Aengus had the same view as me, and after the general election, he was assigned to the Committee of Arts and Culture, where he worked to put forward an amendment to the Arts Act to explicitly include comedy.

We started to get support from TD Brian Brennan of Fine Gael. The new Minister for Culture Partick O’Donovan has also been very supportive of the amendment. It’s great to see opposition and government coming together to state that comedians are artists and that they should be funded and supported.

Then in November 2025, it just took off. I had an interview with Joe.ie. I think I got something like 90,000 views in 48 hours, which then meant that Prime Time took up the story, and I had an interview with them that got around a quarter of a million views. Then it got onto BBC, the Financial Times, and Sky News, which was great, because initially, I was finding it difficult to get the word out.

Then in December 2025, after two years of campaigning, the Arts Council made a statement that they’re going to start including comedy in their existing schemes. I’m also aware that they have advertised for a panel of comedians to review applications. Culture Ireland has just announced that they’re looking for panellists, to review upcoming applications to include comedy in their funding.

It’s phenomenal. It feels like a totally different climate to when I started this campaign. A lot of comedians I know who have emigrated are saying that they might actually move home now. I can’t wait to hear about the first recipient of comedy funding, whoever it may be. I hope I get a ticket to their show!

TP: Your debut stand-up show for Scene+Heard in February, titled ‘Me, Myself, and Ireland’, focuses a lot on this issue. Can you walk us through your process in creating this performance?

AMcC: I love Scene+Heard. The festival promotes new work and is a springboard for getting into other festivals around the country, or even to international festivals. I had applied because I felt like this was a good, happy, inspiring, and uplifting story, and given the climate of the world right now, we kind of need those.

It was a huge challenge for me because, even though I’ve been doing comedy for six or seven years, this was my longest show yet. It just kind of made sense to me that my first show would be a biographical standup of how I tried to get the Arts Council to recognise comedy.

I think the first draft I made just wasn’t enjoyable to sit through, and thankfully, I had the awareness of realising that I’m very close to the issue, and it was too cathartic. So I scrapped the first draft, and then asked myself: “What do I want the audience members to take away from this?”

I realised that what I’m effectively doing is creating a playbook for an art form to be recognised within the funding structures of Ireland. So, if someone in the musical theatre space wanted to know how to do that for themselves, they should come to this show. It would be like a tutorial for them.

My comedy is very particular to an Irish audience, so I don’t do well when I travel over to the UK. I remember I once made a joke during a set in the UK that their country had become more dog friendly because they now have a new King Charles. The audience completely turned against me! So, I do better at Irish gigs than I do in the UK.

I’m very good at observational comedy, in terms of Irish culture, so a lot of ‘Me, Myself, and Ireland’ was sticking to that voice. It was something I was very, very proud of. There’s also a couple of visual jokes in there as well. I was very nervous because I felt a lot like the Australian break-dancer, Ray Gun, at the 2024 Olympics. She had loads of qualifications in dance, but unfortunately, when she performed, the reaction wasn’t positive from the public. And now breakdancing is no longer considered a sport within the Olympics after that performance. The stakes were just as high for me, as someone who was campaigning for comedy to be recognised as an art form! But the performance was so well received. A member of government attended the show in an individual capacity, and members of The Arts Council staff came to the show as individuals too and really enjoyed it. That was my goal. I wanted anybody who came to the show to feel uplifted. It was a good news story. But it was even more fulfilling when people enjoyed it.

I’m very excited to be touring the show. I’ve already spoken to venues in Clonmel, Sligo, Bray, and Dublin and I’m talking to somebody in Kilkenny currently. I think it’s a really uplifting show and it’ll probably tour for one or two years. But I’m taking a step back from the crusade – I just want to be an artist and a comedian now. But I’m really happy with the results, that comedians now feel like they’re being supported.

TP: Lastly, are there any other projects you’re working on? What’s next for you?

AMcC: I’m doing a radio and podcasting course at the moment – I love radio. I was presenting a show with Mary Claire Fitzpatrick for six months last year, and it was something I really enjoyed doing. I think in terms of comedy, it’ll really help – one hand feeding the other and so on. And then I have a wedding coming up in September, so I have enough on my plate at the moment!

