Little Dragon; Manchester Academy, 26 October 2017. What do Bloc Party, Tv On the Radio, U2, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Queens of the Stone Age, share in common with Little Dragon? They all tried to make danceable records. Some decent. Some terrible. But none of them good. Little Dragon has been perfecting their indie/electronic/R&B […]
BBC Philharmonic at the Bridgewater Hall, reviewed by Simon Haworth
BBC Philharmonic, conducted Nicholas Collon; The Bridgewater Hall, 21 October 2017. For their latest outing at the Bridgewater Hall the BBC Philharmonic offer up a diverse and intriguing program that allows different sections of the orchestra to shine before they come back together in full force for a glorious and powerful performance of probably the […]
Manchester Literature Festival: Kamila Shamsie with Jeanette Winterson, reviewed by Namra Amir
Kamila Shamsie with Jeanette Winterson; Martin Harris Centre, 17 October 2017. People tell you never meet your idols, for fear they don’t live up to your expectations. In my case, watching Kamila Shamsie in conversation with Jeannette Winterson lived up to the admiration I hold for the author. The evening began with John McAuliffe, Co-Director […]
Caroline Bird, In These Days of Prohibition, reviewed by Annie Muir
Caroline Bird, In These Days of Prohibition (Carcanet, £9.99). In These Days of Prohibition, Caroline Bird’s fifth collection with Carcanet, is full of poems that are almost always surreal, often funny, and sometimes profoundly shocking. The book has three sections, each with its own epigraph. It begins with a quote from John Ashbery: ‘Suppose this […]
Manchester Literature Festival: Zaffar Kunial, The Whitworth, reviewed by Chad Campbell
Zaffar Kunial, introduced by Andrew McMillan, The Whitworth, 19 October 2017. Poet Zaffar Kunial and painter Raqib Shaw share some common ground. Both have roots in Kashmir (Kunial through his father; Shaw by birth) and England (Kunial by birth; Shaw by virtue of having lived and worked here for over 20 years). But that is […]
Manchester Literature Festival: Imtiaz Dharker, Manchester Art Gallery, reviewed by Namra Amir
Imtiaz Dharker, Manchester Art Gallery, 20 October 2017. As the Manchester Literature Festival nears the end, I thought I couldn’t be further impressed or surprised by the events. Little did I know that Imtiaz Dharker’s collaboration with Manchester Art Gallery would stun me and revolutionise the way we read and discuss poetry. On my journey […]
Manchester Literature Festival: Elif Shafak and Nadeem Aslam, reviewed by Usma Malik
Elif Shafak & Nadeem Aslam, Central Library, 15 October 2017. It’s just gone 1.30 pm and already there’s a sizeable crowd gathered outside Manchester’s Central Library. The talk doesn’t begin till 2pm, but the audience are keen to get inside and secure front row streets. When Elif Shafak, Nadeem Aslam, and Erica Wagner, our chair […]
Manchester Folk Festival: Quiet Loner at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, reviewed by Fran Slater
Late afternoon on the last day of the inaugural Manchester Folk Festival, and we were with Quiet Loner at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation. One look at the instruments waiting on the stage, from the slide guitar to the banjo, via the acoustic guitars and the accordion, and you might imagine you were at a […]
Michael Kiwanuka, The Lowry, reviewed by Fran Slater
Before we move onto the headline act, we’ll need to take a little bit of time to talk about the support. Because Bedouine was quite stunning. Alone on a stage that would later hold a band of eight or nine, Bedouine not only commanded the space but also brought a silence into the crowd that […]
Loving Vincent, dir. Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman, reviewed by David Hartley
It is testament to the startling depth of film as an art medium that it has so brazenly brushed off all doom-laden interlopers that threatened to sink it – the coming of sound, the collapse of the studio system, the rise of TV, the internet, CGI, 3D, Netflix, and so on. In truth, film is […]
Manchester Folk Festival: John Smith at Gorilla, reviewed by Fran Slater
John Smith, with Georgia Lewis and Nina Harries; Gorilla, 19 October 2017. I hate to say it, but it feels like Manchester Folk Festival may have created a rod for their own backs right from the very start. Because this event will be difficult to match. With sets from three very different acts, the festival […]
Parliament Square, Royal Exchange Theatre, reviewed by Sascha Stollhans
Parliament Square by James Fritz, directed by Jude Christian; Royal Exchange Theatre, 20 October 2017. One morning, Kat (Esther Smith) kisses her husband and daughter goodbye and leaves the house. But instead of going to work, she gets on a train to London. She is led by an inner voice; a voice that encourages her […]
