Image: © Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester Something was wrong as soon as we drove into our street. We heard the shriek of a siren as we passed through town. Now there was a police car outside our house, an ambulance with its blue light turning. Two paramedics loading a stretcher into the back. […]
The Headman
Image: © Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester July can be unforgivingly cold. Walking outside, the chillness feels like multiple blades cutting the skin. He’s sitting in his bedroom hut, thinking of Mucha. In his mind he’s walking towards her. His heart is pounding. “Ndeipi” he says. “Where were you yesterday?” Mucha says. “I got […]
The Brain that went for a Stroll
Image: © Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester I’m at my desk staring at a stack of forms waiting to be checked and captured on the system. It’s a busy time of year. There are performance reviews coming up. I’m right in the middle of a weekly stats call when it happens. I start retching. […]
To the Man Sleeping in the Airport
Image: © Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester Your arm is reaching into the carpeted walkway,where hundreds travel the gentle slopetoward the cold tile of the ground-floor lobby.Your pink stomach winks through the risein your shirt, keeps watch as the crowd followsin rippling curves to miss your hand, palm-up,your fingers slightly curled as if tied […]
Pridesongs
Image: © Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester Oblique Strategy #1: Is it finished? It’s morning, sometime in late 2021, and I’m standing near the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art’s river window, waiting to hear something special. Today’s a bright day – the kind where light seemingly leaks from the air itself, and the river […]
Death Robed in A Gown, So Beautiful, So Majestic
Image: © Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester For my Grandfather In the old elm that crowded our backyard fence a lone magpie cawked— a woman was wading her feet through a water that had found its way into her stead, & she cursed heavily— […]
Editorial
Image: © Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester After a longer than expected break, we are very happy to announce the passing of the torch to a new editorial team which is excited to bring you this new issue of The Manchester Review. In issue twenty-six, the new editorial team has endeavoured to remain faithful […]
Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional, Reviewed by Stuti Dhar Chowdhury
A narrative of life, death and the intrigue encompassing both. Charlotte Wood | Stone Yard Devotional | Sceptre: £16.99 Reviewed by: Stuti Dhar Chowdhury A novel which pulls you right in, and yet keeps you at a distance; Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional is a true delight to read, which explains its nomination for the […]
A Midsummer Night’s Dream | The Lowry, Salford | Reviewed by Paul Knowles
Opera North’s spellbinding production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream captures the ethereal beauty of Britten’s music whilst putting the fun back into Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Benjamin Britten) | The Lowry, Salfrod | 13th of November 2024Reviewed by Paul Knowles The moment the ethereal humming of the synth starts to reverberate around the […]
The Magic Flute | The Lowry, Salford | Reviewed by Joseph Hunter
Opera North’s production of Mozart’s opera sings and soars The Magic Flute | The Lowry, Salford | 16th November 2024Reviewed by Joseph Hunter Audiences can get oversized ideas about their own importance. Yes, we are the ‘reason’ for what we are seeing. Without us, there is no show. The performers respond to our energy – we […]
Duets: Stories | Scratch Books | reviewed by Paul Knowles
A new anthology produces bold, stunning, and innovative short fiction Duets: Stories | Scratch Books: £11.99Reviewed by Paul Knowles Tom Conaghan (the publisher of Scratch Books) has commissioned and released another daring and innovative anthology of short fiction: Duets. Duets follows in the wake of Scratch Book’s Reverse Engineering series. The Reverse Engineering series focused […]
Anne Michaels, Held, reviewed by Sam Lamplugh
An immaculate but disquieting narrative across time Anne Michaels | Held | Bloomsbury: £9.99Reviewed by Sam Lamplugh Novels – good ones at least – utterly submerge the reader in their concerns, their perspectives and their characters for the entire length of their span. This is because, as John Berger noted, “the story’s voice makes everything its own.” Held, […]
Othello | Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon | Reviewed by Paul Knowles and Sam Cassells