Ailish McCarthy is a comedian and one of the campaigners for the recognition of comedy in the Arts Act.

@thesleepycomedian

Thomas Pool is the Content and Production Editor of The Visual Artists’ News Sheet and the Commissioning Editor of the miniVAN.

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WRITER AND COMEDIAN JACK DOLAN INTERVIEWS COMEDIAN ROGER O’SULLIVAN ABOUT HIS ACT AND HIS ‘DARK NOSTALGIA’ 8-BIT VIDEOS.

Jack Dolan: What got you into comedy?

Roger O’Sullivan: I think it was watching stuff like The Panel on Irish television when I was growing up. There was a period of time in the early 2000s when comedy was actually quite good in Ireland, when great stuff was on TV from some of the top comedians – Dylan Moran, Tommy Tiernan, and Dara O’Briain. This was during some very formative years for me.

JD: You started posting the 8-bit style stuff online, mimicking video game cutaway scenes. What brought you to this as a concept to mine for comedy?

ROS: I’ve always been really into video games and that specific aesthetic of point-and-click adventure games of the 90s. Sometimes what’s interesting is that they look rubbish, but they were operating within the budgetary means that they had. So, I felt like if it was something I’m just doing in my bedroom, it will look rubbish, but the original products looked bad as well, so it’s actually quite easy to hit that same tone. I think a lot of social media is nostalgia bait, so I wanted to generate a kind of dark nostalgia for shit things.

JD: It’s interesting that you brought up this dark nostalgia idea. When you were initially posting those videos online, do you think it allowed you to talk and give characters more scope than you would have in a traditional ‘talking head’ video?

ROS: I think that there was definitely an opportunity there, as the format launders clichés and tropes through a more interesting lens. It gives you license to state that this is a character in a video game, so they’re stock by nature – the graphics don’t have to be very well realised. You can really ham it up and do things to make yourself look more stiff than you really are, or play around with the frame rate on the video when you’re editing, to make it even more hokey. There’s been times when I’ve had the perfect take and audio, but I’ve edited it to make it look worse.

JD: Your current show, ‘Fekken’, named for the fighting game Tekken, is quite PS1 imagery heavy. What was your desired outcome, in bringing the PlayStation visuals and these videos into the show? How did it facilitate the stand up?

ROS: In hindsight, it was very lucky how it all came together in the final product of the show, which was about my relationship with my dad and growing up in Ireland in the 90s. In Ireland at that time, you didn’t have the American High School clichés of the jocks or the nerds or whatever. Everyone was into the PS1, and PlayStations were in practically every household, so it’s a big part of my nostalgia for that time, and gives the show its aesthetic. I wanted the ending of the show to be a Tekken-style fight between me and my dad; that’s the big finale. At the same time, I was making these 8-bit videos on Instagram, so I knew that the audience that I was building there would also probably relate to a lot of the stuff that I was putting in the show.

JD: How’s the tour going so far?

ROS: The tour’s going well! I’ve never toured before so I’m learning lots about touring. Initially I had a more limited amount of dates, with a very small initial run most of them sold out, so I was asked like ‘do you want to do a tour extension? Do you want to do more dates?’ So I went for it, and I learned the limits of myself in a good way. I had to figure out how much of my audience translates into ticket sales – not to be too mercenary about it. I think the big thing is even when they don’t sell out, it’s more than I’ve ever sold in that place. Because I’ve never been able to sell tickets before.

JD: When you incorporate the 8-bit videos into your show, they build a tension throughout. Do you think embracing this stylised approach made it easier to address more serious topics, or do you think it’s something you could have dealt with purely through standup?

ROS: I think the video element made it easier for the audience, because the aesthetic is really grounded in that time. It’s very easy to talk about these things yet feel removed from them, whereas I think it helps people launch themselves back into that world. I think a lot of the show is quite positive about certain things back then, and it’s good to appreciate what your childhood was like. I do think that having those visual elements helps bring people along, more than just text or pure standup.

