Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
After seeing Alcina I have decided where I am going for my next holiday, or at least I would have if the island on which the opera was set had been named. It is not my usual target destination being a sparsely populated place with nothing much by way of interest except jungle and beach.…
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This is a review I really wish I didn’t have to write. Not because the concert was bad, far from it, but Thursday, 27th January 2022 was Holocaust Memorial Day which marks the most barbaric event in the history of mankind. If only there had been nothing to remember. Leeds has more reason than most…
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When I first began writing about opera I was advised that the music was great but the plots were a bit far fetched. I have indeed found that to be the case and surely no one can be accused of stretching the bounds of credibility more than Guiseppe Verdi in his opera Rigoletto. The work…
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In view of the timing of recent concerts at Howard Assembly Room I was a bit wary about going to see this event. The American composers night was at Thanksgiving and Solstice on the appropriate day so Quartet for the End of Time seemed to be tempting fate. Fortunately 15th January was the anniversary of…
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Well, here we are, a new year and a new experience. Until this evening I had never been to a piano recital. What an eye, and ear-opener! I have obviously heard pianists in action, you only have to look at my previous reviews to see that. Everything from rock’n’roll, through singer/songwriters to symphonies, but this…
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Well, I suppose that it had to happen sooner or later. That Leeds favourite, Bundobust, has taken the plunge into fake meat. Up until now, the menu has been purely unprocessed plant-based ingredients which have been imaginatively used and cooked to perfection. From 7th January, however, they have teamed up with Meatless Farm to add…
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Those lovely people at Howard Assembly Room don’t just throw their programme of events together will-nilly, far from it. After the US composers concert on Thanksgiving Eve, we had Winter Solstice on, you guessed it, Winter Solstice. 21st December is the date when the sun is farthest away from us, and is therefore the shortest…
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My stroll around the City ends with a visit to the Victoria Quarter which has to be the classiest Christmas display in the country. Not for nothing is Leeds known as The Knightsbridge of the North, even having its own branch of Harvey Nichols. I am beginning in Briggate which has the poem Dear Leeds…
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If you are looking for a special way to bid good riddance to 2021 and welcome 2022 there can be no better way than the special Chow Down New Year’s Eve Party. Those of you who have visited Chow Down Winter Village will know what a great place it is to get together and party.…
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Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a film which totally passed me by. I was 21 when it was released so it seemed a bit out of my age range and, having no family, I didn’t see it as a parent later on. In the 1990s I was seeing a woman who had a four-year-old daughter and…
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Tyke It To The Limit 