Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
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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The May performance in the Lunchtime Concert Season at Dewsbury Town Hall comprised a violin and a piano playing half a dozen pieces of romantic music, as usual a mixture of the familiar and the obscure. Today, however, we had the privilege of being entertained by two of the upper echelon of musicians from the…
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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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This has to be one of my favourite events of the year, not only do I love the way in which Mikron reaches out to the people who, by choice or circumstance, would never go anywhere near a theatre, but also it is performed in a fish and chip restaurant, so win/win. Mikron tours the…
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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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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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Well, this was a surprise. Normally the lunchtime concerts at this venue comprise small groups of musicians but today the Orchestra of Opera North pulled out all the stops and fielded a team of seventeen players. I was really pleased as this is one of my favourite pieces of classical music. In fact, it was…
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Tyke It To The Limit 