ADVERTISEMENT

The European Broadcasting Union, which organises the Eurovision Song Contest, has confirmed it will hold an online vote in November that could see Israeli broadcaster KAN expelled from Eurovision 2026.

For the first time, all member broadcasters will be invited to an extraordinary online General Assembly to vote on whether KAN can take part in the contest. The vote will be the only item on the agenda. 

In a letter sent to participating broadcasters, EBU president Delphine Ernotte Cunci wrote there was an “unprecedented diversity of views” on Israel’s participation in Eurovision, and that the issue required “a broader democratic basis”. 

“We can confirm that a letter has been sent from the executive board of the European Broadcasting Union to directors general of all our members informing them that a vote on participation in the Eurovision song contest 2026 will take place at an extraordinary meeting of the EBU’s general assembly to be held online in early November.” 

This follows several European broadcasters threatening to boycott the world’s largest live music event should Israel take part.

Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland and Slovenia have all stated they would withdraw if Israel were kept on next year’s line-up. Danish broadcaster DR has stated it will not withdraw from Eurovision if Israel competes, but did set conditions for its continued participation. Both France and Australia recently confirmed their participation.

While Eurovision is supposedly apolitical, the EBU excluded Russia from the competition shortly after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. However, Israel has continued to compete over the past two years despite international concerns over its actions in Gaza.

Both the 2024 contest in Sweden and this year’s event in Switzerland saw pro-Palestine protests.

More than 70 former Eurovision contestants have signed an open letter demanding Israel and its national broadcaster KAN be banned from the contest, and the winner of last year’s Eurovision, Austrian singer JJ, has said that he too wants Israel to be banned from the Eurovision 2026. 

Israel’s KAN issued a statement following the announcement of the November vote, reportedly expressing “hope that the Eurovision Song Contest will continue to maintain its cultural and apolitical character.”

It also warned that excluding Israel from the contest “could be a step with wide-ranging implications.” No further elaboration was provided.

Since Hamas’ attack on Israeli citizens on October 7, 2023, multiple UN human rights experts have stated that Israel’s military actions in Gaza amount to genocide, with the International Court of Justice finding claims of genocide plausible. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification announced that people in the Gaza Strip are officially facing “a man-made” famine in the territory – despite what the Israeli government has said.

The 70th anniversary edition of Eurovision is due to take place in Vienna, Austria.The finale will take place on 16 May after the semi-finals on 12 and 14 May 2026.

Event of the week

Lewis Capaldi

Monday & Tuesday, September 29th & 30th, 3Arena, Dublin, 6.30pm, €159.40 (sold out), tickermaster.ie

Lewis Capaldi sold out these 3Arena shows within hours, and it’s the same story with the Scottish singer’s open-air Irish shows in the summer of 2026. (He’s at Marlay Park, in Dublin, on June 23rd and 24th; Thomond Park, in Limerick, on June 26th; and at Belfast Vital on August 20th). So, yes, Ireland loves him, and with good reason: these shows arrive after Capaldi took a break from touring in 2023 to manage the debilitating symptoms of his Tourette’s syndrome. There’s no official word on a new (third) album, but the release earlier this year of his cover of the Britney Spears ballad Everytime, followed by his own tracks Survive and Something in the Heavens, is a clear message to fans: another collection of songs is on the way. Prepare for billions more streams.

Gigs

The Miami Showband 50th Anniversary Memorial Concert

Monday, September 29th, Vicar Street, Dublin, 7pm, €42.20, ticketmaster.ie

The darkest moment in Irish music history occurred in the early hours of July 31st, 1975, when members of the Miami Showband, travelling from Banbridge, in Co Down, to Dublin, were stopped at a fake military checkpoint. Three of the group – Fran O’Toole, Brian McCoy and Tony Geraghty – were killed. For this 50th-anniversary memorial concert, surviving members Stephen Travers, Des Lee and Ray Millar convene with an array of Irish showband performers and country singers. Guest artists include Johnny Logan, Red Hurley, Tommy Sands, The Swarbriggs and Sandy Kelly. All profits from the event, which is hosted by Ronan Collins and Fr Brian D’Arcy, will be donated to the Irish Cancer Society.