JD: When you started off doing standup, did you see yourself embracing this visual aspect during live performance?

ROS: When I started, I was quite puritanical with stand up. I didn’t foresee the visual aspects crossing over, but I was very slow to do social media because it doesn’t come naturally to me. If I didn’t do standup, I probably wouldn’t even have social media, which I use as a promotional tool. I think, over the years, seeing other comedians doing exciting things using AV elements in their shows, made me realise that you can actually make amazing things in these shortform spaces. Ultimately, I think what drives a lot of people to do stand up, myself included, is the need for instant feedback. As easy as it is to be cynical about social media platforms, I think they are actually a great way to truly be a micro-budget filmmaker, find your audience, and figure out your style. The great thing about Instagram is you can be seen by people immediately and you can get quite a big following.

JD: After winning ‘Best Newcomer’ at the Comedians’ Choice Awards Edinburgh 2025, you’ve been working on a new show, what can you tell us about it?

ROS: A lot of the new show is still about Ireland, a bit about missing Ireland or not living there anymore. I have this idea on how to start it visually – it’s almost a dawn and still dark, and throughout the course of the hour the sun slowly starts to rise, and you see more and more bits of the landscape, and towards the end of the show you have this realisation that the different bits of the landscape are actually all of these things I’ve talked about in the show. But the problem is I can’t make that yet because I don’t yet know what I’m going to talk about in the show.

Roger O’Sullivan is a comedian, his show ‘Fekken’ is currently on tour.

@rogerocomedy

Jack Dolan is a writer and comedian.

@goodenoughgang

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WRITER AND COMEDIAN LAUREN O’NEILL INTERVIEWS COMEDIAN, ACTOR, AND WRITER MARIA CUNNINGHAM ABOUT HER ACT, PARTICULARLY HER STYLE OF ‘CLOWNING’.

Lauren O’Neill: How did you become interested in comedy through the style of clowning?

Maria Cunningham: I studied acting in the Gaiety School. In first and second year, we did a week of clowning with Raymond Keane. I had never thought about pursuing clowning before that. I went in wanting to be an actor, and came out wanting to be an actor, clown, and a writer. I think ‘clown’ will always influence my acting. It’s opened up a whole new set of tools to play with regarding acting.

Clowning is this artform based in connection, honesty and failure. It plays with the most fundamental and base level parts of being a human. There’s loads of improvisation and connection with the audience. It’s less like a performance and more like a conversation between the clown and the audience.

In terms of work, there’s more control with clowning, because I make my own work. A lot of acting is auditioning and asking for permission to act, hoping that someone will give you a role – unless you write your own play or make your own film, which is something I love doing. But clowning is something you can just get up and do, whether at an open mic or a fundraiser cabaret night.

LON: How do the aesthetic demands of clowning influence your creative process  differently to stand up?

MC: For me, the very first thing that happens in the process of creating a comedic character is collecting things. I’ll be in a charity shop and I’ll find an object that I like or a piece of clothing that interests me. I’ll get it, not knowing what I’ll use it for. I have this collection of things and the next step is thinking about what I would find enjoyable and exciting. If I want to crowd surf, how am I going to make that happen? What character can I create to help Maria crowd surf? It’s a really fun way of creating work because you’re just following an impulse to facilitate a sensation that you wish to feel. 

I’ll watch a really good stand-up show and think “this is magic.” I have no idea how this is working because I don’t really write structured jokes. The way my brain works is visual comedy. At home, instead of writing jokes, I’m doing freaky movements in my mirror.  

Sometimes I include props and costumes that have the potential for failure, if they fall off or break or move in a weird way – that influences the comedy more. For a clown, failure is a gift. When something doesn’t work the way you want it to work, that’s the real magic. Making my own props and costumes is an important step because it allows me to slow down, sit still, and meditate. The more elaborate the costume, the more potential there is for mishaps, which is what I love.

LON: Does the scripting of shows influence costuming, or do the jokes stem from the visual identity of the characters?

