In defending the mountain lions of Los Angeles trying to hunt humans, the novel compels the reader to question whether, in fact, humans deserve it Henry Hoke | Open Throat | Picador: £9.99 Reviewed by Devarya Singhania What if you could communicate with the thing trying to kill you? Could you convince it not to? […]
Gorillaz @ Co-op Live Arena, reviewed by Peter Wild
Albarn’s high-concept supergroup coalesces in a vibrant and cameo-filled multimedia performance Gorillaz | Co-op Live Arena | 20th March 2026Reviewed by Peter Wild All the way back in 1998, Gorillaz was conceived as a virtual band by Blur’s Damon Albarn and Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlett, as a comment on the lack of substance in […]
Don Quixote by the Birmingham Royal Ballet @ The Lowry, Salford, reviewed by Bethany Applebee
Carlos Acosta’s superb choreography shapes a joyous and beautiful production Don Quixote by the Birmingham Royal Ballet | The Lowry, Salford | 5th March 2026Reviewed by Bethany Applebee According to Timotheé Chalamet, no one cares about ballet anymore. But if he’d actually visited the ballet recently, he’d know there are plenty of people who disagree. […]
Of Monsters and Men @ Albert Hall Manchester, reviewed by Paul Knowles and Sam Cassells
Haunting and lyrical: Of Monsters and Men make a triumphant return to Manchester Of Monsters and Men @ Albert Hall Manchester | 15th Febuary 2026 Reviewed by Paul Knowles and Sam Cassells The faded grandeur of Manchester’s Albert Hall, a former Wesleyan chapel, proved the perfect setting for the triumphant return Of Monsters and Men […]
Rob Doyle, Cameo, reviewed by Edward Heathman
Shirking the moral constraints of autofiction, this novel provides ecstatic multiple narrative planes that wrestle instead with the uncanny Rob Doyle | Cameo | Wieden & Nicholson: £20Reviewed by Edward Heathman At one point in Cameo, a narrator presented to us as Rob Doyle explains ‘I began to have what I thought of as serialised dreams… In […]
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (dir. Nia DaCosta), reviewed by Joseph Hunter
A haunting, revelatory, and satisfying continuation of the apocalyptic world Danny Boyle has created. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple | dir. Nia DaCosta | Reviewed by Joseph Hunter Danny Boyle has made the apocalypse look beautiful. It’s haunting, too: the eerie stillness of the woodlands, grown back in force over the countryside of the […]
Submissions open for Issue 29: Displacement
The Manchester Review is looking for prose, poetry and art in response to these themes for our upcoming special issue Displacement. Examples of themes include, but are not limited to: Displacement of humanity due to climate change Experiences of diaspora The meaning of home and finding new homes Displacement as a result of sociopolitical or economic […]
Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection, reviewed by Devarya Singhania
Rejection provides in-depth case studies of performative males, cuckolding, finance bros, and LLMs, while leaving it to the reader, much like the internet, to make their own interpretations Tony Tulathimutte | Rejection| Fourth Estate: £16.99Reviewed by Devarya Singhania In his second novel (or novel-in-stories as it has been referred to in some places), Tony Tualathimutte […]
Sarah Ghazal Ali, Theophanies, reviewed by Ian Pople
Sarah Ghazal Ali | Theophanies | 87 Press: £14.99Reviewed by Ian Pople Ghazal Ali’s book discusses what visible manifestations of God – or a ‘theophany’ – might mean in a feminist context. She draws on both Muslim and Christian perspectives on women’s relationships with God; in particular, how those perspectives might sit in a contemporary […]
Oscar Oruche Flash 25 Fiction and Non-fiction Competition Winner
Oscar Oruche wins the University of Manchester’s Flash 25 fiction and Non-fiction Competition I am Oscar Oruche, three-quarters English and a quarter Nigerian, and am a current Undergraduate Student reading a BA (Hons) in East Asian Studies. Prior to living in the UK, I lived in Singapore, where I was exposed to Chinese culture and […]
On Wanting
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries [Content trigger warning: abortion, medical procedure detail] Can you not feel anything in your body? This is the question a friend asks, sitting across from me in a low-lit cinema bar on the corner of Niederbarnimstraße, in Berlin’s Friedrichshain district. Half-drunk glasses of beer stand between our elbows. […]
3 poems
