COMEDY

Tom Moran

Lyrics

Also played at: Theatre Upstairs 2017

THEATRE / COMEDY

Nadine Flynn

Running With Dinosaurs

Also played at: The New Theatre 2017

Dublin gangland culture is on the rise, and at often times, hard to ignore. If you grow up surrounded in a world of violence, is your fate already predetermined? Are we merely a product of our circumstance? Running with Dinosaurs examines the transition of a boy to a man, as he tries to find his purpose outside the walls of an inner city Dublin flat.

THEATRE / DARK COMEDY

Síofra O’Meara

This Looks Bad

Also played at: Smock Alley Theatre 2017

You’re on a night out. You’re drunk and you think to yourself ‘maybe I should just go home’.
But you don’t.

Join Claire for This Looks Bad, a dark stumble through Dublin night life.

THEATRE

Eve Darcy

Arousal and Valence

Also played at: Harbour Playhouse 2016 under the  title ‘When Anxiety Goes Berserk’

Life is confusingly difficult at times…but why?! It shouldn’t be; we’ve all been doing it ages. Join Eve in her quest to be ‘normal’ and see what sense she’s made of it all thus far, now that she’s a toddler of thirty.

THEATRE / DRAMA

Jeda De Brí and Finbarr Doyle

Tryst

Also played at: Dublin Fringe Festival 2016

Matt and Steph are recovering after a night out and are just a week away from their wedding. When Steph’s best friend and maid of honour, Rachel, comes over unannounced, a secret is revealed that changes everything. Tryst casts a harsh eye on the consequences of curiosity, the limits of friendship and the lengths people will go to for love.

THEATRE

Eimear Sheehy

Tomatoes

Also played at: Fele na Bealtaine 2016 and Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017

Are you picky about your fruit and veg? Do you know exactly what you want? Afraid of pursuing it incase you fail? Kinda..? Feeling a little..insane in your inaction? Laur’s going mad. Kinda. Maybe..? Life is full of questions. They’re not always easy to answer. So while you’re pondering the tough ones, accompany them with laughter

THEATRE

Ellen Flynn

Cora, Leah and I

Also played at: The New Theatre 2017

Cora, Leah and Egan all have one thing in common, each other. Against the backdrop of childish mistakes with adult consequences, three people bound together by loss try to live with what they have done.

THEATRE / COMDEY

Sad Strippers Theatre Company

Triangles

Also played at: Galway Theatre Festival 2016

There are three corners on a triangle. There are three characters in this play. Coincidence? Yes.

Bread, Muesli and Chair carry out their daily routine, same as everyday, confined to their room. Chair breaks this routine and their sanities are tested. This doesn’t sit well with Bread and Muesli. And it doesn’t sit well with Chair.

THEATRE  / COMDEY

Hannah Mamalis

The Egg is a Lonely Hunter

Also played at: Dublin Fringe 2017

​On Sophie’s fifth Birthday, a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat that tells her the world is going to end. Twenty years later, as she sits on the brink of destruction with her two feet in one sock, she thinks about life and the prophecy that ruined it. A story about beached whales, black holes and the redeeming power of eggs.

THEATRE  / COMDEY

Cian O’ Ceallacháin

Aisling’s Seven

Also played at: The New Theatre 2016

Ash and Dan have a plan. They’re plotting a daring heist on Dublin’s own Central Bank, armed with nothing but their wits and Crime Caper film obsession. What could possibly go wrong?

THEATRE

Daniel O’Brien

Nowhere Now

Also played at: Harbour Playhouse, The Complex, Edinburgh Fringe 2016

In a world where cows are currency and nuclear weapons aren’t just for Christmas, what happens when a Prime Minister misses his flight? Join CEO, Ambassador and Minister as they bravely battle the opponents of free market capitalism to ensure the dream of beef for all dies a cruel, lonely death. It is Nowhere and we are Now.

THEATRE

Laura Sarah Dowdall

Running Blind

Also played at: Rua Red 2017

A visceral dialogue of dance, sound and sight. An immersion into a tactile, imagined and experienced presence awaits. Laura Sarah Dowdall’s work as artist-in-residence at a Dublin DeafBlind centre results in this daring exploration of the role of the senses, inviting you to find fresh vision and become a part of this investigative journey into metaphorical and physical blindness.

