Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
Sadly, I missed last year’s inaugural mega animation using Queen’s Hotel in City Square as a screen, so was excited to be at the launch of the 2024 version. The weather was drizzly but good enough for the gathered crowd to enjoy the spectacle in reasonable comfort, especially the people ambling round the Christmas market…
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The Festive Season has got off to a great start this year. After two wonderful pantomimes and a stunning Christmas show, here I am at the fabulous Howard Assembly Room for an evening of song from Madeline Bell and Ian Shaw. The pair have been performing together for many years off and on but obviously…
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If last week’s trip to the pantomime took me back to my first childhood, this one certainly appeals to my second. The jokes were far more risqué, with lots of double entendres but even more single entendres! The age guidance is 4+ although there is advice for those who are bringing younger tots, due to…
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I was looking forward to seeing this show, which I last saw in 2022, and wondered what someone else would do to it. As it happens it was basically the same production but with a few small changes. What hadn’t changed, however, was that the story is told in flashbacks, the opening scene depicting the…
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I don’t use a star system to grade the things I review. My reasoning for this is that the top rating would mean, should something come along which was palpably better than those to which I had allocated five stars, I could not do it justice. In 1999 the Jumeirah Burj Al Arab was so…
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I have rewritten this piece several times as I want to do it justice, but the more I analysed it the more confused I became about its aim. The strap line on the programme is ‘Who do you care about and why?’ A bit of a profound question to be examined in just over an…
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We can start celebrating Christmas now that Leeds Playhouse has opened its Festive Season offering. Over the years these shows have become the yardstick against which others are measured. Last year’s production of Oliver! which I sadly had to miss as I was in hospital, and was sold out by the time I recovered, won…
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After last week’s visit to Howard Assembly Room to see a South African cellist who had the audience up on their feet and rocking, this concert could not have been more different. That is the attraction of this venue, apart from the staff and the building itself. Arve Henriksen is a Norwegian trumpeter and tech…
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Anyone who regularly reads my articles will know that, apart from them needing therapy, I hate having the classics messed around with. If you think you can do it better then write your own play, even if you have to use the original idea. This is almost what happened here, the concept of Shakespeare’s Romeo…
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I have recommended this series of hour-long recitals by members of the Orchestra of Opera North before and this one did nothing to change my mind, it was wonderful. What I didn’t realise was that the chap who drove the bus which carried me to Leeds was a fan too. I presume that is the…
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