Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
I have just had a look on the web and found that there are only about half a dozen cinemas left in Leeds. When I was a kid in the fifties and sixties there were more than that within walking distance of our slum in Cross Green. Every Wednesday my mum would take me to…
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Anyone thinking of visiting the lovely spa town of Harrogate should make sure that they arrange their trip to coincide with the Harrogate Food and Drink Festival. Not only because it is a great event for all the family but they seem to have a knack of picking the best weather. That’s next year’s event…
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When we refer to 21st June as being the longest day, we aren’t kidding, and neither are South Asian Arts who chose to celebrate the day by holding a concert in the fabulous Leeds Corn Exchange beginning at 11.00am on that date and running until 5.30 the following morning. Sadly my all-nighter events are far…
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I think that I will need to reassess my attitude regarding stage musicals adapted from films. Having seen a couple over the past two weeks without witnessing the cinema versions I didn’t realise that the plot purposely comes a distant second in importance to the music. The musicals I have watched at the Grand which…
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In 1937 – even before my time – the American singer, Sophie Tucker, made a record called Life Begins At Forty. When it comes to Sunita’s big four-O, however, it isn’t just her for whom life kicks-off. Sunita, played by Bhawna Bhawsar, is celebrating her fortieth birthday, well, actually she is trying not to celebrate…
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2023 will probably go down in the annals of the wonderful Grand Theatre as the year of the adapted screen musicals. We have already had Sister Act and Dirty Dancing with The Commitments and Strictly Ballroom still to come. So far the ones I have seen remained true to the original but The Bodyguard seems…
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Back at the beginning of April I went to the launch of LIFI23, you can work out what that stands for by looking at the title of this piece, where we were given the rundown of events taking place. As happens in life, stuff changes, and there have been a couple of tweaks to the…
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Never have I been to a piece of theatre where the storyline has been so irrelevant. I will provide a synopsis later, but the whole production revolved around the uber hunk which is Michael O’Reilly, who played Johnny Castle. You could have cut the pheromones with a knife. The largely female audience had come to…
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My musical education was advanced even further on Thursday evening with another visit to the splendid Howard Assembly Room. Tonight’s lesson was The Music and Instruments of Mali with the teacher being Bassekou Kouyate and his band Ngoni Ba. If all of my academic instructions had been presented like this, I would have left school…
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Another example of the impact a playwright can have when connecting with their audience. This time it wasn’t me and the effect was even greater. The play, adapted for stage by Nesrin Alrefaai and Matthew Spangler, from a book by Christy Lefteri who, my research tells me, spent two summers working in a refugee camp…
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Tyke It To The Limit 