A powerhouse production that reframes the action of Othello away from male jealousy and towards the horrific realities of the violence enacted on the female leads Othello | Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon | 24th October 2024Reviewed by Paul Knowles and Sam Cassells In its opening minutes, the new RSC production of Othello offers a traditional […]
FitkinWall, Harpland | Sale Waterside Theatre | Reviewed by Joseph Hunter
Versatile harpist and composer duo present migrant-themed folk music, reimagined. , FitkinWall, Harpland | Sale Waterside Theatre | 17th OctoberReviewed by Joseph Hunter The café at the Sale Waterside theatre was making me feel insecure. It wasn’t the café’s fault, it was mine. The café – and the theatre itself – is gorgeous. Pristine, white-rendered […]
New Dawn Fades, Royal Northern College of Music, reviewed by Peter Wild
A brave if uneven adaption of the Joy Division Story New Dawn Fades | Royal Northern College of Music | 18th and 19th of October 2024Reviewed by Peter Wild The story of Joy Division, at this point in the history of the world, is something of a well-trodden path. There have been documentaries, books and […]
Modern Gothic | Fly On The Wall Press | Reviewed by Lindz McLeod
Six contemporary writers and their fresh takes on the typical themes of gothic fiction Modern Gothic | Fly On The Wall Press: £11.99Reviewed by Lindz McLeod An oft-touted facet of Gothic fiction is the narrative framing device of a tale within a tale, shown to advantage here in Michael Bird’s opener ‘A Glass House for […]
Bastille presents “&” (Ampersand) | Candlelight Sessions at Manchester Cathedral | Reviewed by Alexandria Mowrey
A tapestry of stories: old, new, & everything in between Bastille presents “&” (Ampersand) | Candlelight Sessions at Manchester Cathedral | October 16th, 2024Reviewed by Alexandria Mowrey A large group of Bastille fans and I queued up in the rain outside of Manchester Cathedral. The evening marked the final stop on Bastille front man, Dan […]
Camille Ralphs, After You Were, I Am, reviewed by Andrew McCulloch
‘In the beginning was the Word’: Camille Ralphs casts a spell. Camille Ralphs | After You Were, I Am | Faber & Faber: £12.99Reviewed by Andrew McCulloch The epigraph of Camille Ralphs’ debut collection is from the Coptic Gospel of Thomas. Discovered in Egypt in 1946, this consists of 114 logia attributed to Jesus, some […]
C.D. Rose, Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea, reviewed by Livi Michael
Reflections on presence and absence form the emotional core of this moving collection C.D. Rose | Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea | Melville House Publishing: £17.99 Reviewed by Livi Michael At the end of the fourth story in this collection, the main character reflects on ‘echoes and repetitions and endless form most beautiful’, which […]
Monday’s Child & Treske Quartet | The International Anthony Burgess Foundation | Reviewed by Thomas D. Lee
A New Music Double Bill presents innovative and spellbinding contemporary classical music Monday’s Child & Treske Quartet | The International Anthony Burgess Foundation | 15th October 2024Reviewed by Thomas Lee The familiar, cozy redbrick confines of the Anthony Burgess Foundation on a cold evening of October. The thrum of chatter, laughter, polite conversation. Somebody mentions […]
Michael Palin | Winding Wheel Theatre, Chesterfield | Reviewed by Joseph Hunter
Genial, funny, and historic memories from the best-loved Python Michael Palin | Winding Wheel Theatre, Chesterfield | 13th October 2024There and Back: Diaries 1999-2009 (Weidenfield & Nicolson, 2024): £30 In 1988 I turned two years old, and Michael Palin travelled around the world in 80 days. I first watched the series several years later with […]
A.C. Bevan | Poundlandia | Reviewed by Andrew McCulloch
‘Selling England by the Pound’: A.C. Bevan finds a way to halt the slide A.C. Bevan | Poundlandia| Mica Press: £10Reviewed by Andrew McCulloch A.C. Bevan has found the perfect title for his well-plotted and immensely readable first collection – a critical, compassionate look at a cut-price world of unconvincing simulations and cheap substitutes, epic […]
Carl Phillips, Scattered Snows, To The North, reviewed by Ian Pople
Carl Phillips | Scattered Snows, To The North | Carcanet: £11.99Reviewed by Ian Pople Relatively hot on the heels of Carl Phillips’ Pulitzer Prize-winning volume, And Then the War, comes his new volume, Scattered Snows, To The North. Phillips’ new collection has just been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize in the UK. The volume’s […]
Steph Huang: ‘There is nothing old under the sun’, esea contemporary, reviewed by Joseph Hunter
Fine, industrial-looking sculptures that burn with a cold beauty Steph Huang | There is nothing old under the sun | esea contemporaryReviewed by Joseph Hunter To betray any sense of geographical inferiority is, for a resident of the north of the UK, taboo. Even if you reject the neoliberal, Tory-constructed notion of the Northern Powerhouse, […]