Manchester Literature Festival: John Banville and Mike McCormack, reviewed by Tessa Harris
John Banville and Mike McCormack, hosted by Ian McGuire, Martin Harris Centre, 10 October 2017. John Banville and Mike McCormack, hosted by Ian McGuire, was a gentle classic of a literature festival event. Technology, language and loneliness were perhaps the major themes of a discussion that ranged from influences and nationhood to Banville’s creation of […]
Elaine Cosgrove, Transmissions, reviewed by Sahar Abbas
Elaine Cosgrove, Transmissions (Dedalus, £10.00). Elaine Cosgrove’s debut collection of poems, Transmissions, is inviting and full of intrigue. Touching on the front cover of her collection, it is natural that Cosgrove’s first poem begins with an image of cities and a Motorway, as her cover paints quite the abstract picture of a night skyline.‘We pass / […]
Cornelia Parker: Verso, The Whitworth, reviewed by Danielle Gravon
‘Cornelia Parker has always been attracted to the backs and undersides of things’ the museum wall-text for the exhibition begins. Verso explores a different life of art objects by revealing what is typically unseen. Forty-eight photographs of the backs of hand-sewn button cards hang in six clusters of eight along a narrow gallery on the […]
Kuss Quartet, The Stoller Hall, reviewed by Simon Haworth
Kuss Quartet, The Stoller Hall, 12 October 2017. The Stoller Hall is still so new to Manchester that the distinctive smell of the wood which lines most of the auditorium’s walls subtly pervades its attendant audience. Opened in April this year, the hall is fairly unassuming from the outside as you pass Victoria Station and […]
Manchester Literature Festival: Jon Savage at The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, reviewed by Chad Campbell
Jon Savage: Burgess, Punk and the Sex Pistols, introduced by Andrew Biswell, The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, 17 October 2017. Jon Savage moved with Punk to Manchester in the late seventies after the Sex Pistols’ famous ‘76 ‘June Show’ at the Lesser Free Trade Hall; a gig attended by Pistol’s fans (like Steve Morrissey) who […]
Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness, Hope Mill Theatre, reviewed by Fran Slater
Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness, by Anthony Neilson; Hope Mill Theatre, 10 October 2017. It feels only fair to start with the positives, so that’s what I’ll do. Because People Zoo did do a good job of providing all the elements needed to make up an enjoyable theatrical performance. As is always the case […]
Manchester Literature Festival: The Real Story presents Know Your Place, reviewed by David Hartley
The Real Story presents Know Your Place: Gena-mour Barrett, Abondance Matanda, Andrew McMillan & Kit de Waal; International Anthony Burgess Foundation, 9 October 2017. The title of this event, and the book it launches, makes a clear demand of us: not to reflect on our place, not to consider it, but to know it. Taken […]
Manchester Literature Festival: Refugee Tales II: Caroline Bergvall, Kamila Shamsie & Marina Warner, reviewed by Usma Malik
Refugee Tales II: Caroline Bergvall, Kamila Shamsie & Marina Warner; Central Library, 16 October 2017. This is not an actual title of one of the short story collections that make up Comma Press’s Refugee Tales. It’s how I’ve synthesised the message of the stories. In fact, even the phrase ‘short story collection,’ may be slightly misleading. […]
James Womack, On Trust: A Book of Lies, reviewed by Chad Campbell
James Womack, On Trust: A Book of Lies (Carcanet, £9.99). On Trust: A Book of Lies goes out of its way – on the jackets, author biography, and notes – to tell you that none of the book’s contents are true. Or, as the Colonel in the epigraph says, may “not have happened quite this […]
Manchester Literature Festival: Elif Shafak & Nadeem Aslam, reviewed by Maryam Hessavi
Elif Shafak & Nadeem Aslam, hosted by Erica Wagner; Central Library, 15 October 2017. “Where to begin” – was the place at which Erica Wagner initiated the event, setting up the primary concerns and philosophical line of conversation that would formulate an intellectually invigorating and moving discussion between these two powerful writers, Elif Shafak and […]
Manchester Literature Festival: The Things I Would Tell You: Elbadawi, Hamid, Osman, Mahfouz, reviewed by Maryam Hessavi
The Things I Would Tell You: Asma Elbadawi, Nafeesa Hamid, Hibaq Osman and Sabrina Mahfouz, Central Library, 15 October 2017. Hosted by award-winning Sabrina Mahfouz, The Things I Would Tell You event offered insights, experiences and performance from Asma Elbadawi, Nafeesa Hamid and Hibaq Osman, who form part of the twenty-two strong compilation of writers […]
Manchester Literature Festival: The Things I Would Tell You: Elbadawi, Hamid, Osman, Mahfouz, reviewed by Namra Amir