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Saxifrage Our ten-year-old feet running along the drystone wallbetween our houses, the saxifrageslumped so thick over the bubbling stone, we didn’tknow there was a gap betweenmy garden wall and hers. Did we everrecognise a certain lack of solidityas we hammocked across the gapbetween her and me? Rockbreakers […]
Comfort Me with Violins
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries After I gave birth, the world became sleepless. We spent a year lost in an exhaustion so deep it split my brain. I saw rainbows refracted in the kitchen’s french doors, opening out to the yard glistening under the soft morning light. My eyelids twitched. My body swayed […]
And the Radio Plays
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Ahead of them, the road lays out broad and straight. Tulips on the embankment are holding strong; clouds high and stratus smeared. Jack is driving, as he always drives, because Mary’s migraines are rare but unpredictable, and because Jack, they both know, has problems ceding control. He is […]
2 poems
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Toad Tide Waking from winter-deep half sleep to acheand seep and sap, you stir in the ooze,heave your tender bulk from mud to air,begin the heavy-limbed creep to the watersof your making, weeping soft poison to ward youon your way. Risking rat and road and raptor,you find […]
3 poems
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries A Competition Buzzard over crow, buthooded crow over raven. Salmonthrashing on a hook and leaderover sugar in the evening. Winterbranches scribbled on the sundownlike witches’ fingers overthin silk leaves of bible paper.Corroded silver forks, I think—never sold, just given—overlate-night radio, coruscant streets.Silence over apology untilwe insisted on […]
Stuck in the Middle
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries “Applying for a visa extension?” the man behind the plexiglass in the Holborn post office asks you. “Yes,” you say, slightly out of breath, clutching a crumpled letter from the Home Office. Your stomach had started churning as soon as you saw it this morning and you had […]
The Curse
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries [Content warning: descriptions of illness, blood] I had been bleeding for twelve days when I picked up the scent of the Ally Pally Witch. This time she was lurking in an audio clip from the Open University’s digital archives[i]. Robert Rowland, a former head of production at the […]
2 poems
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries bee me up talk to me about tender.are you blue from slender.are you bruised from under.or are you billowing bright.were you green this morning.or are you new to this leafing.hell bent. on sky filling.are you made of light.is this rain again.or a recent memory.and is this density.this […]
3 poems
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Cloaca Maxima God bless the modern malefactors,for fellow travellers praise be God,bless boldness, bless servility. We used to sweeten cities, drainingbeneath the polity, expelling refuseto oblivious seas and barbarous lands. Death and dirt and inconveniencewere flushed to cleanse our rituals. Sometimeswe showed the process off, sanitised and […]
Incident at the Castle
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries [Content trigger warning: suicide] There was an incident at the castle. Someone fell from the walls. Or jumped or was pushed. Jason says we must have a look. It will be so much fun. When we get there, there’s already a cordon of blue ticker tape and a […]
Windwatt
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Windwatt Tide wrack windsthrough clotted estuary mud,mud so thick it stops the breath,but gives life to riverine shell-creatures,and makes mudflats blossom with detritus, estuarine silt flowers;clay-born and half-formed things. Taf-torn, river wrought,the Landsker Line* splitsmore than language; even this island town, from which castlesslide into swamps, leveesdissolve […]
3 poems
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries My first white chest hair My dentist told me I lack wisdomteeth while filling my root canal cavity.His slender three-eyed metal swan shonelight on my every misdeed. I had ignoredmy body, as if it was mine onlyon a monthly subscription. Free repairs,as long as I kept paying […]
Mating Habits
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries While Louie fumbles with his zip, I lay a newspaper down on the floor of the Wendy House. I can’t help but think about next week’s presentation while he does it: a conference paper on the mating habits of waterbirds in the Bering Sea, specifically their fidelity to […]
