The sheer scale of the deadly injustice being done to the civilian population of Gaza does not compare at all with the story of Paddy Armstrong, which was brought to a Geneva audience in a bravura performance on Saturday night by the Irish actor, Don Wycherley. The only common thread between the two scenarios is…
On 22 October 1975, the Guildford Four were convicted of bombings carried out by the Provisional IRA. They were Paul Hill, Gerry Conlon, Carol Richardson and Paddy Armstrong. Their innocence was accepted by the British Courts after they had spent 15 years in prison. Gerry Conlon’s story was told in the Oscar-winning film In the…
John Spillane just about made it to the church on time. Flight delays and Geneva traffic saw him arrive at the Lutheran Evangelical Church an hour before showtime. He was up since 5am but there were no signs of exhaustion as he delivered a non-stop flow of songs and stories in his inimitable style full…
It was a close call, but GLAS has decided to save Christmas and bring the mighty John Spillane to town for a magic night of music, songs and stories in the lovely confines of the Lutheran Church in the heart of Geneva’s old town. John’s latest album The Legend of the Lough was named Irish folk…
For twenty years now the actor and writer Pat Kinevane – in collaboration with the artistic director of Fishamble theatre company, Jim Culleton – has been exploring various aspects of what it is like to be down-and-out in a society that puts a premium on being upwardly mobile. GLAS welcomed him back on the Geneva…
The last time GLAS hosted Pat Kinevane was his performance of Silent in 2014 and it went on to win a Laurence Olivier award for the Dublin-based Fishamble Theatre Company. We are bringing him back for his latest solo drama for one night only on Thursday, 6 November, in our old stomping ground at the…
For the first time since the COVID pandemic, GLAS returned last night to where it all began twenty years ago in the wood-lined Aula in the Collège des Coudriers. In an echo of that Joycean-themed first night in January 2005, we gathered last night to celebrate James Joyce again, and the greatest novel of the…
“If Ulysses isn’t worth reading, then life isn’t worth living” – James Joyce. GLAS is delighted to bring Blooming Ulysses to the Geneva stage for the first time. Every year, fans of Ulysses celebrate Bloomsday on 16 June, which is the day in 1904 on which Leopold Bloom famously makes his way around Dublin in…
Nobody could ever accuse Samuel Beckett of looking at life through rose-tinted spectacles, fascinated as he was by ‘the tranquillity of decomposition.’ That’s a phrase I picked up from Conor Lovett’s marvellous incarnation of Beckett’s anti-hero Molloy on the Geneva stage last night before a capacity crowd in the Lutheran Evangelical Church. The drama in…
Waiting for Beckett? The Gare St. Lazare theatre company is described by the New York Times as “the unparalleled Beckett champions.” They have been touring and producing new and innovative performances of Samuel Beckett’s work for 30 years. As part of our 20th anniversary programme, we are delighted to bring back Conor Lovett’s performance of…
Joy and good humour were unconfined last night as GLAS marked its 20th anniversary with a double bill before a capacity crowd in Geneva, raising CHF 9,100 for the Gaza School of Music, which GLAS has supported since 2016. The evening kicked off with a delightful one-act black comedy ‘Friends help You Move’ about two…
Help GLAS celebrate its 20th anniversary with a very special evening of theatre. We launched in the middle of a snow and ice storm in January 2005, with a show about James Joyce. If you were at that first event, get in touch and be our guest at the Aula, College Sismondi, on 29 January…
The spirit of last night’s GLAS Christmas concert was perfectly captured in the happy face of ex-UN staffer, Margaret Strang (below left) when she was surprised during Eoghan O’Sullivan’s set with a birthday cake to mark her 94th birthday. Eoghan led a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday which followed nicely on his efforts to encourage…
‘Pity the nation’ – Support Gaza this Christmas The GLAS Christmas concert in the old town of Geneva is always a musical treat. Last year it was headlined by The Emigrants, an amazingly talented, multi-national ensemble playing a lively brand of traditional Irish music. Due to popular demand, we are bringing them back this December.…
There was an audible gasp of disbelief from the GLAS audience last night when they realised that the formidable Kitsy Rainey had shuffled off this mortal coil since we last saw her alive and well and about to marry the mute cobbler, Pat Farnon. Such was the hold she had taken on the affections of…