For Those I Love

Wednesday, October 1st, Mike the Pies, Listowel, Co Kerry, 7pm, €25 (sold out), mikethepies.com; Thursday, October 2nd, Cyprus Avenue, Cork, 7pm, €27.50, cyprusavenue.ie; Friday, October 3rd, Limelight, Belfast, 7pm, £26.25, limelightbelfast.com; Sunday, October 5th, Roisín Dubh, Galway, 7pm, €27.50, roisindubh.net

Producing music under the name of For Those I Love, the Dublin singer-songwriter David Balfe won the 2021 RTÉ Choice Music Prize for his debut self-titled album. Four years later, Balfe has released the follow-up, Carving the Stone, another work of raw, lyrical and sociopolitically charged songs. These intimate shows lead up to a headline concert on Monday, October 6th, at 3Olympia Theatre in Dublin (7pm, €34.15/€29.20, tickermaster.ie).

Gilla Band

Friday, October 3rd, Cyprus Avenue, Cork, 7pm, €27.50, cyprusavenue.ie

It’s rare that a music act of Gilla Band’s status plays at small venues (some for the first time), so you’ll need to get your skates on to nab a ticket. Earplugs are advised – although you won’t need them for the superb special guest on all dates, the singer-songwriter Aoife Nessa Frances. Also Saturday, October 4th, Connolly’s of Leap, Co Cork, 7pm, €23.50 (sold out), connollysofleap.com; Friday, October 10th, Roisín Dubh, Galway, 8pm, €21.50/€19, roisindubh.net; Saturday, October 25th, and Sunday, October 26th, Workmans Club, Dublin, 7.30pm, €27.50 (sold out), theworksmanclub.com; Thursday, October 30th, Spirit Store, Dundalk, Co Louth, 7.30pm, €22.50, spiritstore.ie

Dance

Tipperary Dance Festival

From Wednesday, October 1st, until Friday, October 10th, Thurles, Clonmel and Nenagh, Co Tipperary, various venues, times and prices, tipperarydance.com

Subtitled Dance at Heart, the 16th edition of Tipperary Dance Festival presents a broad range of performances (including Virgilio Sieni’s Satiri, Junk Ensemble’s Dances Like a Bomb and Mufutau Yusuf’s Impasse), masterclasses (including with Italy’s Maurizio Giunti and the UK’s Ian Garside) and workshops (including Tango for Beginners, Age in Movement, Dance for Adults, and Children’s Dance). The festival, says artistic director Alexandre Iseli, “sticks to one value like a mantra: dance can help us cultivate ways to live together … Seeing differences, embracing them, living with them and maintaining our ability for curiosity and dialogue.”

Music conference

Ireland Music Week

Wednesday-Friday, October 1st-3rd, various venues, times and prices, Dublin city, irelandmusicweek.com

How time zips by: this is the 23rd year of Ireland Music Week, the annual independent-music showcase and conference that has, since its inception, provided encouragement and support for emerging Irish musicians. More than 50 music acts (including several from the Baltic countries) perform on Thursday, October 2nd, and Friday, October 3rd – although you might find it hard to move between all the bookers, record-label execs, managers, publishers and agents. Highlights include Bonniesongs, God Knows, Martina and the Moons, Tanaka VII and the visiting Latvian artist Vultura. All conference discussions and panel sessions take place in Lost Lane, off Grafton Street.

In conversation

An Audience with Priscilla Presley

Wednesday, October 1st, NCH, Dublin, 7.30pm, €55, nch.ie

One of the most famous music-associated people in the world, Priscilla Presley arrives in Dublin as part of a world tour to promote her new memoir, Softly, As I Leave You. The evening will focus on her life before and after her marriage to Elvis Presley, and what it was like walking away from what was perceived as a glamorous world into one of hard-earned independence. Other topics include the tragic death of her first husband, her daughter Lisa Marie’s marriage to Michael Jackson, and the issues of legacy, identity and self-preservation.

