Belfast Festival

The Festival is in its fiftieth year and still going strong. For a couple of weeks in the Autumn the city is packed with arts events. A veritable portmanteau that I always look forward to sampling.

In case of sell-outs, I booked all my tickets before I went off to England. Then, over the Festival, I went down with a bad cold and bronchitus: but wrapped up well, I still managed to attend most of the events I'd booked. The highlights for me were:

Junk Ensemble (The Falling Song). Very inventive contemporary dance: quirky and full of ideas. They employed live percussion, piles of mattresses, a children's choir and ten kilos of apples in the show.

Gregory Porter. Soulful New York Jazz. Gregory, a big black guy, does ballads with power and feeling. His sidemen play fast and super-cool.

Buena Vista Orchestra. The Cuban oldies are still going strong (without Ry Cooder). They might have to sit down to last out the set, but boy can they play. The Ulster Hall was swinging with son.

Polyphony. Pitch and tone-perfect choral ensemble performing works from Britten and Whitacre in Clonard on Halloween, fireworks exploding all around.

WillFred Theatre (Follow). A marvellous one man show around the theme of deafness. Shane O'Reilly does inspired physical theatre.

The main disappointment was the Michael Clark Company. A big reputation but a timid and tedious show.

Finally a mention for The Moving Word, a live poetry, music and image extravaganza from the Heaney Centre. 25 poets and musicians filling an afternoon in the Queen's Film Theatre. I was one of these poets. A well attended show with a good mix of performances.

I'm sad to say that it's all over for another year. But pleased to report that the cold and cough is on the way out.