Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
What better way can there be to spend a sunny spring morning than with a walk round the best city in the world in the company of the amazing cellist, Abel Selaocoe along with members of the Orchestra and Chorus of Opera North. The heads of the early bird shoppers were definitely turned! OK, they…
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Going from strength to strength, Leeds International Festival of Ideas has been moved to a larger venue for the 2023 incarnation. After last year’s phenomenal success the programme for this year is even more impressive. To mark the publication of the schedule of events a special launch was organised in the Bramall Rock Void where…
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Lord of the Flies is a novel by William Golding set firmly in its time. It was published in 1954 although written a couple of years earlier and rejected by several publishers. It was Golding’s response to a novel he had read, The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean by R M Ballantyne…
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After a break in proceedings I returned to the fold to see the touring production of Sister Act. As it happens, the musical has also had an enforced hiatus so we both resumed normal service together. Actually, it wasn’t quite normal service for either of us as the show began, and ended, 20 minutes late…
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In the programme the director, Radula Gaitanou, says she wishes that opera were more like football, with the audience not knowing the outcome until the end. Well, she certainly walked the walk in this production, turning it into a game of two halves and, not until the penalty shoot-out at the end, do we find…
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Some months ago a good friend of mine asked if I had seen the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I replied in the negative and he said that he highly recommended it so, as we seem to share the same taste in quite a few things, especially red wine, I caught it the next…
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It had to happen, I have at last seen a modified version of a Shakespeare play that I actually enjoyed. Although I still feel that, if the Trade Descriptions Act applied to the theatre, saying that what we saw was written by the Bard of Avon would be pushing it to the limits, the way…
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Samra Mayanja is an artist of Ugandan descent and this is her first major solo exhibition. It is amazingly varied with video installations, drawings, photographs, sculptures and reconstructions of significant settings. During the preview night the artist undertook an interview with The Tetley Artistic Director, Bryony Bond, during which she said that she was searching…
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RIOPY, birth name Jean-Phillippe Rio-Py, like a lot of the performers I have seen at Howard Assembly Room, was someone I had not heard of before my visit. He is a French pianist and composer who has the most amazing back story. He was raised in a secular cult in France and taught himself to…
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I remember reading the volume of Spike Milligan’s memoirs which dealt with his army service during the war. It was called Adolph Hitler: My Part In His Downfall. The main reason it sticks in my mind is that I was banned by my wife from reading it whilst she was watching TV as I would…
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Tyke It To The Limit 