Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
Summer’s here – honest – so it is time for us to turn our attention to getting out and loading up (responsibly of course) on sunshine and al fresco dining, along with a bit of entertainment thrown in for good measure. Add to this the chance to check out one of the grooviest new areas…
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When I was younger – much younger – a Friday night out with a mate would mean proper bitter, pulled through a line with a gravity pump and having a head like clotted cream, followed by a walk home via the chippy. The nearest I got to a cocktail was a pint of mixed. How…
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Don’t panic, this headline doesn’t mean that Elon Musk has put in a bid to purchase the whole of the city we love, it is reference to the board game of that name. Although invented by Charles Darrow in 1933 in the USA, the British version was manufactured later that decade in Leeds by John…
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It is a couple of weeks since I went to this exhibition at the University of Leeds and in the interim it has attracted a lot of interest from experts in the field, not to mention enquiries from London museums. As I am still trying to come to terms with writing about art installations I…
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We Leeds theatregoers are currently going through a purple patch insofar as shows are concerned. From the phenomenal Come From Away, with its cast of thousands, through Common Ground performed by four travelling players in a fish and chip restaurant, the best adaptation of a Nineties romcom in Pretty Woman and now Here You Come…
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Since lockdown there has been a succession of musicals derived from hit films, which have ranged from OK to WTF, this one, however, is definitely an OMG! It is a romcom which, for once, lives up to both sections of the portmanteau word, in that it is both romantic and a comedy. The story is…
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Finally I get to sample a standing event at the amazing Howard Assembly Room by actually being on the floor rather than looking on enviously from the balcony. I must thank Opera North for making sure I was catered for in the seating arrangements following my various health issues over the past eighteen months or…
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Regular readers will know how much I enjoy Opera North’s lunchtime concerts at Dewsbury Town Hall – the next one is The Romantic Violin on Wednesday, 15th May – well, here we had a bonus edition at Howard Assembly Room in Leeds. The starting time was a little earlier, being 11.00am and instead of sandwiches,…
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Another week, another show about a pioneering woman. After musicals about Jennie Lee and Shirley Chisholm, who were both politicians, here we have one written by Rosie MacPherson, based in an idea from Beth Knight, who directed the piece, about Betty Beecroft an 18th Century industrialist. As with the other two, the music style was…
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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…
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Tyke It To The Limit 