Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
What have you been getting up to during lockdown? Baking – thanks for buying all the flour so I can’t make a roux for my white sauce – sewing your own face mask, having a good clean-up or perhaps redecorating. If you have owned up to the last two then spare a thought for the volunteers and…
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Super Saturday is almost upon us and 4th July will be Independence Day for Everybodys in Guiseley and The Ticket Office in Ilkley. The two venues, which are part of the Twisted Bars Group, have had extensive measures, pardon the pun, put in place to welcome their customers back and also to protect their staff. …
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Tragedy – no, not a documentary about the BeeGees in their disco phase, but one about the less glamorous aspects of an Opera North production. I have to say that I have been a little disappointed by some of the streamed theatre and opera productions during lockdown. A couple of them which I have loved…
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Now here’s an offer you don’t get every day. How would you like to sing in an Opera North choir? From Couch to Chorus is a new initiative set up by Opera North to get people involved in singing in a programme of choruses from three operas; The Bartered Bride by Smetana, The Chorus of…
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Isn’t it typical, one of your friends gets to be 155 years old and you can’t celebrate because of lockdown. I have a bit of history with this place and so will obviously bore you with it. In the early years of the twentieth century my great-grandmother used to rent out rooms in her large house…
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99 seconds. No, not my daily demands at school dinners or the number of attendants at a boxing bout which has got badly out of hand, but a challenge set by Yorkshire musician, George Reid, during lockdown. At the beginning of the restrictions in March, George set up a platform on his YouTube page the…
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I am writing this on a Friday teatime when I should be debating whether or not to get ready for a stroll to a local boozer. This is not the kind of decision to be rushed into so I would take my time before having a spruce up for my trip out. Although I miss…
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Will you stop making that racket!!!!!!!!!! Are you – and your neighbours – sick of hearing your little darling turning their amp up to 11 and doing some serious string bending on guitar during lockdown? Perhaps they have been making the most of that drum kit you thought would be a good idea the other…
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This is the nearest you will get to having your lockdown locks tended to for quite some time, unless you are self-isolating with a hairdresser. The National Theatre are screening a never-before-seen archive recording of Inua Ellams’ Barber Shop Chronicles which is a Leeds Playhouse and Fuel co-production and is one of my absolute favourite…
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If you think that you don’t like opera, take a look at this. Opera North are streaming Trouble in Tahiti by Leonard Bernstein on their YouTube channel from 7.00pm on Wednesday, 6th May until Monday, 1st June. This production was first performed at Leeds Grand Theatre in October, 2017 as part of their Little Greats…
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