Out To Lunch Festival is one of the more unique festivals of the year being held early on in the year, taking place mostly at lunch time and including a hot lunch, it usually makes for a series of events (we’ve covered quite a few in the past). This year looks like no exception with some great acts filling up the Black Box and some great food to go with it no doubt. Have a butchers at this lot, then check out their website for tickets etc.
A mouth-watering menu of live music, comedy, spoken word, literature and theatre (and food) will be served up during the lunchtimes and evenings of January to sustain fun lovers and festival goers in the dreaded post-holiday lull.
The OTL musical line-up features such gems as Villagers, The 2 Bears, folk legend Dick Gaughan, Grammy Award-winner Patty Griffin, Mercury Prize-nominated East India Youth, Belfast’s own post-punk pioneers Girls Names, the free-wheeling genius of Beardyman, former CQAF artist in residence Ciaran Lavery & the amazing Emily Barker and The Song Writing Circle Tour (feat. James Yorkston, Withered Hand and The Pictish Trail).
Nouvelle Vague’s Marc Collin Presents BRISTOL: Re-Inventing 90’s Trip-Hop as a 60’s Movie Soundtrack, Matthew E White makes his Belfast debut while Hazel O’Connor, Lindi Ortega, The Strypes, Jim “The King” Brown and NI Opera (Opera, Literature and Lunch) make hugely welcome returns to the Out to Lunch fold…
The Out to Lunch comedy programme includes Sarah Kendall, Francesca Martinez, Sean Hughes, The Boy with Tape on his Face and Isy Suttie, reading from her new book (and fresh from the success of the final series of Peep Show). Hot on the high heels of her last Edinburgh smash (What Would Beyoncé Do), Festival favourite Luisa Omielan returns to Out to Lunch with her acclaimed follow-up Am I Right Ladies?!
The Black Box boards will be trod to a thread, with theatrical highlights including Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Lance – the acclaimed one man rumination on that cyclist, Strolling Through Ulysses, the hilarious, heartbreaking My Name is Saoirse, A Wine Goose Chase – with free wine-tasting of course, and a uniqueretelling of Kafka’s Metamorphosis featuring music from Colin Reid (of Third Policeman Fame) and visuals by comic artist, Debbie McCormack.
There is spoken word, serious thinking and a few surprises in store from Attila The Stockbroker, Irish Times columnist Roisin Ingle holding forth on Public Displays of Emotion, the Tenx9 Storytellers who present an evening of tales around the theme of food and Secret Cabaret, which returns to a top secret locale near you and Black Moon Shakedown, by those number one performers in the Gallop poll – Ponydance.
This year OTL also offers family-sized bites with All Ages Out to Lunch – a programme of events curated by our own Seedhead Arts, including Real Sketchy, (not-so) Mid Week Magic and Belfast Food Tours vs Seedhead Street Art Walking Tour.