MC: The words tend to come last for me. I wasn’t confident in secondary school English class. Structured writing was never something I was good at. Clowning appeals to me because it feels more natural for me to create a visual or physical joke. A stand-up comedian might write down a joke and ask “is that funny?” It’s the words and the structure of it that might be funny. I’ll try something on in the mirror and I’ll wonder whether that’s funny or not. I’ll start with the visual concept. Maybe the way it moves influences the movement of my body, and, having a background in dance and circus acrobatics when I was younger, I’m confident in experimenting with my physicality and my movement. The costume will always inform the physicality and the physicality will always inform the costume.

LON: The performances often incorporate adult or suggestive themes. What draws you to explore this, particularly through costume design?

MC: I like to make work that deals with taboo themes because, as a woman, growing up in Ireland, I’ve learnt that shame is a very useful tool for an oppressor. I don’t want to sound too intense here, but shame and secrecy are really useful to silence people. As a performer, you have an incredible opportunity to take a theme or subject and put it into the spotlight.

For example, by putting our show ‘Porno’, a clown show about the communication around sex, into the spotlight, we’re trying to release some of that shame. Especially with comedy, you can amplify the scenario and make it absurd. You can have the big boobs and the big vagina and everything is kind of over the top, so it allows people to laugh while we’re still discussing those kinds of themes. That’s why the absurd visual aspects are helpful because they create a little bit of distance between people and reality and that makes the subject less scary.

From a technical point, if you’re thinking about making people laugh, it’s about tension and release. Tension is created in a room when you present a taboo subject. People are holding their breath, then when something ridiculous or unexpected happens, that tension is released and people laugh. That’s why it’s called comic relief, because it’s actual relief.

LON: How does audience interaction come into play during your act?

MC: The audience members will generally help Clown Maria to try to achieve something. We might fail miserably, which can be very funny, or we might succeed and the audience gets to enjoy the triumph. But there will always be a want for the character and a journey they’re trying to go on.

‘Porno’was created by me and my clown partner, Saorla Rodger – we have a clowning duo called Lipstink. The bulk of the show was improvised within a structure we had built. We wanted to focus on the fact that in Ireland, we grow up with very little sexual education in schools, and Irish people are typically not very confident at having those discussions. The concept was that we were Ireland’s top live sex stars and were on the last night of our nationwide tour. We go to attempt our big move and we have an accident, causing us to have concussion. We’ve forgotten how to have sex. There’s Giorgio and Amanda, they’re naked and they’re ready, but they don’t know what the steps are. So, we ask the audience to teach us how to have sex. It was so beautiful and hilarious to hear what people said. We wanted to play with how the words we use can be mixed up. People using innuendos made it funny and so easy to misconstrue the words and fully act out what they were saying, but without the understanding of what it actually meant, which created hilarious scenarios.

LON: Are there any upcoming shows you’re developing?

MC: My next performance will be in ‘The Hoes of Tralee’ run by The Wild Geeze. I’m currently further developing ‘Porno’ with Saorla and a new play ‘Dole Bots’into full length shows. I always post updates of shows that I’m making or performing in on my Instagram page.

Maria Cunningham is a comedian, actor, writer and clown.

@maria._.cunningham

@lipstink_comedy

Lauren O’Neill is a writer and comedian.

@alexmillercomedy

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THOMAS POOL REVIEWS THE LIGHTKEEPER AT THE DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL.

A lighthouse is a lonely symbol. Often a shorthand in literature, art, and film, the lighthouse represents themes of isolation, caution, and, with each flash of its lamp, hope for a safe harbour. The Lightkeeper (2026) is a film that embodies that forlorn mixture of solitude and hope. In the Light House Cinema, however, it was quite evident that familiarity and community was all around.

The sold-out premiere of The Lightkeeper on 21 February, during the Dublin International Film Festival, was filled with many attendees personally attached to the film. Set on an unnamed island off Ireland’s west coast, the film was shot on location in Donegal. All around me in the theatre, excited Donegal accents flittered around in whispers, with cheers and applause sporadically peppering the showing whenever an extra was recognised. The cinema had the same warm air of fellowship that you’d find in a local theatre production, and there was a great sense of pride and community among the many friends, family, and neighbours in attendance.

