I moved house earlier this year. While my new place is what estate agents euphemistically refer to as ‘a fixer-upper’, in ...

Fittingly, it’s been there from the start. Salford’s Lowry theatre and gallery is celebrating its silver anniversary, and Going to the Match, L.S. Lowry’s depiction of Bolton Wanderers supporters ...

Walking into How I Am Monument feels like entering the excavation site of a 21st-century technocratic pharaoh.

The walk from Newcastle train station to the Baltic was a balmy meander by the River Tyne laced with foaming cherry blossom and a chorus of gulls. It was my first visit to this former flour mill, but ...

When I was asked to review the 18th anniversary menu at Vermilion, self-styled as ‘Manchester’s most glamorous restaurant’, I thought two things: (a) after 18 years, why haven’t I heard of it? And (b) ...

It’s certainly easy to see why Boys from the Blackstuff has been adapted for the stage. Alan Bleasdale’s 1982 TV serial made an almighty impact and is still remembered today as a vivid portrait of ...

Beyond its spotlight on the first person, autobiography has the power to illuminate more widely, extending in the process an invitation to empathy. Sarah Roberts’ meticulous installation SICK presents ...

The act of writing is by nature a solitary one. It’s also – and here I must ask for your forgiveness for what follows – an endeavour all too ripe for metaphor. In many ways, the writer is a perennial ...

She was lauded as an exceptional painter. Now a new exhibition highlights something entirely different: rag rugs. Tullie House in Carlisle is hosting Winifred Nicholson: Cumbrian Rag Rugs. Revealing ...

It is a cliché to describe Red Or Dead as a play of two halves, given its subject matter is Bill Shankly’s iconic reign as manager of Liverpool FC, but inconveniently it happens to be true. Whereas ...

If you’re in the market for a freshly-printed history of Guinness family members and their various charitable works, smattered with factory history and fun facts, then this is the book for you. This ...

A hunched figure in a tatty suit slouches slowly towards the stage with a suitcase, grumbling and muttering as he goes. Finally he grabs the mic and turns to glare at the audience, his face white as ...