LET THE WORLD SEE THROUGH YOUR EYES sponsored by Vote at www.metrophotochallenge.com/ie Vote now to choose the top 3 Irish photos! The Metro Global Photo Challenge has moved to stage 2 of the competition. In Ireland you submitted over 5,600 photos with a total of 120,000 photos entered globally! Metro readers can now vote to select the best photo from a shortlist of 10 in each category; People, Places and Climate Change. The 3 Irish winners will then go to the world final where a panel of global judges will select the best of the best. Metro wishes to thank everyone who took part and for making 2009 the biggest year to date. Now we ask you to get voting and choose the best 3 photos to represent Ireland! Voting is open from Tuesday 3rd November and Sunday 29th November. To vote go to www.metrophotochallenge.com/ie FIVE QUESTIONS FOR... Actor Vincent Regan, starring in David Harrowers acclaimed play Knives In Hens Why do you think Knives In Hens is the most widely produced Scottish play since Peter Pan? Its not tied down by historical specifics. The play has a dream-like quality but at the same time it is a powerful portrayal of a young womans journey from ignorance to understanding. David Harrowers language is very sparse. Was that daunting? The language can be both brutal and tender, highly charged and achingly poetic. Its important for actors not to be afraid of this but to take the poetry, inhabit it and use it to reveal the inner worlds of the characters. What does director Alan Gilsenans experience in filmmaking bring to the play? Alan has a film directors understanding of time. As is often the case in theatre, one obsesses about pace, of keeping the ball in the air. Alan has the confidence to allow journeys between scenes. You starred in Troy, and also 300. How does green screen acting compare to regular filmmaking? Id rather be on a beach in Mexico [Troy] than a disused factory in frozen Montreal [300]. There was no green screen in Troy whereas 300 was pure green screen. You have to use your imagination when the world is not present around you in a way thats closer to the theatre experience. [Upcoming film] Clash Of The Titans uses CGI but its also a classical piece of filmmaking the sets and costumes are beautiful. Which is the more challenging: the physical training or your characters internal nuances? The physical training. Luckily in Troy, I had a suit of armour, but for 300, I had to lose 19kg (42lbs) in eight weeks. They put me on a zone diet and had a trainer from Gym Jones train us. It was a crushing time but a real challenge and a tremendous experience. We had to continue our training throughout filming, so when we finished I was keen never to see the inside of a gym again. Once you train like a Spartan for that length of time you end up with a more extreme mind-set, which helps in your portrayal of the role. We were living it. With Clash Of The Titans, I play the king aged 20 years, so I was quite happy to leave the action to others. LW Knives In Hens runs until Sat at Smock Alley Theatre. www.knivesinhens.com Tuesday, November 24, 2009 metrolife 13 Mirn, a wealthy textile artist-cum-environmentalist living in a coastal town in Northern Ireland, loses her husband at sea; his body is never found. On the eve of Toms wake Mirn (Cathy Belton, pictured above left) insists that four locals keep her company: theres her stroppy, newly married stepdaughter Trona (Samantha Heaney, pictured above right), matriarchal property developer Clodagh (Eleanor Methven), brash Eileen (Fiona Bell) and young gatecrasher Sweeney (Conor MacNeill). As the whiskey flows, tensions mount and uncomfortable truths about Mirns husband and the excruciatingly tight-knit community are revealed. Parochial attitudes and Celtic mythology collide in Abbie Spallens bracing new play by Fishamble that convincingly explores the claustrophobic xenophobia of small towns. The opening scene, though, was hard to decipher, the high winds and crashing wave audio drowning out the thick Northern Irish accents that even my Ulster-born companion found difficult to tap into. That said, director Jim Culletons knockout cast conveys such palpable menace that its impossible not to fully comprehend the distressing denouement. And its a credit to Spallen for assembling so many strong female characters in one play without ever once resorting to clich. Lucy White Until Dec 5, Project Arts Centre, 39 East Essex Street D2, 8pm, 18 to 22. Tel: (01) 881 9613. www.project.ie GIG Gary Numan Since largely abandoning the radio-friendly synth-pop of hits such as Cars, electro pioneer Gary Numan has embraced for better or worse a broad range of styles, including jazz-fusion, funk and industrial rock. Artistically and commercially, Numans career has been a roller-coaster ride. After things reached a self- admitted nadir with the release of Machine + Soul in 1992, he began to slowly rejuvenate his fortunes by focusing on brooding industrial goth. 2000s Pure, a personal attack on Christian dogma, earned him comparisons with the likes of Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson. Still fusing guitar and synth-driven industrial sounds, Numan is currently working on two new albums: Dead Son Rising, a reworking of demos he rediscovered last year, and Splinter, the follow-up to 2006s Jagged, due for release in early 2010. Yet Numans real legacy is his 1979 album The Pleasure Principle which he will be performing in its entirety tonight some 30 years after it topped the charts. Christopher Collett Tonight, TriPod, Harcourt Street D2, 7.30pm, 22.50 to 27.50. Tel: 0818 719 300. www.garynuman.co.uk ART REVIEW Padded Cell And Other Stories The actor and playwright Gerard Mannix Flynn has never been afraid to lift the lid on some of the more unsavoury elements of Irelands social history but Padded Cell is surely one of his fiercest undertakings to date. Flynn, who as a child spent time in St Josephs industrial school in Letterfrack and later the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, is certainly qualified to tackle the legacy of institutional abuse and in this show which occupies a temporary gallery space on Ormond Quay the viewer is confronted, assailed even, by reports of shocking maltreatment. The ground-floor walls are covered with victim impact statements and medical records from those who were placed in care that make for tough but necessary reading. The centre-piece, however, is a reconstruction of a padded cell, filled with copies of The Ryan Report into institutional abuse, beside rows of church pews, that suggests the collusion between church and state in silencing victims. Its hardly a subtle installation but Flynn is keen to underscore the fact that the government knew of abuses but refused to confront those responsible. The work upstairs is concerned with sectarian violence (right down to the actual bullets spread across the floor) and includes an eerie documentary in which audience members are invited on an interactive tour to explore the legacy of IRA decommissioning. Elsewhere Strait-Talk (a series of wall- mounted bulletproof shields upon which poetry is displayed) sees Flynn cleverly co- opt objects of warfare for artistic ends. Its a strong collection but its the bold examination of child abuse that really reverberates. Daragh Reddin Until Feb, 18 Ormond Quay D1, noon to 5pm, free. www.farcryproductions.ie THEATRE REVIEW Strandline Pictures:Farcryproductions index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html