THEATRE

Magikloko

Dreams Under the Roof

Also played at: Galway Theatre Festival 2017

DREAMS UNDER THE ROOF is a play about the wonder and the effectiveness of dreaming big. An old man, a very special carpenter and a talented young boy all live in the same building, they all dream under the same roof.

THEATRE

Eamon Colfer

Dumpton

Also played at: Wexford Opera Festival 2016

Dumpton is a one-act play in which the world is a dump and the central character lives in a fridge. It is Eamonn Colfer’s fourth play..

PHYSICAL THEATRE / COMEDY

BRAZEN TALES

HOW TO BE ANGRY

Also played at: Dublin Fringe 2017

Do you act out your rage? Or swallow it up like a good girl? Are you the best boy for giving out?
Or do you only express the “poor man’s rage”­ sulking? It’s not a popular feeling­ so better be careful. A group of comedic dancers do some made-up interpretive dance and explore that naughty, fiery feeling, anger.

THEATRE

Lorna Costello

Gulp

Also played at: International Bar 2016

How much do you love to have a drink? How does alcohol make you feel? (Aside from drunk). These are questions Lorna has come to ask herself. GULP is an insight into the rollercoaster ride that has been one girl’s relationship with alcohol . . . so far. And along for the ride is best friend, Emma Jane.

THEATRE

Vickey Curtis

Finem Respice

Also played at: Dublin Fringe Festival 2016

Have you ever loved and lost, and lost again? Finem Respice (consider an end) is an exploration of grief and how death affects life. It is an insight into bereavement and being bereft. This is a story of the struggles and the strife that we all face. This is about living through death.

THEATRE

Diane Crotty

ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS

Also played at: The New Theatre 2017

Carrie’s in trouble. She decked that wan, ‘Chelle and now the boss says she has “anger management,” issues. Ewan’s in trouble. He gave himself a black eye in the jax and now the Aul Fella thinks he has “anxiety,” issues. One therapist’s office. Two people hard-wired for cock-up. Can you say, “Fresh Start?” Nah, didn’t think so.

THEATRE / COMEDY

Keith Fox & Ger Staunton

Good Grief

Also played at: Whelan’s 2016, Edinburgh Fringe 2016

Irish comedians Keith Fox and Ger Staunton playfully deal with the struggles and expectations of modern living. ‘good grief’ invites you to take a step back, tilt your head and see the world from their perspective as they look to make grief…good! ‘Incredibly funny’ (Irish Examiner) Vodafone Comedy Carnival 2015, Electric Picnic, Edinburgh and Galway Fringes 2015

THEATRE / MUSIC

Sharon Manion

Curse of the Button Accordion

Also played at: Body and Soul 2017

Speckintime & Sharon Mannion present a comedy about not quite living up to expectation, and how placing all your trust in an inanimate object is never a good idea.

THEATRE

Dick Walsh

Oneday

Also played at: Live Collision 2017 and Dublin Fringe 2018

This show takes every newspaper article published everywhere in the world on the 13th March 2012 and makes a theatre show out of them. It’s an opportunity to see a dying format in a dead artform. This means a lot. It’ll be about liveness, politics and real life.

THEATRE / LIVE MUSIC

Cat Folger Day

At the Roots of the Stars

Also played at: Galway Fringe 2016; Album released 2016

“Tradition has it that a singer must have a touch of bravado, a joyous putting-forth of first the right leg and then the left” Djuna Barnes wrote of tenor James Joyce. In a new musical setting of Barnes’ 1919 play, Mageen waits ten years for her son to come home.

THEATRE

Phoenix Theatre

John in Heels

Also played at: Limerick Fringe Festival; Droichead Arts  2016

John is a man.
A man who wears heels, dresses, lingerie.
John wants to tell you why.
How it has changed him. How, maybe, it might change you.

THEATRE / LIVE MUSIC

Danny Diamond

Elbow Room

Album released 2017

In his new solo performance project, Elbow Room, Dublin fiddle player Danny Diamond takes his roots in Irish traditional music as a starting-point to build a unique new sound-world. Bringing influences from Nordic and American fiddle music together with loops and analog electronics (controlled via a modified antique Stroh violn), Elbow Room showcases an important new voice in contemporary Irish music.