Set in 1924, the film centres on Seamus Óg McGrinna, played by Dominic Cooper, who is a lonely man with a lonely profession – a lighthouse keeper. Having lost his wife and child, Seamus spends his free time drinking, and rowing out to sea, waiting for the malevolent spirit, the Each-Uisce (Water Horse), to drown him. However lonely he is, he is not alone. His housekeeper, Maire, played by Sarah Bolger, is deeply devoted and protective of Seamus, and, we suspect, very much in unrequited love with him. Seamus’s routine of drinking in the pub, ferrying himself back to the mainland to pick flowers from his deceased wife’s garden, and then heading back to place them on her grave, fastidiously updating his lightkeeper’s log book, and attempting to drown himself, is interrupted by the separate arrivals of an American widow and a hardline priest.

The priest, Father MacGabhann, played by Aidan Quinn, is the only man on the island with a car. The sputtering of his Oldsmobile, a harbinger of his impending arrival, warns the islanders to start acting piously. The conflict with Seamus begins when the priest enters the pub, his car out of petrol, to request a jerrycan from the barkeep. With a rather dour mass having just concluded, the priest admonishes the men to return home to their families. Seamus, having no surviving family, takes that as exemption – the priest, however, does not.

MacGabhann makes one wonder, what if Father Ted had ruled Craggy Island with an iron fist? Not particularly competent, compelling, or adored, MacGabhann sees Seamus as a figure of resistance – one that must be subdued, lest the rest of his flock begin to question his authority. The priest finds his opening when he discovers Seamus has buried his wife Bridget on the unconsecrated grounds of the lighthouse, next to a memorial for their son, Weeshie.

The American widow, Edith, played by Sarah Gadon, has come to Ireland to try and find a sense of closure. Her husband, a soldier, drowned off the coast of the island when his transport ship sank during a ferocious storm in WWI. Weeshie, it turns out, died that night as well, after he rowed out into the channel to rescue the survivors. Their shared loss from the same tragedy brings Edith and Seamus together, much to Maire’s pain.

The film leaves much unsaid, and the hints of conflict between ancient mythology and the Catholic Church never quite materialise. The power of the priesthood at this time in Irish history is not only political and cultural, but personal as well.

MacGabhann uses the church’s influence to force the hand of the lighthouse commissioners, who demand that Seamus reintern his wife’s remains in the consecrated cemetery. When he refuses, he is told he will be fired. Criticism of this power is ultimately diffused by the end of the film, when after leading a mob to the lighthouse to forcibly remove Bridget’s remains, MacGabhann relents after hearing the trio of pleas from Maire, Edith, and Seamus himself. An uneasy truce is brokered, and the grounds of the lighthouse are consecrated. Unable to let power go completely, MacGabhann gently reminds Seamus that he will now need to put a cross above the garden gate.

The film’s strength truly lies in its visual storytelling. The austere, sharp features of the Donegal coast are heightened by the superb cinematography of Vic Sarin, who is also the director. In one scene, the lighthouse itself, the only source of light at night, gently holds Seamus in a series of vignettes, as he slowly moves in its flashes. These lonely images of darkness and light would be marvellous additions to any photography museum if rendered into stills. At its best, the cinematography resembles Hungarian-American cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond’s work on The Deer Hunter (1978), echoing its use of natural light and expansive landscapes to shape a story about loss and moving forward after unfathomable tragedy.

In his final attempt to join his wife and child, Seamus is finally granted his audience with the shape-shifting spirit, Each-Uisce, who appears to him in the form of his son. Unlike in traditional folklore, where the water-horse drowns and devours its victims, Seamus is carried back up to the surface. As he pulls his skiff ashore, the lonely man at last finds the community that he had been longing for. Indeed, they were all around me in the theatre, roaring with applause.

Thomas Pool is the Content and Production Editor of The Visual Artists’ News Sheet and the Commissioning Editor of the miniVAN.