NOTE: Change of venue – see below! The wait will have been worth it. Mikel Murfi is returning to the Geneva stage following his spellbinding performance earlier this year in ‘The Man in the Woman’s Shoes.’ It won him a standing ovation and GLAS received many emails from audience members looking forward to the next…
It is not too much of a stretch to say that a day in the life of Pat Farnon, a mute cobbler and Sligo bachelor, is as significant in its own way as a day in the life of Leopold Bloom or Ivan Denisovich. Just ask anyone in the capacity audience last night in Geneva…
“You’re entitled to go to the theatre and see something which is utterly uplifting and joyful.” So says the Irish writer and actor, Mikel Murfi, and GLAS is delighted to bring his acclaimed solo show ‘The Man in the Woman’s Shoes’ to Geneva. Murfi trained at the prestigious Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris and has had…
The GLAS Christmas Concert was very special this year. It was a story of two halves. One played by the UN Choir, centred on yuletide carols, while The Emigrants gave us music from the rich repertoire of the Irish tradition. And the result was at least CHF 6,500 collected on the night for the displaced…
Many friends of GLAS will recall the electrifying performance of Rafeef Ziadeh, the Palestinian poet, who we hosted in June 2016. At her suggestion we started to support the Gaza School of Music, founded in 2012 as a branch of the Edward Said Conservatory of Music to offer the first ever long-term music education programme…
Jigs, reels and songs aplenty rang out in the old town of Geneva yesterday as GLAS welcomed a full house inside the hallowed walls of the Lutheran Evangelical Church on the Place Bourg de Four. The traditional Irish music trio Tulsk electrified the audience from the start. The interplay between Peter Molloy on flute, Sean…
We are delighted to host this showcase of talent from the Emerald Isle featuring five of the country’s most talented singers and musicians. Pauline Scanlon comes from an Irish-speaking tradition on the Dingle Peninsula and her voice has a haunting beauty. Niamh Regan is a singer-songwriter from Galway who combines Irish tradiiton with flavours of Americana,…
The first GLAS event of the year was billed as a spring concert and there was definitely a spring in the step of Eoghan O’Sullivan as he took to the stage to deliver a buoyant, uplifting set of songs ‘From the Bright Side’ that earned him a standing ovation from a capacity attendance. The singer-songwriter…
For our spring concert this year, we’re inviting you to spend an evening in the company of locally based singer and songwriter Eoghan O’Sullivan. A troubadour at heart, Eoghan has performed throughout Europe and beyond. He left his native Ireland for Switzerland in 2004 and has lived here ever since (aside from a few years…
It has been too long since we had a live, in-person event. So, we have decided to get the GLAS ball rolling again with a Christmas concert featuring the remarkable acapella vocal trio, White Raven, on Friday, December 16 in the beautiful setting of Geneva’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in the heart of the old town…
Mohamedou Ould Slahi was imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay for 14 years, an innocent man held in a living hell courtesy of the United States as it prosecuted the so-called War on Terror. His gripping memoir, published as Guantánamo Diary, has been reissued as The Mauritanian with previously censored material restored. It coincides with a major film…
Robert Jones Jr. has just published his stunning debut novel The Prophets to enormous critical acclaim. He was born and raised in New York City. He has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Essence, OkayAfrica, The Feminist Wire, and The Grio. He is the creator of the social justice social media community…
Mukesh Kapila is one of the most influential voices on the world stage when it comes to humanitarian action. He is widely celebrated for raising his voice against the genocide in Darfur which led to his expulsion from Sudan, a rare fate for a UN country representative. His memoir about that experience Against a Tide…
It has been a while since we offered you a musical evening and it is even further back in the pre-COVID past since that magical evening we enjoyed in the company of John Spillane in the Lutheran Evangelical Church here in Geneva. Generous sponsorship has made it possible to invite all GLAS members to join…
If there is one lesson that Lord Mark Malloch-Brown has learned in his years as a globe-trotting humanitarian and development specialist, it is that “democracy does not flow easily from the barrel of a foreigner’s gun.” An understandable sentiment from the man who founded the International Crisis Group and whose classic memoir The Unfinished Global…