THEATRE

Head Above Water Theatre

Hound’s Hotel

Also played at: Galway Fringe 2017

Head Above Water Theatre Company
Frequented by wealthy and sophisticated, yet somewhat extraordinary patrons, Le Château du Chien is the most exclusive and luxurious hotel in all of the the Swiss Alps. The coveted peace within its wondrous walls is however troubled by the arrival of an unexpected and rather hairy guest. Blood ensues…

THEATRE

Nessa Matthews

I N F I N I T Y

Also played at: Dublin Fringe 2018; First Fortnight 2019; Vault Festival London 2019

Captain’s Log, Stardate (whatever). A lone astronaut hurtles through the cosmos on a one-way mission to the edge of the universe. She’s looking for a light in the dark. The source of a signal. Traversing time and space, isolation and uncertainty, her quest to find hope will bring her to the brink of the abyss. An exploration of fact, (science) fiction and the spaces in between. A star-bound journey that looks at the stories we tell ourselves when we feel most alone.

THEATRE

Strive Theatre

The Weight of a Chip

Also played at: Fionnbarra’s Cork 2019

Set in rural Cork – this fiery tragedy explores the inherent complications between the manipulation of food and individual growth. Nigel dreams of the stars, while his father binds him to the land. Family, freedom and fulfillment are at stake.

DANCE

Fleet of Feet Theatre

The Wallpaper

Also played at: Galway Fringe 2017

Combining dance and theatre, The Wallpaper deals with the perception of “madness” and plays with the fine line between reality and hallucination. The Wallpaper explores the feeling of seclusion through myths and stories, such as Charlotte Perkins’ The Yellow Wallpaper, the Greek Myth of Ariadne and the Blue Beard legend. Characters who seemed to have escaped from their own tales are drawn to one another by their experience of confinement.

THEATRE

Knaves

Love a La Mode After Macklin

Also played at: Smock Alley Theatre 2018

In this comedy of manners, double-entendres and double-crossings, an Englishman, an Irishman, a Scotsman and a dandy compete for the hand of a rich bachelorette – but is she all she appears? Love à la Mode After Macklin is a farce in two acts: there will be some lies, sword-fights, slapstick and assorted song-and-dance routines. The farce is a time capsule from Smock Alley’s 18th-century past, by KNAVES, a band of players bent on bamboozling your present.

THEATRE

Dreamback

The Wendy House

Also played at: Smock Alley Theatre 2018

6-year-old Lily is on the way to her Wendy House. She has a bag filled with her favourite memories, because once she gets there she will never be coming back. A play for anyone who has loved, and had to say goodbye.

THEATRE

Princess Frannie Productions

Arnica was My Eyecream

Also played at: Smock Alley Theatre 2018

Nancy wasn’t looking for love until she met Marcus. A real life Prince Charming – with a temper. And he likes to take it out on Nancy. Come between them at your peril as she takes you on her journey.

THEATRE / COMEDY

Little Shadow Theatre Company

Mic Drop

Also played at: Radio Drama Soundcloud 2018

Entrepreneur, hero, tech bro, douchebag, psychopath.

THEATRE / COMEDY

Pauline Shanahan

What’s Cooler Than a Hipster? A Spinster!

Also played at: Radio Drama Soundcloud 2018

I’m bringing spinster back! We can earn our own money, own property and no-one’s burnt us for witch-craft in ages. But despite all that, will it ever be cool to be a spinster? This show answers all that and less.

THEATRE / COMEDY

Wicker Sock

Bolstoff; A Modern Actor’s Intro To Advanced Contemporary Performance

Also played at: The International; Smock Alley Theatre 2018

The long forgotten teachings of Hungarian acting master Nikolai Bolstoff come to life in this stunning interactive theatrical experience. Join national sweethearts, Wicker Socks, in discovering the bizarre, questionable and partially illegal critical theory of BOLSTOFF.

THEATRE

Tiger’s Eye

Play On Words

Also played at: Edinburgh Fringe, Limerick Fringe 2018

In a dark, dank, industrial room, Harper and Collins and a bucket sit imprisoned. Armed with a blackboard, chalk and alphabet soup, they must find a way to gain their freedom or face certain death.

THEATRE / OPERA

Dead Lady

The Woods and Grandma

Also played at: Dublin Fringe 2017

Lady Augusta Gregory: author, nationalist, theatre impresario, grandma. A warm and witty pop-operetta about the unusual life and times of one of the nation’s most singular citizens, as seen through the eyes of her beloved granddaughters.