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PAUL DUNNE REVIEWS NO ORDINARY HEIST AT THE DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2026.

Directed by Colin McIvor, No Ordinary Heist (2026) is a heist movie of small, deep settings with large stakes. Eddie Marsan and Éanna Hardwicke face off against each other as the film’s protagonists – Richard and Barry, respectively, who grew up on the same street, and whose fathers had a history. Now, Richard is a bank manager, while Barry is at the bottom of the corporate ladder, though crucially, he holds the keys to the bank vault. A drunken conversation in a seedy pub with a local criminal turns Barry and Richard’s worlds upside down, as their families become kidnapping targets, forcing the pair to pull off the heist.

No Ordinary Heist excels in its exploration of the human cost of criminality, and the set of conditions that would lead people to treat each other with hostility. The negative effects of capitalism, in which individuals feel they must compete for a dwindling pool of resources (in this instance, cold hard cash in the lead up to Christmas) are foregrounded and echoed by a bank robbery (based on a real event), set in Belfast in December 2004, just after the end of The Troubles.

This feeling of discomfort and desperation at the hands of an uncaring system ripples beyond the heist itself. Head security guard Mags (expertly portrayed by Michelle Fairley) is in a constant state of surveillance, not only over the safety of the bank, but her own job security. Meanwhile, Barry struggles to collect subs for his GAA team and Richard must decide who will lose their job just before Christmas. The Australian CEO of the bank doesn’t care who is sacked, whereas Richard must reckon with firing someone he sees every day.

There is a coldness that Director of Photography Damien Elliot exemplifies through long distance, aerial views of Belfast’s skyline and city streets. Fluorescent, blueish, artificial light floods most scenes set in office spaces. The mise-en-scène of each frame exudes feelings, more often than not, of tension and fear. McIvor contrasts homely, domestic interiors with the sterility of the modern bank. We are invited into the homes of Richard and Barry, where love and love-lost both flourish. The Troubles pervade these private settings, exposing the harsh and enduring impact of the conflict on many Northern Irish citizens. Not everyone gets the opportunity to rise up the corporate ladder, and not everyone has a loving home to return to; there are those for whom criminality is the only way to earn a living.

That is not to say that the film attempts to elicit sympathy with the bank robbers; rather that McIvor and Aisling Corristine’s script allows us to access broader, deeper depictions of Belfast beyond its bombings and headline-grabbing tensions. The everyday is at the forefront of this film. The routines we all go through to put food on the table get turned upside down by the bank robbers, as Richard and Barry must cooperate with evil and with each other – and at times, that proves to be the greater challenge. Richard is sceptical of Barry’s presumed innocence or potential involvement in the heist. Prejudice and discrimination linger, even though at the key moments of the film, Barry is the only person who can understand Richard’s predicament.

The decision to include an onscreen countdown and ticking clock in the film score provide constant reminders of what is at stake. Outmoded technology (such as old-school Nokias and landline telephones) tie both Richard and Barry to the bank robbers, while constant worry about phone signal pervades key moments, racketing up the tension.

One is reminded of films like Dog Day Afternoon (1975) or Collateral (2004), in which ordinary citizens get mixed up in extraordinary circumstances. Some find the ability to rise and deliver under pressure where others falter. The desperation of the bank robbers fuels their ingenuity to devise a heist where they never even enter the bank. There is something to admire in this creative and precise plan, which sits in contrast to typical plots of the heist genre, in which we often we see larger-than-life characters, wielding even larger guns, shoving stacks of money into gym bags before peeling off in a stolen vehicle. The calmness of execution and anonymity of the criminals (who are still at large to this day) is particularly appealing and fresh.

No Ordinary Heist is slated for general release on 27 March 2026.

Paul Dunne is a writer and a critic based in Dublin. His writing has appeared in The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices (Unbound, 2021), edited by Paul McVeigh.

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PAUL DUNNE REVIEWS THE MANDARIN-LANGUAGE FILM RESURRECTION AT THE DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL.

