thu 10/07/2025

Manchester

Top Hat, The Lowry, Salford

The only time I saw Ginger Rogers in the flesh was by chance in a book store on New York’s Fifth Avenue. She was doing a book signing (Ginger: My Story – a good read) and was well past her dancing years, but she still had a certain allure. And...

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Mahler 2, BBCPO, Mena, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

After producing an overwhelming performance of Mahler’s colossal Second Symphony, rewarded by a 10-minute standing ovation from a packed house, the new chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic could not be accused of easing himself into the job. One...

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Fresh Meat, Channel 4

How could you not immediately warm to a new comedy series that has almost as its first line, “Maybe you should tuck your cock away while I make us a nice cup of tea”? And so begins Fresh Meat, set in a shared freshers' student house in Manchester (...

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Edward II, Royal Exchange, Manchester

This is not exactly Edward II the musical. There’s no singing, but music plays a leading role. It is the food of love of the sort that dared not speak its name – and there is excess of it for my taste. The idiom is jazz of the edgy sort fashionable...

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CD: Lamb - 5

Between 1996 and the earliest years of the 21st century, the Manchester-based duo Lamb defined a moody, ambient, dance-influenced pop – the trip-hop/chill-out nexus. "Górecki", their 1997 chart single, will always be their most well-known moment....

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BBC Proms: Schiff, Hallé, Elder

It was partly as penance for having missed the previous evening's Czech festival that I arena-prommed for last night's Moravian finale, to be happily strafed by the nine extra trumpets of Janáček's Sinfonietta. I hadn't quite expected to be so on...

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Die Walküre: The Madness of an Extraordinary Plan, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

In Act Zero of Manchester International Festival's 'Walküre', Wagner took to the stage himself

The Hallé Orchestra, enlarged for the occasion with harps, anvils, horns and such, was in its place on the platform. Sir Mark Elder made his entrance like a surgeon about to embark on a complex and energy-draining heart bypass operation. And the...

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That Day We Sang, Opera House, Manchester

The creative seed, once planted, can take a long time to germinate and come into bloom – in this case 37 years. For Victoria Wood, 1974 was a seminal year – she turned 21, she won New Faces and she saw a Thames TV documentary about the Manchester...

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Shameless US, More4

This Bud's for you: William H Macy as Chicago's own Frank Gallagher

The Americans have form when it comes to creating superior remakes of British TV shows. Life on Mars with Michael Imperioli? You gotta love it. The Office without Ricky Gervais? We are eternally in their debt. Now they've taken Paul Abbott's...

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A Tribute to Tony Wilson, Purcell Room

Tony Wilson: From denim-clad regional TV presenter to doggedly passionate cultural icon

The Meltdown Festival's tribute to Tony Wilson was a lot like the charismatic post-punk legend himself: funny, eccentric, obscure, populist; all over the place but never dull. Wilson died in August 2007 and this event was a reminder of his...

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Hard Times, Murrays' Mills, Manchester

This version of 'Hard Times' is in effect a classic TV series live: Alice O’Connell as Louisa Gradgrind and Verity May Henry as Sissy Jupe

Dickens wasn’t wrong – hard times they were. Around 1300 men, women and children worked at the Murrays’ Mills complex in the Ancoats area of Manchester in its mid-19th-century heyday (if you can call it that). Arrive a minute later than 7am and...

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Mahler Cycle, Philharmonia, Maazel, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

However, to begin at the beginning – the First Symphony in D major, first performed in 1889 in Budapest, with the composer conducting. There’s a lot to be said for giving Manchester its scoop (naturally, we don’t regard it as a dress rehearsal for...

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