Carmel ThomasonIt must’ve been quite something to see Nina Simone live at the NIA Centre, Hulme on 2 May 1991. By then, at the age of 59, Nina Simone was an established artist whose music had recently become popular with a whole new generation of fans after My...
Moses KabungaWhat Happened to Agnes is an unfolding mystery from singer and storyteller, Nishla Smith, as she spins a tale told and retold, spanning three generations and two continents. The show opens to haunting piano notes, spiralling into the atmosphere. Tom...
Set in the mid 1980s, Kevin Elyot’s My Night with Reg tells interacting stories of six gay men living in London. The play was first produced a decade later and thanks to the Green Carnation Company is now enjoying a revival. The entire play is set...
As part of the Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations at Manchester Jewish Museum, London-based, Canadian theatre maker and performer, Tamara Micner reflects on how the next generation can keep memories alive. She talks to Quays Life about the...
It’s 25 years since Kay Mellor brought her controversial drama, Band of Gold about a group of sex workers in Bradford to the small screen. It was controversial because the central characters were prostitutes, or as the women refer to each other on...
There is nothing quite like watching a master at work. No matter what that work may be, when someone who loves what they are doing so completely it’s hard not to be captivated by their enthusiasm. Wes Peden is a master juggler. He holds a degree in...
Liz RatcliffePlaster Cast Theatre’s Sound Cistem puts trans right at the heart of the stage. The show, at Home as part of its Push Festival, made me feel every emotion possible, and I came away wanting to see it again, and feeling I had just witnessed one of the...
The House of Suarez Vogue Ball returns to Manchester with an underwater themed dance spectacular. We met with Darren Suarez, Father and Mother of the House of Suarez and founder of the annual event, now in its 12th year. House of Suarez Vogue Ball...
Martin ThomassonIf the word ‘MACFEST’ conjures thoughts of tribute bands to former Beatles, or feasts of self-indulgence celebrating a certain world-dominating burger chain, think again. MACFEST, now in its third year, is the brainchild of Qaisra Shahraz, a...
Charles Dickens’s favourite of his own works, David Copperfield can be well described as an ‘autobiographical novel’, drawing heavily on events and characters from Dickens’s own life, but nevertheless a work of fiction created by the author’s...