Alan Moore | The Great When: A Long London Novel | Reviewed by Sam Lamplugh
Fantastical, genre-defying psychedelia delivered in exuberant prose Alan Moore | The Great When: A Long London Novel | Bloomsbury: £14Reviewed by Sam Lamplugh What is genre? For Alan Moore, ‘widely regarded as the best and most influential writer in the history of comics’ if dust-jacket biographies are to be believed, the answer to this question […]
The Substance (dir. Coralie Fargeat) | HOME | Reviewed by Clare Patterson
French New Extremity and Feminist Satire collide in blood-soaked body horror The Substance (dir. Coralie Fargeat) | HOME | Reviewed by Clare Patterson I’m delighted that Coralie Fargeat’s film The Substance is being distributed by MUBI. The chic streaming service, production company and film distributor emerged in the last ten years with slow, thoughtful pictures […]
Apocalyptica plays Metallica Vol.2 | Albert Hall | Reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles
Strings ablaze in Apocalyptica’s European Tour, ushering new life into the heavy metal anthems of Metallica. APOCALYPTICA plays Metallica Vol. 2 Tour | Albert Hall, Manchester | 29th September 2024Reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles On a wet night in Manchester, I found myself in the gothic grandeur of the Albert Hall (a converted Grade 2 […]
Hanna Nordenhök, Caesaria, reviewed by Daniel Pope
The beautiful and grotesque Gothic tale of a young girl’s subjectivity under the medicalizing male gaze Hanna Nordenhök (trans. Saskia Vogel) | Caesaria | Héloïse Press: £10.95Reviewed by Daniel Pope In 19th-century Sweden, Caesaria, the first child born successfully from a c-section performed by Doctor Eldh, is kept in a mansion in the countryside as […]
Romeo and Juliet | Shakespeare North Playhouse | Reviewed by Joseph Hunter
This Diverse Cast Gives Shakespeare’s Love-Tragedy a Vibrant, Funny Retelling Romeo and Juliet | Shakespeare North Playhouse | September 16th – October 5thReviewed by Joseph Hunter A group of extras gather in a waiting room, to be summoned by an impersonal, dystopian PA system when it’s time for them to deliver a single line to […]
Los Campesinos! | New Century Hall | Reviewed by Sam Lamplugh
Los Campesinos! demonstrate their cross-generational, sing-able indie appeal Los Campesinos! supported by ME REX | New Century Hall, Manchester | 22nd September 2024Reviewed by Sam Lamplugh Millennials and Gen Z don’t get on, apparently. Or so I’m told, to co-opt a lyric from Los Campesinos!, who played their first show in Manchester for seven years […]
Natalia Ginzburg, Family and Borghesia, reviewed by Livi Michael
Natalia Ginzburg | Family and Borghesia | New York Review of Books: £11.99Reviewed by Livi Michael In Family, the first of the two novellas in this volume, the two protagonists are not named for several pages. We are, however, offered lot of information about them, delivered in short, factual declarations. Much has been made of […]
Nicholas Pullen, The Black Hunger, reviewed by Thomas D. Lee
Pullen’s queer gothic horror story weaves carefully between the lines of history Nicholas Pullen | The Black Hunger | Orbit: £9.99Reviewed by Thomas D. Lee Earlier this year I was privileged enough to be sent a digital proof of Nicholas Pullen’s phenomenal debut The Black Hunger, a dark delight of a book in which the […]
Much Ado About Nothing | Shakespeare’s Globe | Reviewed by Paul Knowles and Sam Cassells
Comic barbs fly between Benedick and Beatrice in Shakespeare’s Globe’s contemporary version of Much Ado About Nothing, which handles the fine line between comedy and tragedy with aplomb. Much Ado About Nothing | Shakespeare’s Globe | Reviewed by Paul Knowles and Sam Cassells On a blazing day, in mid-August, we found ourselves in the hallowed […]
Kevin Barry, The Heart in Winter, Reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles and Sam Cassells
Doomed Love, Broken Promises, and the Fatalistic Irish in Barry’s Gritty Western. Kevin Barry | The Heart in Winter | Canongate: £16.99Reviewed by Paul Anthony Knowles and Sam Cassells From the moment a drunken opium-riddled Tom Rourke stumbles out of a bar in Butte, Montana in 1891 — In The Heart in Winter’s opening pages […]
Joe Devlin: A collection of modified bookmarks, The Portico Library, reviewed by Joseph Hunter
The novel is always dying, never dead. Prophets of doom are readily available. Will Self would have you believe that the ‘analogue brain’ is going extinct. People just don’t read anymore, we hear. Even students who are paying for a reading-and writing-based education don’t read the texts they’re set to read. (Perhaps that last bit […]