Theatre

Sara Keating: Rough Magic enjoys a Shakespearean lark in the park

The company’s staging of The Tempest at the Kilkenny Castle Parklands was one of the biggest highlights of the Kilkenny Arts Festival, which concludes on Sunday

Martha Breen and Eleanor Methven in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, directed by Lynne Parker at the Kilkenny Arts Festival. Picture: Ros Kavanagh

The cultural calendar during the Irish summer is one long festival, with a concentrated programme of regional arts events enlivening the long days and long weekends of the summer months.

The best of these take advantage of the built and natural environment, and Kilkenny Arts Festival has been one of the leaders in that respect over the last few years. Never more so than this year, where some of the city’s most famous and hidden ...