THEATRE / LIVE MUSIC

Little Red Theatre

Both Sides Now

Also played at: Dublin Gay Theatre Festival 2017

Part soliloquy, part arts and crafts project; the show features Lydia, a young artist attempting to bring her confusing life into order, armed with some paper, an old guitar and the music of Joni Mitchell. Both Sides Now is a one woman show with live musical performance.

THEATRE

Crazy Dog Theatre

The Rapture of Hugo Ball

Also played at: Carlow Arts Festival 2017

With the ghost of Hugo Ball, the founder of modern Performance Art, as his guide, Greene reviews the key moments of his career only to see himself thwarted at every turn by an arts culture rife with competing egos and choked by academic jargon. How much must an artist sacrifice in order to gain recognition? Sleep? Financial security? Friendship? Sanity? Love?

THEATRE

Nth Degree

The Words Are There

Also played at: Carlow Arts Festival 2017

Sometimes life can leave you speechless, but death speaks volumes. In a race against time, a man struggles to find the right words for a very important day.

THEATRE

Stiff and Kitsch

By All Accounts Two Normal Girls

Also played at: Edinburgh Fringe 2017

Sally and Rhiannon are ‘by all accounts two normal girls’*

*A real life quote from a real life reviewer. Yeah, we know.

Join them as they sing through the ups and downs of their extraordinarily ordinary lives.

THEATRE

Martin Sharry

Running and Walking

Also played at: Edinburgh Fringe 2017

A presentation inspired by a year’s running and walking in the Phoenix Park. Martin kept a casual record via his mobile phone camera. The amateur footage is set against memory and perception in the hope of learning something new.

THEATRE

Squad Productions

Wasting Paper

Also played at: Dublin Gay Theatre Festival 2017

Casey is an eighteen year old poet who went viral on the internet and now she has to head back to school to do her Leaving Cert. She thought her summer was crazy, she has no idea what (or who) sixth year is about to bring…

THEATRE

Polliwog Theatre Collective

Chromatics

Also played at: The Mill Theatre 2018

A story about graduating, dreaming big and slowly realising that “it” may not happen, at least not as planned. Aspirations swiftly dashed, plans pulverised and unexpected ultimatums, we follow a group of friends as they journey through their new unknown. A story where everyone fucks up. But with songs.

THEATRE / MOVEMENT

Rosebuds

Syrius

Also played at: Rome Fringe Festival 2017

Syrius is an explosion of movement and sound that follows the journey of Rasha, a young Syrian woman forced to flee her country and make a new home somewhere else, far away from everything she knows.

THEATRE / COMEDY

Rabbit’s Riot Theatre Co.

3400

Also played at: Galway Fringe Festival 2017

There are 1,700 souls in Ballyford, Leitrim, and each one is as nosey as the last. Aisling is pretty sure her grandmother can sniff sin off of a dead cat and that she’ll be ostracised from Leitrim if it was discovered that she had premarital sex, let alone the ‘A’ word that must not be named.

THEATRE

Joyce Dignam

Fizzy Drink’s With Two Straws

Also played at: Theatre Upstairs 2017

A play for anyone who has ever been told “you’re too young to understand”. Lara and Rosie are on holidays in Wexford, Mam and Dad have been acting strange. Can the two of them figure out what went wrong or is it really just for grown-ups?

THEATRE

Colette Cullen

Tender Mercies

Also played at: Garter Lane 2017

One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl…me, Mary Fortune and seven for my story that’s going to be told. Poignant and blackly comic from the makers of festival hits Beasts, Blind Date and Yes.

THEATRE

Jessie Doyle

These Lights

Also played at: Dublin Fringe 2017

ODay after day they get brighter and brighter. It’s confirmed – an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. Two sisters in Dublin are stopped in their tracks, their lives slammed together by the lights above.

THEATRE / COMEDY

Squad Productions

HashtagRelationshipGoalz

Also played at: Smock Alley 2018

A story navigating the struggles of an everyday couple. Be it work troubles, lack of direction, parents being pests, siblings being even bigger pests, assaulting teachers, suppressing kleptomania and the crippling anxiety of deciding which boxset to watch next.

