Finish your Easter Holidays in style with a visit to Antrim Live from Friday 6 until Sunday 8 April. Antrim Town will be awash with activity during this two-day cultural extravaganza.

Antrim Live is a family event with something to offer from tiny tots to seniors. 1950’s Rock N Roll Band The Soda Popz will perform at The Old Courthouse on Friday 6 April and lurgan-born singer Malojian featuring the Antrim Community Choir will play on Saturday 7 April. Star of BBC’s The Blame Game, Neil Delamere will bring the festival to a spectacular close on Sunday 8 April.

We are super egg-cited about our fabulous new interactive Treasure Trail. Join an array of quirky characters which will include Alice in Wonderland, The Mad Hatter and The Wizard of Oz to name just a few and take a trip through the wonderful Wonderland Wood. Street performers, market stalls, arts & crafts, baby rave, fun fair and storytelling with Mr Hullabaloo will provide the children with hours of endless fun.

Our brand new busking competition ‘Busking Live’ will showcase the best of our home-grown talent whilst Castle Mall will host the best of local choirs and singers around.

We hope you can join us for a feast of festivities in the heart of Antrim Town. For a full programme of events please visit www.antrimandnewtownabbey.gov.uk/antrimlive.

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‘We’ll Walk Hand In Hand’ is a new play by Martin Lynch marking the 50^th anniversary of the Northern Ireland civil rights struggle, and it’s coming to The Market Place Theatre in Armagh on Thursday 12 April.

A co-production by Green Shoot Productions and Queen’s University, ‘We’ll Walk Hand In Hand’ will have an exciting combination of professional actors and community participants.

The play charts the story of Vincent and Louise, two young working class kids from Woodvale and the Lower Falls who start Queen’s University on the very day the shocking television images come through of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Becoming embroiled in the heady world of student politics, whilst back home their families see civil rights very differently, Vincent and Louise are confronted with decisions that will mark their lives forever.

Then on Saturday 14 April, after creating a storm around the country, Ireland’s favourite trio, Dominic, Shane, and Derek – collectively The Three Tenors Ireland – return to The Market Place. The Three Tenors promise a magical night to remember, as they perform an exciting Celtic flavoured programme, with uplifting songs made famous by world superstars including Sinatra [My Way], The Dubliners [Wild Rover] and Pavarotti [O Sole Mio | Nessun Dorma]. You’ll also love their new arrangements of hits such as ‘Over the Rainbow’.

Sell-out show, The Jazzabelles, is a musical set in 1950’s Belfast. It tells the story of three girls who long for a better life. After a chance meeting they form a vocal trio, who dream of performing at the prestigious Floral Hall. When a smooth manager enters the frame, it looks like their dream might become reality. However, the road to stardom is far from smooth. The Jazzabelles must overcome bullying husbands, blackmail and bigotry along the way. Is friendship and music enough to see them through? With songs sung by top local talent, a live band, swinging dance routines and a sharp script, The Jazzabelles is a high energy tale of triumph over adversity. It stages on Saturday 14 April.

Tickets can be booked through the Box Office on [028] 3752 1821, or online at www.visitarmagh.com/marketplacetheatre And to keep up-to-date with the latest news at the Market Place Theatre, you can follow us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/marketplacearmagh) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/mptarmagh) where you will find all the latest information, special offers and video previews.

If you’re looking for something a bit different to liven up your Easter Holiday weekend, then join Big Telly Theatre Company in an innovative new game, developed in partnership with Seamus Heaney HomePlace, called Operation Sweet-Talk.

Taking place on Saturday 31st March from 11.30am in Magherafelt Town Centre, Operation Sweet-Talk is an interactive game (part treasure hunt, part immersive theatre) to help find the lost words of Seamus Heaney hidden in multiple locations across Magherafelt.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is the protection of a town called Magherafelt situated on rising land to the west of the Lough Neagh lowlands. (54.7554° N, 6.6080° W). For your own safety, the specifics of your mission will not be revealed until the point of action. You must expect difficult challenges ahead.

There is a town below the water in Lough Neagh called Oceania, ruled by Slime Kings, who seek to control the human race through the annihilation of freedom of thought, speech and ideas. The Slime Kings coat truth in sugary sweetness and deal in platitudes, trivia and blandness. They believe that poetry is a magical art— a making of language spells capable of changing the world in ways we have never dared dream of. They must be stopped.

Participants may book as a team (maximum 10), or in smaller groups/individuals who form part of a team of 10 people. Each team is given a starting time at ten minute intervals, and they then uncover a series of clues which takes them on a journey through the town, in and out of shops, cafes and public areas. The experience lasts roughly an hour, will start at The Bridewell and end in an undisclosed location also in Magherafelt. The game is suitable for ages 8+ and each team must include at least one adult.

For more information or to book your team on the adventure, visit www.SeamusHeaneyHome.com (telephone 028 7938 7444), or find out more and book at The Bridewell, Magherafelt (telephone 028 7963 1510).

The seaside town of Bangor will become a land of make-believe from Saturday 31 March until Monday 2 April, with three days of free, family fun scheduled to take place.

Its very own mystical maze will take centre ‘page’ when ‘dotMaze’, a 20-metre installation that is travelling to Bangor all the way from America, comes to Bangor seafront.  The McKee Clock Arena will also play host to ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ and ‘Mr McGregor’s Garden’ themed tents, with storytelling, sing-alongs, dress-up, crafts, a pop-up library and more entertainment planned.