The Things I Would Tell You: Asma Elbadawi, Nafeesa Hamid, Hibaq Osman and Sabrina Mahfouz, Central Library, 15 October 2017. Sabrina Mahfouz is a British Egyptian playwright, poet and screenwriter. As the editor of the anthology “The Things I Would I Tell You”, she warmly greets the crowds and introduces the writers Asma Elbadawi, Nafeesa […]
Manchester Literature Festival: Colette Bryce and Tara Bergin, reviewed by Joe Carrick-Varty
Literature Live: Colette Bryce and Tara Bergin, Martin Harris Centre, 16 October 2017. Monday 16th October, 2017, Manchester saw a red sun and dust blown from Africa, not to mention gale force winds and a few overturned wheelie bins. But somewhere, somewhere deep in the midst of all this chaos a separate storm was brewing. […]
Acosta Danza, The Lowry, reviewed by Hazel Shaw
Acosta Danza, produced by Sadler’s Wells and Valid Productions; The Lowry, 12 October 2017. Carlos Acosta has used his fame and popularity a ballet dancer to turn the spotlight towards the next generation of Cuban dancers through his company Acosta Danza. Their first UK tour brings a taster of their talent and distinctively playful approach […]
Aziz Ibrahim: Lahore to Longsight, HOME, reviewed by James Chonglong Gu
After a brief pre-concert talk with Aziz Ibrahim and his friends, the hugely anticipated big show finally started at 7:30 sharp with a bang. Teaming up with Manchester Camerata (‘probably Britain’s most adventurous orchestra’), Aziz, a proud Manchester native, wowed big time in front of an electrified Mancunian crowd on HOME soil. Special guests of […]
Manchester Literature Festival: Will Self at Central Library, reviewed by Henry Cockburn
Will Self, hosted by Alex Clark, Central Library, 10 October 2017. Self lumbers onto the stage dressed in a quasi-uniform of Napoleonic blue and high-throated red, mutters to himself through a jawful of gum, then plays peek-a-boo with the armchair. The effect is of a large off-duty circus monkey. The audience leans in, unsure whether […]
Phil Wang, The Lowry, reviewed by David Firth
Phil Wang, The Lowry, 7 October 2017. With a last name like Wang, it’s likely that most comedians would find it hard to resist a few penis jokes. Phil Wang is no exception, starting the Salford leg of his fourth solo show tour with a heady array of wang-and-wank-related gags. The audience gagged plenty on […]
Manchester Literature Festival: Sinéad Morrissey & Douglas Dunn, reviewed by Sahar Abbas
Sinéad Morrissey & Douglas Dunn, hosted by Vona Groarke; Martin Harris Centre, 9 October 2017. At the Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama, under the Cosmo Rodewald Theatre’s star-filled ceiling, two very special stars themselves – Sinéad Morrissey and Douglas Dunn – recited poems of undeniable truth and sheer honesty from their new collections, […]
Manchester Literature Festival: Malika Booker at The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, reviewed by Maryam Hessavi
Malika Booker; International Anthony Burgess Foundation, 8 October 2017. If you didn’t make the Malika Booker event last night, you missed a truly magical theatre production of the imagination; full of the wilderness, the natural world, animals masquerading as political figures, Lazarus rising for ‘more fire’ (!), and women letting ‘citrus oils into the wind’… Malika […]
The Hallé at the Bridgewater Hall, reviewed by Simon Haworth
The Hallé at the Bridgewater Hall, conducted by Sir Mark Elder; 5 October 2017. Opening The Hallé’s 2017-18 season at The Bridgewater Hall, and their 160th season overall, is a program consisting of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Stravinsky’s The Firebird, performed in its entirety. Not […]
The Kite Runner, The Lowry, reviewed by Imogen Durant
The Kite Runner, based on the novel by Khaled Hosseini, directed by Giles Croft; The Lowry, 4 October 2017. Set against the backdrop 1970s Afghanistan, The Kite Runner tells a deeply emotive tale of a brotherly relationship torn apart. Opening in Kabul in 1974, the play successfully subverts the Western audience’s expectations of life in […]
Bladerunner 2049, dir. Denis Villeneuve, reviewed by David Hartley
I admit to a certain level of despair when reboot culture caught up with Blade Runner and this sequel was announced. I’d long held the original close as a piece of cinematic perfection; science fiction at its absolute zenith; a flawed gem, endlessly fascinating and, in its various iterations, strangely mercurial. But in the intervening […]
Joanna Walsh, Worlds from the Word’s End reviewed by Nell Osborne
Joanna Walsh, Worlds from the Word’s End (And Other Stories, £8.99). With a relatively small output, Joanna Walsh has carved herself a place as one of the UK’s most innovative and influential writers. Her fans include writers such as Chris Kraus and Deborah Levy. She is also prescient cultural critic. She edits 3:AM magazine and […]