Written by: Lorna Costello

THEATRE / COMEDY

Stephen Colfer + Peter McGann

The Amateurs

Also played at: Smock Alley under the title ‘Personal Space’ 2018

Convinced he’s hot on the trail of the case of a lifetime, a would-be detective books a weekend stay in a three star airbnb. Stephen Colfer (Mimes in Time) and Peter McGann (The Hellfire Squad) present this Twisted Criminal Comedy.

THEATRE

Timmy Creed

Spliced

Also played at: Dublin Fringe 2017

I am a GAA man. As team players our individuality is silent. We conform to the ideas, beliefs, motivations of the team. We suppress our emotions for our strong exterior. We must challenge the idea of ourselves. Who am I? What is important to me? Within me.

THEATRE

Aine O’Hara

The Birthday Party

Also played at: Ballina Arts Centre 2017

Áine’s granny is suffering with her nerves. Áine’s not feeling great either. They’d both talk about it… if the problem wasn’t that it’s hard to talk about. Come and join us in a celebration for those who can’t celebrate themselves.

THEATRE

Handy Baker Theatre Company

HOME

Also played at: The New Theatre 2017

Anna is 19 and on trial for allegedly defying an injunction put in place to stop her continuing with her plans for an abortion. It is now time for you, the jury, to listen to the facts of this case and decide the verdict.

THEATRE / AERIAL HOOP

Kate Finnegan

IN A HOOP

Also played at: Backstage Theatre and Smock Alley 2017

Darren Yorke and Sarah Bradley conceived a body of work entitled We’re All Friends Here, with an eye to creating one person shows ‘with’ and ‘for’ (but never ‘about’ because that would be cringe) their mutual ‘young emerging artist’ friends.
Kate Finegan is such a friend.
And just like that, the first venture for We’re All Friends Here is an aerial hoop act, starring a young woman who has created an aerial hoop act.
Heart. Soul. Spectacle. Purpose. This is Sarah and Darren’s friend Kate. In A Hoop.

THEATRE

Thereisbear Theatre Company

The Shadow of Carmilla

Also played at: Galway Theatre Festival 2017

A young woman lies dying. Her father cannot protect her and the servants are disinclined to help. In this reimagining of Sheridan Le Fanu’s gothic story Carmilla, suspicion festers through the clashing languages and cultures of post-famine Connemara.

THEATRE

Fancy Vegas Productions

Arachnophilia

Also played at: Dublin Fringe Festival 2018; The new Theatre 2019

The Chilean Rose tarantula is capable of living in captivity for over 20 years. While its owner goes through human life’s familiar ups and downs, we get to hear the spiders point of view.

THEATRE

Phoenix Theatre Company

In Search of Spring

Also played at: Limerick Fringe Festival 2018

Classic storytelling, bawdy humor and high fantasy combine to examine some home truths about humans and healing. In Search of The Spring is a tale of belief that no one is too old for an aul’ bedtime story.

THEATRE

Gillian Grattan

Tinderella

Also played at: Central Arts 2017

When out of work actress Ellen gets dumped by her much older boyfriend for a much younger, blonder, skinnier model, she is forced to move in with her fabulous, fitness-fanatic brother Mickey, who decides to fix his sister by finding her a new man. Does every love story have a happy ending? Join us at Smock Alley for the first public reading of scenes from this very funny play.

THEATRE

Stephen Maguire

Noel

Also played at: Seán O’Casey Theatre

AERIAL HOOP / THEATRE

Femme Bizarre

Caged

Also played at: Dublin Fringe 2018

SITE SPECIFIC THEATRE

Tengu Theatre

Fortune

Site Specific in Yamamori 2019

THEATRE

The Crooked Hook

A Tempest

Also played at: Fringe TheatreFest

COMEDY

No Desserts

Chromosome Why?

Also played at: Limerick Fringe 2018

Looking for pious male actor to play the next Virgin Mary during the upcoming apocalypse.
Must be able to act, sing and conceive the son of god.
If interested please contact God_119@gmail.com
Amen.

MUSIC / THEATRE

Roger Gregg

From The River of Ghosts

Also played at: Project Arts Centre 2019

True stories to haunt and inspire

Audio wizard Roger Gregg conjures an evening of spellbinding incantations commemorating human lives compelled to deviance and non-conformity using various potions of spoken word, song, music and sound effects.

