Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
I think that I have found my favourite opera so far, and this is it! OK, the work itself is the usual bonkers story which is so daft as to make you wonder what exactly Mozart was on when he wrote it, but the music, staging, singing and acting were so amazing that I could…
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It was lovely to get back to Dewsbury Town Hall for one of their lunchtime concerts. It is like going to a gig at the village fete or the WI, with home-made soup, sandwiches and cake, followed by a presentation. Instead for a ‘humorous’ speech from the vicar, however, we were treated to a trio…
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Last Thursday saw the latest in the Distilled series of concerts. Sadly we didn’t get a complimentary dram to see us through the evening, but something just as intoxicating in Mahler’s 4th Symphony. The name of the event signifies that the work has been distilled into a chamber piece using a much smaller group of…
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Boy bands come and boy bands go but Take That seem to last forever, albeit in truncated form, with two of the original members having left – one of them twice! They were formed in 1990 in Manchester and have had 28 top 40 singles, including 12 number ones, as well as eight number one…
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I feel as though I can now regard myself as a seasoned theatre writer after my visit to this show. It is the first one where I have been to both the world premier and the second version, which is described in the programme as, ‘featuring a re-imagined book and new music.’ The difference between…
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I saw Penguin Cafe for the first time last September when I was so impressed that I made a mental note to watch out for their return. Just over a year later and here they are again, this time with an extra member of the band who began by playing balafon, an African version of…
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I approached this evening with mixed feelings. I saw the film with my mum and dad as a seven-year-old when it was first released and I was bored stiff for most of the two and a quarter hours. The songs were good but the plot, what there is of it, left me cold. When I…
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Obviously there are not a lot of lilacs to be gathered in the middle of Dewsbury, this was the title of the latest in the Kirklees Concert Season from Opera North. It was a collection of English songs, although that was stretching things just a touch in a couple of cases. Traditional, and not so…
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No, the small case ‘r’ in the title is not a mistake, Italian operas, I have recently found out, do not use upper case in titles except for the first letter in the sentence. You’re welcome. Regardless of the grammar, this is the third and final work in Opera North’s Green Season devoted to making…
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This performance by Manchester Collective was not so much a concert as an event. Have seen them several times before at this great venue, the one thing I have learned to expect is the unexpected. It is not only the music which varies each time, but so does the line-up. Tonight it was Rakhi Singh,…
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Tyke It To The Limit 