Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
This might not be the best way to begin a review, but over the past eighteen months or so, I have had some health issues which, apart from the physical aspects, have had a psychological effect on me, sapping my enthusiasm to such an extent I was seriously thinking of retiring from writing altogether. Being…
Read More
Well, this was a surprise. Normally the lunchtime concerts at this venue comprise small groups of musicians but today the Orchestra of Opera North pulled out all the stops and fielded a team of seventeen players. I was really pleased as this is one of my favourite pieces of classical music. In fact, it was…
Read More
Typical, you wait years for a musical about a woman politician then two come along at once. After last week’s show about Shirley Chisholm, we now have this one about Jennie Lee, who served as a Labour Member of Parliament having two terms in office; first from 1929 until 1931 and then from 1945 until…
Read More
Slung Low Warehouse is a comparatively new performance space in Holbeck, having moved from Holbeck Working Men’s Club, where they used to put on shows on a Pay What You Decide basis. This philosophy is continued here and at their other new space, Slung Low at Temple. It is very basic being – surprise, surprise…
Read More
March’s lunchtime offering in the Kirklees Concert Season was a set played by Blair Sinclair on trombone and Darius Battiwalla, piano. Not your normal combination, but you know by now that I don’t do normal. The other thing which was not quite conventional was that Guilmant’s Morceau Symphonique, refered to in the title of the…
Read More
Now here’a a first. After musicals based on films and tv shows, here is one based on a radio programme. It was a documentary by Charles Chilton which used people’s memories of the First World War, interspersed with facts, statistics and songs of the period. A lot of the numbers were either hymns or show…
Read More
When anyone mentions the name, The Drifters, two people spring to mind, no, not Johnny Moore, the longest serving member, or even Ben E. King, the most famous one, but Cliff Richard and Trigger from Only Fools and Horses. The reason is that the Shadows, the Peter Pan of Pop’s backing group, were originally called…
Read More
This was a night to remember in so many different ways. First, I finally broke my duck, insofar as full-length ballets are concerned, after three hospital confinements coincided exactly with previous invitations from Northern Ballet to their productions of Nutcracker (twice) and The Great Gatsby. Thank you for sticking with me. Second, I met some…
Read More
Why, I asked myself, would anybody want to organise a bear hunt in Leeds City Centre, where there seems to be a distinct lack of the creatures. It then struck me that this could probably prove how successful the pursuit has proven to be. It was then that the conspiracy theorist in me kicked in,…
Read More
At a running time of an hour and twenty minutes, it has taken me longer to type the heading than to watch the show! I’m not complaining, mind, as this was an action-packed evening celebrating the achievements of some truly remarkable women who changed the world by varying degrees, some are household names, whilst others…
Read More
Tyke It To The Limit 