Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
I do love a good launch presentation, and I have been to a few just lately, what with the Transform and African Arts Festivals, I have met some really interesting people and got the inside track on what was to come. The downside is that the interesting people had to put up with me, but,…
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I am beginning to think that the creatives behind the various arts organisations in Leeds know something I don’t. This is the fourth production I have been to in the last three months which highlights their youth sections. Have they got access to information suggesting that they had better invite me to see the actors…
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This past six weeks or so have been a case of feast or famine insofar as the world of theatre is concerned. August was definitely a famine – and drought – with only one engagement in the whole month; September, however, brings the feast – and the rain! When it comes to feasts there can…
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It was interesting to get back to Farsley as, between 1978 and 1982, I lived just around the corner from Sunny Bank Mill when it was still, well, a mill. Like the rest of the area it has now been gentrified – everywhere seems to go upmarket when I leave – and is home to…
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The problem with jokes, unlike music, is that they are great to hear once, but the more they are repeated the more irritating they become. Having this concert on May the Fourth did nothing to change my mind on that, but it did allow me to indulge in a totally unscientific and subjective experiment. I…
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If you doubt the power of music then let me tell you that the medium has done something that even God has failed to do – get me to go to church on a Sunday! I have become quite the fan of Leeds Baroque Choir and Orchestra since being introduced to them by a friend…
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To mark Bradford’s tenure as UK City of Culture, Opera North decided to spread the love and stage the first two performances of the 2025 Tour of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at St Georges Hall, handily situated across the road from the Interchange. I say ‘staged’ advisedly, as that is the term used to describe the…
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As someone who describes himself as a lapsed atheist, it was strange to find myself listening to religious music on a Sunday. The reason for my attendance was to witness the first of the year’s events marking the 25th Anniversary Season of Leeds Baroque Choir and Orchestra. I do like Baroque music but associate it…
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Jane Eyre was not a novel on the reading list of a slum kid from East Leeds in the 1950s even though it was written by a Yorkshirewoman about an orphan girl who grew up in hardship. My first encounter with Ms Eyre was a television adaptation in 1963 on a small black and white…
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Somebody, somewhere, must be taking notice of the stuff I write because, after complaining about the inability to catch the names of a lot of the pieces played in concerts due to their being in a foreign language or the lack of a programme/set list – neither being the fault of Howard Assembly Room –…
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Tyke It To The Limit 