THEATRE

Drawn With Strings

Ambrosia’s Oxfam

Also played at: Lucy’s Lounge 2019

Remember that time you forgot…?

Tom is lost. This is not a metaphor. And this is why he is here and now. Though “here” and “now” isn’t quite right. Perhaps “where” and “when?” Yes, that will do just nicely.

THEATRE / PHYSICAL COMEDY

Aileen

Hyde & Seek

Also played at: First Fortnight Festival 2019

Mel’s looking for love, but it doesn’t look back. Mel’s got a friend, but they don’t get along. Mel has a secret, but it won’t stay hidden. A physical comedy about falling in love and getting found out.

THEATRE /  COMEDY

Ali Hardiman

Disconnected

Also played at: The New Theatre  2019

THERE’S A PARTY! There’s champagne! There are cute boys! So what could possibly be wrong with Cassie?
When appearance is no longer enough she dares to dig a little deeper. And with it, risks everything…

THEATRE

Bad Fort

BILLY

Also played at: Dublin Fringe Festival 2019

A better tomorrow, today

COMEDY

BonMot

DISCOUNT SESH

Also played at: ILFD 2018; Cherry Comedy & Vicar Street 2018

When you find a chicken kiev in your dressing gown pocket, you know you’re a child of the discount sesh. Droll storytelling mixed with world-weary tones of a disillusioned childhood.

LIVE ART

Balter Productions

Rape! HaHa!

Also played at: The Mart Rathmines 2018

The Shell To Sea ‘Rape Tapes’ were born during the arrests of two female Shell To Sea protesters in 2011.
This live art show invites the audience to exam the transcript and decide if rape is ever a joke!

THEATRE

Elaine Gallagher

The Freedom Machine

Also played at: Edinburgh Fringe 2018

The Freedom Machine mixes past and present, fact and fiction, personal, political and historical, standup and audio-visuals to explore cyclists, feminists, motorists, and every other ‘ist’ in between.

THEATRE / COMEDY

Brave

AWKWARD

Also played at: The International Bar 2018

Nervous laughing at funerals. Saying Mum to the wrong mum in the Supermarket. Waving when they weren’t waving at you. Kissing on the lips when it was meant to be the cheek. Come and share an awkward experience or 20 with us. I love you! Shit.

THEATRE / COMEDY

The Breadline Collective

The Fattest Dancer at St. Bernadette’s

Also played at: Dublin Fringe 2018

It’s the eve of the annual showcase at Julian La Blanc’s Dance Academy in St Bernadette’s Parish Hall, Ballybough. Julian has had enough of these mediocre little trolls with their spiky fingers and hammer feet and late fees. They haven’t a patch on him in his day. He was destined for big things. He was a real bleedin’ contender. But, where did it all go wrong? Well…pay your fees, point your toes and he just might tell you.

THEATRE / COMEDY

Curtis & O’Hara

GAA Maad

Also played at: Westival 2018

We are Dublin. We are Mayo. We are not your typical sports fans. We want to question your presumptions. We want to explore Irish identity through our two loves, art and GAA.

THEATRE

Choy Ping Clarke-Ng

Where Are You From?

Also played at: Abbey Theatre Young Curators 2019

“Where are you from?” is a question commonly asked but its answers can be complicated. Choy-Ping explores this, as an Irish-Hong Kong Chinese person who speaks only English, likes to dance and is looking for Home. For those who want to see real experiences told through movement and confession.

THEATRE / COMEDY/ IMPROV

JADE

Kracked

Also played at: The Mill Theatre; Smock Alley 2018

Sharon has been handed down the family business. She is wise to the ways of wheeling and dealing but now she wants to “sweeten” the deal and it’s all making her go a little Kracked.

THEATRE / MUSIC

Gareth Quinn Redmond

Laistigh Den Ghleo

Also played at: Album released 2018

This performance presents music written within the conceptual framework of composer Satoshi Ashikawa’s Wave Notation series, which advocates the importance of sound design in modern times.

THEATRE / RADIO

Peter McGann

Pulp Injection

Also played at: The Workman’s Club

Two retro radio plays: Eamon de Valera takes on priest-abducting martians, and an ex-spy gets tempted back into the game by the re-emergence of an old enemy.