Still running

Caim

Until Tuesday, September 30th, Slane Castle, Co Meath, free (booking required), caimatslane.com

The objective of Caim, Slane Castle estate’s inaugural art programme, is to nurture relationships between Ireland’s cultural heritage and international contemporary art. Curated by Jenn Ellis and Matilda Liu, the exhibition features works by nearly 20 Irish and international artists, including Melania Toma, Kathy Tynan, Omar El Lahib, Niamh O’Malley, Yijia Wu and Fergus Martin.

Book it this week

• The Mirror Stage, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, November 5th-12th, projectartscentre.ie
• Stereolab, Cyprus Avenue, Cork, February 19th, foggynotions.ie
• Gorillaz, 3Arena, Dublin, April 1st, ticketmaster.ie
• Mary Black: The Slán Tour, Vicar Street, Dublin, May 9th, ticketmaster.ie

Hamlet

O’Reilly Theatre, Dublin 1

★★★★☆

“Don’t think you’re going to see that Hamlet,” someone says early on in this exhilarating production from the Peruvian company Teatro La Plaza. Fair warning. Some of the greatest hits do appear. There is engagement with “To be or not to be.” Ophelia meets a damp demise. The stage ends up littered with bodies.

But Chela De Ferrari, directing and writing in close collaboration with her cast, is using the text as a lever to prize open the challenges of living with Down syndrome. The actors all have that condition. Each appears to be working their own experience in with those attending the medieval court of Elsinore.

Arriving at a time when, thanks to (rebuffed) suggestions that Shakespeare no longer be compulsory for higher-level Leaving Cert students, there is much discussion of that writer’s relevance, Teatro La Plaza confirms that Hamlet retains multitudes for anyone anatomising the human condition.

In particular, the show suggests the younger characters share the frustration of people with Down syndrome at not being trusted to be themselves. Ximena Rodríguez, as Ophelia, fastens upon the notion of her father, Polonius, that she is “special” (long a patronising term for the neurodivergent).

Why is she that? Because she has “47 chromosomes”? The discussion of Shakespeare’s best-known soliloquy drifts towards an assertion of the cast’s often denied potentialities.

All of which makes this Hamlet, played in Spanish with English surtitles, sound like a bit of a trial. It is nothing of the sort. Though deeply serious in its intentions, the piece is a riot of fun from self-aware introduction to closing communal celebrations.

We begin with faintly chilling footage of a baby being born and then having its head measured. The cast are here to explain that, although they may sometimes be slow in saying their lines, it is worth waiting for those words to arrive. So it proves.

The titular role is shared among the actors, beginning with Jaime Cruz as a playful incarnation suffering inquisition from another cast member about whether we’re talking to Hamlet, Jaime or, possibly, “Jaimelet”. De Ferrari constructs, from key speeches, a raw scaffolding on which she hangs rich, often profane set-pieces.

[ Hamlet starring actors with Down syndrome: ‘It profoundly reconfigures the meaning of to be or not to be?’Opens in new window ]

There are tricky layers to the famous play within a play, including a suggestion that (stay with me) the real audience’s reaction to what they’re watching may, as is the case with Claudius, reveal some uncomfortable truths.

The “To be or not to be” sequence does wonders with anxiety of influence, beginning before projections of well-known former performers and, after a recorded celebrity interview that we shan’t spoil, forcing the current Hamlet to shadow a giant Laurence Olivier in his legendary 1948 film. We are then invited to vote on whether this is a fair way of approaching the speech.

At times the construction does feel a little like a paternoster of related sketches. Not everything works so well as a lyrical death of Ophelia. But the defiant close is enough to bring a few dozen members of the audience on stage for a massed dance with the charming, committed cast.

Runs at O’Reilly Theatre, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival, until Saturday, September 27th