Damilola
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Damilola with eyes the colour of sepsis, Damilola with surname like a hieroglyph no one can decipher, Damilola with underwear on back-to-front dawns on his knees begging for virtue, naps upright from Clapham to Charing Cross, thumbs the biblethick in-tray, laughs almost. Damilola wonders whether Mrs O’Donoghue will […]
Issue 28: Editorial
Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries Issue 28 of The Manchester Review presents works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry from writers across the globe, gathering together pieces of disparate tones, forms and thematic focuses. These texts span across those that masterfully employ more familiar structures, to those that explore experimental styles, evidencing both the […]
The Chameleons, Arctic Moon Tour, Reviewed by Peter Wild
The Chameleons | Albert Hall, Manchester | 21st November 2025 Reviewed by Peter Wild It’s been a bumpy road for The Chameleons. They started out all the way back in 1983, released a clutch of anthemic, Goth-leaning albums in the vein of early U2 (see Script of the Bridge, What Does Anything Mean? Basically and major label […]
Ocean Vuong, The Emperor of Gladness, Reviewed by Edward Heathman
An unlikely friendship blossoms between different generations in this moving story that holds America’s underside up to the light. Ocean Vuong | The Emperor of Gladness | Penguin: £20.00Reviewed by Edward Heathman In his second novel, Ocean Vuong has chosen to skate over ground similar to that of his debut, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. […]
Marina Abramović, Balkan Erotic Epic, Reviewed by Joseph Hunter
Abramović’s epic reminds you that much of life is itself a performance – that the boundaries we draw between art and ‘real’ life are, in many ways, arbitrary. Marina Abramović | Balkan Erotic Epic @ Aviva Studios | 9-19th OctoberReviewed by Joseph Hunter It’s the first sentence of this review, and I already feel like I’ve […]
Best British Short Stories 2025, edited by Nicholas Royle, reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles and Sam Cassells
A timely reminder of the ability of the contemporary short form to move, shock and surprise its reader in a myriad of ways. Best British Short Stories 2025 | edited by Nicholas Royle | Salt Publishing LTD: £10.99 Reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles and Sam Cassells Twenty-three years on from the launch of the ‘Save […]
Nathan Kernan, A Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler, reviewed by Ian Pople
A complete and compelling account of a masterful American poet Nathan Kernan | Day Like Any Other: The Life of James Schuyler | FSG: £25.00Reviewed by Ian Pople James Schuyler’s poetry contains extraordinary descriptive precision. His Pulitzer Prize-winning volume, The Morning of the Poem, concentrates on the everyday, the accretion of events. Nathan Kernan suggests: […]
‘ANEW Way to Peel an Orange’, Castlefield Gallery, reviewed by Caleb White
A brilliant project. Thoughtful, playful, human. Aesthetically and thematically solid. No notes. ‘ANEW Way to Peel an Orange’ | Castlefield Gallery | 3 August –19 October 2025Reviewed by Caleb White This review comes with a series of caveats. As I write this, I am sitting at the frontdesk of Castlefield Gallery, working a voluntary shift. […]
Santiago Yahuarcani, ‘The Birth of Knowledge’, The Whitworth, reviewed by Caleb White
A powerful and sobering display of art, deeply connected to an intriguing cosmology and a brutal history. Santiago Yahuarcani | The Birth of Knowledge | The Whitworth | 4th July 2025 – 4th January 2026Reviewed by Caleb White In the midst of dissertation writing, I have taken time out to visit the new exhibition at […]
The Cat That Slept for a Thousand Years, The Manchester Museum, reviewed by Caleb White
The Manchester Museum have successfully created a place of wonder. A simple and charming experience. The Cat That Slept for a Thousand Years | The Manchester Museum | Saturday 19 July – Sunday 14 September 2025Reviewed by Caleb White In spite of how busy life can become, I still manage to find the time to […]
Henri Cole, The Other Love, reviewed by Ian Pople
A complex and rewarding collection that observes the fragility of love and nature in an increasingly delicate world. Henri Cole| The Other Love | Farrar, Straus and Giroux: £12.00Reviewed by Ian Pople Henri Cole is one of those major American poets who, somehow, does not have a publisher in the UK. The Other Love is […]