The science fiction drama, Resurrection (2025), is a fantastical, psychological exploration of the power and history of cinema. In the world of the film, dreaming has been made illegal, and as a result, everyone is now immortal. However, there are a select few, called deliriants, who choose to dream anyway, and are able to travel through time. At the risk of losing the reader in this complex synopsis, these bounds are simply a framing device that allows director Bi Gan to showcase, reflect, and comment on the role of cinema – and storytelling more broadly – in our lives.

Bi Gan chooses a fractal mode to convey a series of six sequences across five distinct settings. This includes mundane locations such as a busy train station, a dilapidated Buddhist temple, and a dockyard controlled by a criminal gang. There are four vignettes, or ‘dreams’, as we are invited into the minds of several deliriants, who use film to hide from the authorities that have outlawed dreaming. Each dream serves as a separate but connected parable in which the tenets of Buddhist thought are explored: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and mind. There are various humorous moments that break the fourth-wall, reminding us that this is just a film, as wondrous and epic as it may seem. Bi Gan never forgets the pure, essential essence of cinema as a tool through which to delight, deceive, distract, and reflect us back to ourselves.

Each of the six sequences has its own visual and sonic identity that reflects cinematic innovations across history. We begin in the silent film era, with title cards and a grand orchestral score; there is no dialogue or colour. We then move to a grainy film reel, featuring cascading shadows and multiple shots within mirrors. In the second-last sequence, a 30-minute hand-held tracking shot follows the characters as they move through a world bathed in neon light, to the sounds of a distant rave on New Year’s Eve at the turn of the millennium, all choreographed with gritty perfection.

Dong Jingsong deserves special mention as the cinematographer. In charting the history of cinema, his deconstruction and re-construction of cinematic techniques and language is as bold as I have ever seen. He masterfully and gracefully handles techniques of surrealism, magical realism, stop-motion, and time-lapse as deftly as he does simple two-shot framing devices. It all feels truly collaborative, involving a high-level reading and understanding of Bi Gan’s direction, Zhai Xiaohui’s ambitious script, and the strong and subtle performances, which combine to make this a truly special film.

Resurrection is akin to other seminal works of speculative fiction, such as Stalker (1979) or Children of Men (2006), which portray how humanity survives an imminent dystopia, filled with meaningless wars, fascist bureaucracy, and cultural erasure. However, Resurrection is laden with a lightness, playfulness, well-timed humour, and narrative depth, to create intermeshed layers. This material is challenging yet inviting, experimental yet relatable, and there is a Lynchian quality to it all. For a film as intellectual and metatextual as Resurrection, I found it astonishingly enjoyable.

After seeing Resurrection, I am reminded of two quotes. The first from Bong Joon Ho as he won the Best Picture Oscar® for Parasite (2019): “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you’ll be introduced to so many more amazing films.” The second from David Lynch: “Now if you’re playing the movie on a telephone you will never, in a trillion years, experience the film.” Resurrection is a film that you really should see in the cinema. Yes, you must read the subtitles. And yes, the film is 2 hours and 40 minutes long. However, after ten minutes, you will melt into it. With each ‘dream’ being roughly 40 minutes, you are never far from a change of pace or direction. Resurrection is cinema-as-spectacle, and a fun and fitting tribute to the medium of cinema. In a time when streaming platforms and short-form algorithms have changed how we interact with all media, Resurrection is an epic worth seeing in a dark cinema, surrounded by fellow movie lovers.

Resurrection is slated for general release on 13 March 2026.

Paul Dunne is a writer and a critic based in Dublin. His writing has appeared in The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices (Unbound, 2021), edited by Paul McVeigh.

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CAILEIGH RYAN REVIEWS THE JAPANESE-LANGUAGE FILM, EXIT 8, AT THE DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL.

When someone gives you a Japanese horror film recommendation, it’s one of life’s greatest treats. Japanese filmmakers do it right and do it different, and the Dublin International Film Festival understands this. The Lighthouse Cinema was packed for the sold-out Irish premiere of Exit 8 (2025).

