Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
On Saturday 14th May I went along to what must have been Leeds’ best kept secret. I had stumbled across mention of this event when looking on-line for something else, but when I tried to find out more there was scant information. I couldn’t even find the original source. I had recalled that the do…
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Can’t get to Glastonbury or afford Glyndebourne but still crave music in an exotic location with an open air element this summer, then fret not, there is a feast of live concerts in and around Leeds, and best of all they are free! The ones at Lotherton Hall and Meanwood Valley Urban Farm require that…
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27th April saw the launch of Leeds International Festival of Ideas which, unlike previous years, will be staged over a single weekend between 22nd and 25th September, and also in a single venue, Howard Assembly Room. Some of the events will be run concurrently utilising the Mantle Music Studio in the same building. In all…
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Weather forecasters take 1st March as being the first day of Spring whilst the official kick-off is the Spring Equinox around 21st March when there are an equal number of daylight hour to night hours. In Leeds we know that the real beginning of the season is the opening of Chow Down at Temple Arches.…
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My trip to the Leeds Whisky Festival was not only to sample my favourite spirit, but to right a wrong which had been eating away at me for several years. More of that later, first there was booze to savour. Rolling Social Events have already had Rum Festivals, a Gin Fair and a Christmas Market…
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As part of Compass Arts Festival 2021, artists and performers Katie Etheridge and Simon Persighetti aka Small Acts, presented an installation in Kirkgate Market called Yorkshire Square. It explored the interaction between pub goers and the inns and taverns they frequent. They have now taken this theme one step further with a performance called Future…
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It is worth a trip to Yeadon just to marvel at the restoration which the Town Hall has gone through. It is not just a nip, tuck and a shot of Botox, but the full Dolly Parton. The effect is stunning both inside and out, the Town Hall that is, I am not sure that…
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Everybody’s favourite street food venue is back and, not only bigger than ever, but reconfigured so as to make the most of the legendary sunny weather which lasts from April to September each year south of the river. On the off chance that there may be a rogue cloudy day, then that has been catered…
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This is a review I really wish I didn’t have to write. Not because the concert was bad, far from it, but Thursday, 27th January 2022 was Holocaust Memorial Day which marks the most barbaric event in the history of mankind. If only there had been nothing to remember. Leeds has more reason than most…
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My stroll around the City ends with a visit to the Victoria Quarter which has to be the classiest Christmas display in the country. Not for nothing is Leeds known as The Knightsbridge of the North, even having its own branch of Harvey Nichols. I am beginning in Briggate which has the poem Dear Leeds…
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Tyke It To The Limit 