Project 24 will become Bangor’s very own Chocolate Factory; ‘Main Street, My Street’ and Bangor Chamber of Commerce will host Bangor’s Big Bunny Hunt and other free family fun; fans will be delighted to meet ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ and the ‘Fat Controller’ at intervals throughout the day at Bangor Bus and Train Station; the town’s popular annual Easter scavenger hunt will take place at North Down Museum; little adventurers can follow a treasure trail through Ward Park…and lots more!

The event is being organised by Ards and North Down Borough Council with support from Bangor Chamber of Commerce and ‘Main Street, My Street’. Translink, SERC and local churches are also partnering in the event.

For all ‘Sails and Tales – Stories by the sea’ event times, prices and information, keep up-to-date at: visitardsandnorthdown.com

New Exhibition, Lindsay Seers – Every Thought There Ever Was, 4 May – 29 July 2018

The MAC are delighted to be the first venue for Every Thought There Ever Was, a major new touring exhibition by artist Lindsay Seers. Through digital animation, special effects, drawing and sound design, Every Thought There Ever Was explores the extraordinary brain functioning that occurs in the condition of schizophrenia. Incorporating industrial robotics in conjunction with a three-screen video projection, the work is shaped by philosophical ideas and scientific research concerned with the phenomenon of consciousness.

The work draws on an experimental treatment known as Avatar Therapy, in which those living with schizophrenia can speak to their persecutors in a digital world. Guided by first person accounts and a collaborative drawing exchange, Seers’ work has been shaped by conversations with scientific partners including Anil Seth at The Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science and Chris Frith, Emeritus and Professor of Neuropsychology, UCL to explore the current studies and thinking on the condition.

Pursuing her on-going fascination with how an individual’s biography embodies history, Seers takes Victorian surgeon James Miranda Barry as her narrator. Barry transcends time through a connection with the offspring she gave life to, by performing a ground-breaking emergency Caesarean section operation. Barry’s future life sees her manifest as an Avatar with an ability to cure.

Hugh Mulholland, Senior Curator at the MAC says: “This major new work is the result of extensive research with leading practitioners who are working to develop new treatments for and understanding of schizophrenia.  Into this research Lindsay weaves the experiences of those living with the condition and presents us with a powerful, compelling and complex work”.

The exhibition will premiere at the MAC, Belfast from May 4th to July 29th, 2018. Following this it will tour to Focal Point Gallery, Southend-On-Sea, from September 8th to December 23rd, 2018.  In 2019 it will tour to Hospitalfield and in 2020 to John Hansard Gallery.

Every Thought There Ever Was is supported by Wellcome and is co-commissioned by Matt’s Gallery, London; The MAC, Belfast; Focal Point Gallery, Southend-On-Sea; Hospitalfield, Arbroath; and John Hansard Gallery, Southampton.

This exhibition has been supported by National Lottery funding through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

A fun-filled festival marking the opening of the new visitor centre at HMS Caroline is set to launch at the end of the month at Alexandra Dock & Wharf in the Titanic Quarter.

The Dockside Festival, running from March 27 to April 20, will give visitors a first look at the newly restored Pump House – adjacent to HMS Caroline – which houses fresh exhibition spaces to complement the experience aboard ship.

Coinciding with the Easter holidays, children can enjoy activity trails, arts and crafts, film screenings, educational family events and an exciting chance to handle replica objects and artefacts on board the ship.

The Festival will also celebrate the completion of Alexandra Dock & Wharf, now comprising the Pump House visitor centre and HMS Caroline, which are connected by a 25-metre steel and timber footbridge installed across the mouth of Alexandra Dock. The bridge, and a newly installed gangway welcoming visitors onto the vessel, further improves access to what is one of the UK’s most accessible historic ships.

Jamie Wilson, General Manager at HMS Caroline, said: “We’re very pleased to be able to host the Dockside Festival, which promises to have something for everyone and for all ages.

“Our new Pump House visitor centre adds to what is already truly a captivating and enjoyable day of maritime adventure.”

Family events during the festival will also have nautical themed activities for everyone to try their hand at, including trails with Blucher the Bunny, one of the ship’s mascots.

Activities throughout the Easter Weekend (March 30 – April 3) include: make your own pom-pom bunny with Woolly Workshops, create a Blucher the Rabbit headdress with artist Bobbi Purdy as well as Punch and Judy shows. Visitors will also get the opportunity to listen to storytelling sessions by Captain the Puppet, and enjoy singing along to sea shanties with Sailor Dan.

Following the family fun over Easter, HMS Caroline’s Drill Hall will host movie fans at special screenings of classic ‘80s adventure, The Goonies (PG) on Friday 13 April and the 1978 comedy-horror, Piranha (18) on Friday 20 April. The impressive setting on board the ship will add  unique atmosphere to these film favourites.

The attraction will also welcome Dr Dónal McAnallen and Dr Eamon Phoenix for specially curated lectures as part of the Festival. The historians will discuss the impact of the First World War on Gaelic Sport in Belfast, Ulster and Ireland, and the political landscape of Northern Ireland in the period leading up to when HMS Caroline came to Belfast, respectively.

A unique museum and education facility, HMS Caroline is operated by The National Museum of the Royal Navy and is the world’s last remaining floating survivor from the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Moored in Belfast since 1924, over the past four years HMS Caroline has been fully restored and fitted out thanks to support from the Heritage Lottery Fund in Northern Ireland.

To find out more, visit the Dockside Festival website.