From the hubbub in the queue, it seemed the majority didn’t quite know what we were about to step into: “I don’t know, man, not sure what it’s about, but it’s based off a Japanese video game, I’d say it’ll be good.” The best way to view a new release. No hints, no expectations, just trust.

Public transit can be quite annoying at times. The noise of chatter, the too-hot discomfort of an overcrowded carriage at rush hour, the baby wailing in the background, the screech of wheels on tracks – until it all becomes too much and you blissfully mute the clamour by inserting a pair of earphones into your ears. Maybe you answer your phone when it rings, just to escape the background noise. Our protagonist, The Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya), lives this same universal commute and does the very same thing. Exit 8 utilises everyday sounds as aural horror in a way I have never before experienced in film. We find welcome relief, silence and solitude as we follow The Lost Man off the train and into the quiet exit corridor, where he loses phone signal during a difficult and life-altering phone call. The relief lasts until we realise that we cannot exit easily. The use of noise was made horrific in such an impactful way, that I found myself reaching for the volume button on the remote I didn’t have. A cacophony of harsh, grating noises really intensified the uneasiness of the film.

Exit 8 is a film adaptation of the popular video game of the same name. You can complete the game quickly, or it can go on for a while. The duration of your journey to the exit depends entirely on how astute you are (and how well you can sit with feelings of uncertain anticipation and unease). The premise of both the film and game is the same: in order to depart the underground subway station, we must leave through Exit 8. To reach Exit 8, we must traverse a number of corridors that visually replicate each other, right down to the advertisements on the walls. We begin at Exit 0. What should be a straight-forward journey to Exit 8 is disrupted constantly by the rule: if you notice an anomaly, you must turn back. If you fail to notice an anomaly or fail to turn back, you find yourself back at Exit 0, and must repeat the process again, not knowing what to expect this time around.

This same intense, psychological second-guessing and maniacal determination to find intentional anomalies culminates in a film that leaves the viewer as invested as our protagonist, fearing what’s to come next, and doubtful that we will ever get out. The psychological tension throughout this film is intense.

I found myself so drawn to The Lost Man, despite his lack of dialogue. Ninomaya delivered an acting masterclass in this one. I empathised with him, grew frustrated with him, rooted for him, hoped for him, and walked with him. And walked with him some more. I walked with him for an hour and a half, actually. Not only do we walk with The Lost Man physically, but we also walk with him as he laments the possible outcomes of that life-altering phone call. At the beginning of this walk, I’m as undecided as he is, but find myself hoping that by the time we make it out of the exit, we’ll have figured it out. What a concept, to lament your next step. I didn’t sign up for a philosophical exercise, yet here I was, with The Lost Man, doing just that and enjoying it too.

I found myself hoping for fright on each corridor, though it wasn’t to be. Ultimately, the few slices of visual horror in this film when done, are done so well. At the same time, though, I can appreciate that director Kawamura did not rely on visual horror alone to create the uneasiness. He could have taken the easy route, but he didn’t. To satisfy horror fans, there were some much appreciated, but subtle, visual parallels between Exit 8 and Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). We turn a corner to find a lost little boy at the end of the corridor. He has ‘the shine’, to borrow from Kubrick; he has been through this before, and has to fight his corner to convince us of anomalies. Sometimes you just have to trust the kid. Around another corner we find a flood gushing toward us at a speed we can’t run from. Sometimes we find solace in our favourite tropes, particularly when we don’t expect them.

The concept of making one’s way down never-ending hallways really robs both our protagonist and the audience of any sense of autonomy. We are at the mercy of the rules. We cannot control what is to come, or why. The path to Exit 8 is a purgatory of sorts – a passage through to the next place that propels us towards some sort of reckoning that we haven’t anticipated or signed up for. No autonomy, no control, no idea how it’s going to end – or if we can even escape. Isn’t that what good horror does?

Exit 8 is slated for Irish general release on 24 April 2026.

Caileigh Ryan is a writer and critic living in Galway. Her fiction has appeared in Tír na nÓg literary magazine, and she appeared as a guest on the poetry podcast, Sharpen Your Tongue.

caileighryan.com

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