Quays Life A lifestyle webzine based-in Salford Quays

High Society UK tour. Credit: Pamela Raith Photography

Helen George on why High Society is the tonic we need right now

Call the Midwife star Helen George talks Cole Porter, corsets and following Grace Kelly as Tracy Lord in High Society, which arrives at the Lowry, Salford, for two weeks from 22 September. Starring...

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Mythic Reinvention: 50 Years of Costume, Craft and Performance. Gypsy Directed by Jo Davies Designed by Gabrielle Dalton Photography Ros Kavanagh

Art Reviews To do & see

Mythic Reinvention: 50 years of Costume and Craft - Review

In celebration of 50 years of the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester, a free exhibition invites audiences to explore how history can be reimagined through storytelling in...

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Jersey Boys UK tour. Photo credit: Mark Senior

Reviews Theatre

Jersey Boys 20th anniversary UK tour: Review

When a show has been around for 20 years there are two things we know already: one, it’s an audience pleaser and two, it has a string of fans who’ve already seen it multiple times and still come back...

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Kaberneeme, Harju County, Estonia. Photo by Maksim Shutov on Unsplash

Travel

Finding solace and connection on long walks

There’s a moment on every long walk when something shifts. Maybe it’s an hour in, maybe it’s day three of a multi-day trek — but at some point, the mental chatter fades, your...

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Reviews

L-to-R Harriet O'Shea as Small Alison and Alex Young as Helen Bechdel in Fun Home at the Royal Exchange Theatre. Credit: Johan Persson

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Reviews Theatre

Fun Home: Review

Dave PorterAdd comment

The Fun Home is not all it’s cracked up to be. In fact, sometimes it’s not funny at all, what with marital discord, hidden secrets and suicide to contend with. The reason partly may be because the fun home is short for the funeral home, the family...

Sewing a Button. Part of Ai Weiwei Button Up at Aviva Studios. Photo credit Hugo Glendinning

Art Reviews

Ai Weiwei: Sewing A Button – Review

Dave Porter

Twelfth Night HER Productions. Photo Credit Kelsea Knox

Reviews Theatre

Twelfth Night HER Productions: Review

Steve Timms

To do & see

The Brown Suite (c) Viktor Erik Emanuel - Fundamentally Dance

People To do & see

Inside The Brown Suite: BlacBrik’s Nahum McLean and Darius Drooh on James Brown, friendship and the power of social spaces

Carmel Thomason

Six friends, one night in 1970s New York, and a soundtrack built from James Brown, Etta James and Sam Cooke — that’s the world at the centre of ‘The Brown Suite’, a full-length dance-theatre show from choreographic duo BlacBrik...

Christine Mackie in IRON Pic credit James Mackie

People To do & see

Christine and Lois Mackie on bringing IRON’s powerful mother-daughter story to life

Carmel Thomason

For the first time, real-life mother and daughter Christine and Lois Mackie will share the stage in Rona Munro’s intense psychological prison drama ‘IRON’. Touring the North West with Best Girl Productions, the play explores the...

Nya, TPE's Pets as Therapy Dog. Photo courtesy of Transpennine Express

Dog's Life People

The dog taking the stress out of train journeys

Lorraine Worsley-Carter

One of my dear friends is Chaplain, Reverend Mike Roberts, Rail Industry and British Transport Police Chaplain whom I have featured in QuaysLife in the past. Earlier in the year, Mike included me in the following email. “Hi Lorraine Meet Steve...

Dean Kirby's walking tour of Angel Meadow. Photo by Dave Porter

To do & see

Angel Meadow walking tour: Manchester’s forgotten slum where kids played football with skulls

Dave Porter

Think you know Manchester pretty well? It may be time to have a rethink. On hand to help adjust your frame of reference is former journalist Dean Kirby and his walking tours of Angel Meadow. Now a local historian and author, Dean’s tours poke around...

People

MBE Insignia Photo courtesy of Elaine Edwards

People

Bolton mum’s MBE journey: how Families and Babies grew from one woman’s struggle into a national charity

Lorraine Worsley-Carter

If someone had told Elaine Edwards back in 2004 — during the sleepless nights and uncertainty of new motherhood — that one day she would receive an MBE at Windsor Castle from HRH The Prince of Wales and see her story featured in a best-selling book...

(L-R) Matt Freeman, Al Dunn, Nick Bunt in Oh Zeus! (Le Navet Bete) - photo credit Mark Senior Photography

People To do & see

Le Navet Bete’s Nick Bunt on bringing the Greek gods down to earth

Carmel Thomason

Le Navet Bete is back with another larger-than-life comedy, this time taking on the wildly dysfunctional world of Greek mythology. When the stability of Olympus is threatened by the marriage of Zeus’ daughter Hebe to a mere mortal, the King of the...