The Greatest Story Ever Told BBC 2 Sat Dec 19, 9am (1965) Max Von Sydow. From his lowly but venerated birth through his adult years as a teacher roving the Holy Land, Jesus attracts admirers and enemies unlike any man before. Sweeping cinematic retelling of the life of Jesus Christ. In concert: The King’s Singers…
Yes, we’ve been having a tough year, and for some it has been a lot tougher than for others. Still, it’s no harm to get some perspective. This was thoroughly provided by The Hunger: The Story of the Irish Famine (RTÉ 1). The first episode was shown last week on Monday and Wednesday and it…
Writing about the Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition bursaries last time round, I ran out of space before alluding to another competition – the Top Security Frank Maher Classical Music Awards – held in October. This has been an annual event since its establishment in 2001 by Emmet O’Rafferty, Chairman and CEO of Top Security,…
This has been a strange and difficult year for publishers, large and small. As religious and spiritual books come largely from small firms, they have been hit very hard. With lockdown across their main markets closing bookshops, online purchases, click-and-collect, and special localised deliveries have been the trend. So sales do go on, but many firms…
A theory of everything (that matters): A short guide to Einstein, Relativity and the Future of Faith by Alister McGrath (Hodder and Stoughton, £14.99) Christopher Moriarty Last year saw the celebration of the centenary of the validation of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. An event of the utmost importance to science, the observations of 1919…
Christmas Tradition, Truth and the Total Baubles by Nick Page (John Murray Press, £6.99) The contents of this book may seem very familiar to some readers, for every Christmas articles and books appear about the traditions of the Nativity and the events surrounding it. Nick Page, who is an agreeable yet well-informed writer with an amusing…
Yours ‘Til Hell Freezes: A Memoir of Kevin Barry by Síofra O’Donovan (Currach Books, €19.99/£17.99) A century ago Kevin Barry became an icon of the republican movement. The ballads on his life and death were particularly popular among Irish expatriates. One of them even became part of Paul Robeson’s repertoire in the 1930s. His status derived…
Different and the same: a folk history of the Protestants of independent Ireland Deirdre Nuttall (Eastwood Books/Wordwell, €25) Ian d’Alton This illuminating book is about “the stories of the ‘old’ Protestant communities of independent Ireland and how these stories have justified feelings of belonging, entitlement, estrangement, marginalisation, and more in the context of a State that…
Who would have thought that an absorbing drama could be made of someone playing chess! Up to now the best chess film I’d seen was Queen of Katwe but drama series The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix) is making quite a stir and everyone I know that has seen it is impressed. Anya-Taylor Joy plays the enigmatic…
As someone who grew up within 100 yards of two cinemas, I was going to films almost as soon as I could walk. If someone told me I wouldn’t be in one more than a dozen times this year I’d probably have told them to send for the men in the white coats. But that’s…
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone