Kuchipudi is an incredible form of dance. What drew you to it?

Payal: “So I started training in Kuchipudi when I was four. I did not have much of an understanding of what the dance style was at that time; I got started into it by my parents. But it’s a South Indian classical dance form. If I were to draw a parallel with something you may be familiar with, it would be ballet — not stylistically, but in terms of its structure and the discipline it requires.

“It’s replete with footwork and hand gestures. It’s a way of communication and storytelling. We use a lot of facial expressions to communicate ideas and tell stories, really using the whole body. Rhythm forms the backbone of it, and it’s very rich musically — they go hand in hand, of course. I mean, music and dance naturally go together, so that’s essentially what Kuchipudi is.”

What inspired you to create this work around motherhood and miscarriage?

Payal: “It’s a combination of several factors. I’m at that stage where I’ve been contemplating motherhood myself, but I’ve also watched others on their own journeys. The work I make usually stems from a place of curiosity — that’s my entry point into any project. It comes from feeling like I don’t know enough about a particular idea or subject, and wanting to explore it further. Motherhood is not just a simplistic term. It is a landscape of emotions. I make work that I feel needs to be spoken about.

“For me, dance is the medium I choose because it gives me a way to discover and better understand that subject matter. Then I invite people onto that journey with me — I share it with the audience, who can take part either as spectators or participants, depending on how the work unfolds.”

Do you think it’s easy to cover powerful topics through art and dance?

Payal:“I don’t know if it’s easy, but I would certainly say that it’s my way. It’s my medium, it’s the medium that I know best, it’s the medium where I can express myself to the best of my ability. So that’s my medium. Dance helps me express myself best. I think there are a lot of things that remain unsaid. Art is a great way of telling people things. I think art remains with you, even when you leave a performance. The performance stays with you for a long time. And that is the beauty of art. That is the impact that art has on people.”

How long have you been working on ‘Just Enough Madness’?

Payal: “It was born, I think, somewhere around 2019. So, it’s been a long, long time. There were gaps in between, but it was always there in my mind. Even while I was working on other productions, there would be times when I would revisit it and then just let it simmer in the background and then come back to it. It’s been through different phases. It’s been re-researched and redeveloped, and now we’re finally doing this pilot tour with hopefully a more extensive tour next year.”

How can you convince someone to come watch?

Payal: “I think everyone has either been a witness to motherhood or experienced it themselves. You know, we’ve either seen our own mothers or watched a sister, a wife, or a friend go through the journey of motherhood. And if you are someone who has witnessed it or been on that journey yourself, I would just say: come see a glimpse of yourself in it, and come to recognise the emotional labour, the rigour that a woman goes through. I’m not talking about the physical aspect so much — I mean the more unsaid truths of motherhood. Yeah. So I think it’s really a way of celebrating motherhood in the truest sense of the word, not just superficially.”

Just Enough Madness & Caught in the Net of Rebirth is at Lowry, Salford on Tuesday 31 March 2026.

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Four years on, and this revival is firing on all cylinders, giving both the company and the audience the performance it deserves.

In the programme notes Acosta describes Don Quixote as “a ballet for virtuosos”. It is technically challenging as well as requiring strong acting and comic timing from its dancers.

For the audience, however, it is pure escapism, like riding the breeze of a spring morning.

In this sense it is a fantastic entry ballet because it is a straightforward story with terrific classic dance. And this lavish production gives us everything we could ask for – a wonderful live orchestra, colourful sets with some lovely flower arches, dazzling costumes and outstanding dance.

Acosta’s production emphasises the Spanish roots of the story, so we see bustling village scenes, fiery flamenco, caped matadors and live acoustic guitarists on stage among the dancers. Dream sequences provide a space for a wonderful showcase of sparkling tutus from the corp. And, of course, the spectacular solos and pas de deux full of fun, romance and energetic air-splits and high kicks.

Cervantes’ famous knight, Don Quixote, here danced with wit and presence by Dominic Antonucci, may be the title character, but it is the young lovers, Kitri (Beatrice Parma) and Basilio (Enrique Bejarano Vidal) who capture our hearts.

The whole performance feels like a celebration of youth, as we admire not simply the technical skill on display but the stamina to keep this high energy going for a three hour show.

Under Thomas Jung’s baton the Royal Ballet Sinfonia keep Minkus’ score bouncing along with the joy of a child’s skip. It’s an uplifting evening of some of the best classical dance that will no doubt delight seasoned ballet fans and newcomers alike.

Carlos Acosta’s Don Quixote is at Lowry, Salford from 5-7 March 2026.

Read our interview with Carlos Acosta

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By Diane Parkes

When choreographer and dancer Michael Keegan-Dolan was creating his production MÁM, he turned to the music and landscape of his native Ireland for inspiration.

“I was born in Ireland in 1969. There was a lot going on politically and economically. I think much of the work I make comes from where and how I was formed,” he says.

“I perceive the world through that history, our native language, the landscape and our musical tradition – and MÁM is very linked to that. When I made the piece in 2019 it was an expression of my relationship to many of these things – from land to history to folklore to mythology to music to religion, to spirituality.”

Having moved to Irish-speaking West Kerry in the year he created the work, Michael says the spirit of Ireland is inescapable in the land and its people.

“The foundations of the making of the piece were my moving to the West Kerry Gaeltacht,” he recalls. “When I stand in my garden in West Kerry, I can see Skellig Michael, the iconic island, a UNESCO site, kind of floating in the distance in the Atlantic Ocean. And we grow some of our own food here, in that ancient West Kerry soil, so when we eat our carrots, broccoli or cabbage, we are kind of imbibing Kerry!

“When I go to the supermarket and I talk to the people there, they might speak with a particular rhythm and they might make a joke about something West Kerry. When you speak in the Irish language your brain is functioning in an entirely other way. So it’s a powerful place to reevaluate who you are in an ancient landscape where people have been living for a long time. It has endured conquest and famine and war but people are still here – living, breathing, talking, making music and celebrating life.”

Musicality is an integral part of MÁM which features the music of Irish traditional concertina player Cormac Begley and European music collective s t a r g a z e performing live on stage alongside 11 dancers and a young girl.

“My relationship to the traditional music in MÁM is through the lens of Cormac, through the ancestry and connections that Cormac has,” Michael says. “Then my aspiration was to put around his sound a European classical/contemporary sound. It could be from any time – they play some Telemann, 17^th century German music, in the show also, so there’s a European tradition around an Irish tradition in conversation.

“Through that, we made a piece that feels direct, immediate and visceral, poetic and imaginative.”

Michael was artistic director of Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre between 1997 and 2015 before founding Teaċ Daṁsa in 2016. The company features dancers from across the globe performing works strongly grounded in Ireland’s heritage. The company’s first production, Swan Lake/Loch na hEala in 2016 combined dance, storytelling and live music in a new interpretation of the classic ballet.

This was followed by MÁM which was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production when it performed to sell-out audiences at London’s Sadlers Wells in 2020. MÁM has toured to venues in Europe, New Zealand, Australia, North and South America and Taiwan and Michael says audiences everywhere respond to it well.

“MÁM creates an experience for the dancers dancing it, connecting, releasing and breathing in these rhythmical ways. And there’s this lovely collective truth about MÁM – it was made collectively and is performed collectively and I think that’s a beautiful thing to behold.”

The show is coming to Lowry on 3 and 4 February, the first date of a 9-venue tour presented by Dance Consortium, a group of 24 large-scale venues aiming to bring the best contemporary dance from across the world to local audiences in the UK and Ireland. And Michael says each audience member will have their own unique response to the production.

“An important aspect about dance is how it can connect you to your being, to reality. It kind of forces you into life. I’ve made work built around stories like Swan Lake and they are exciting but ultimately what we probably need most as a species just now is to switch our brains off a bit more and to allow ourselves to feel a bit more. That’s what I’m working on with the dances I’m making.

“It’s challenging sometimes because audiences’ expectations have been conditioned over time. We go, we sit, we get impressed and we think there is something to ‘get’ and if we haven’t ‘got’ it then it hasn’t been a good experience.

“But I think we also need to work a little bit more to empower audiences that whatever you take is valid. It’s yours. If what you feel is really strange and nothing like the person next to you that’s really exciting for me – and to own that and to feel empowered by your own imagination and your own perception of reality, I’m all for that.”

MÁM is at Lowry, Salford on Tuesday 3 & Wednesday 4 February at 7.30pm. Tickets: 0161 876 2000

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A far cry from the usual hushed theatre experience – but Tom Fletcher, one of the UK’s bestselling authors and chart-topper with pop-rock band McFly, is not your usual writer. As his new play, There’s A Monster in Your Show leaps from page – in the beloved ‘Who’s in Your Book?’ series – onto musical stage, he’s adamant he wants a high-energy, 50-minute play to cement a love of theatre in pre-school children’s hearts. 

“I want kids to feel this is a show that they are a part of, not just coming to watch,” Fletcher says. “This isn’t a ‘sit down and be quiet!’ kind of show. There’s a lot of mischief in the book, and the show is not to go according to plan either! Certain monsters will require the audience’s help getting the show back on track. This might be some children’s first trip to the theatre, and I want no other theatrical experience to ever live up to it!”

The musical play sees Little Monster joined by his friends Dragon, Alien and Unicorn, learning about the joy of books and friendship – and the power of a great story. The production comes from the makers of hits including Twirlywoos Live, Sarah & Duck and The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show – with many of the brilliantly catchy songs in the show composed by Fletcher too. 

Tom first found fame with McFly’s hit 5 Colours in Her Hair in 2004; his bestselling books, meanwhile, have been translated into forty languages. So fans might be surprised to learn that There’s a Monster in Your Book, the inspiration for his new play, was actually the first book Fletcher ever wrote. “I sketched out a version of it years ago, and then made it into an interactive book which I gave to my bandmates,” he remembers. “I wish I’d filmed their reaction, because as I watched them say, ‘ooh look there’s a monster!’ and then shake the book and turn it over to find him, they all cracked up laughing. 

“I figured that my 20-something bandmates had the same sense of humour as three-year-olds, so it was probably going to work!”

The book idea sat on Fletcher’s shelf for a while – and now he’s thrilled to see his words come to life again in theatres. “I still remember going to see Sooty and Button Moon when I was little and often went to my local community theatres. Then I went to see Jason Donovan in Joseph [and the Technicolour Dreamcoat] when I was a bit older, and it changed my life. I decided then and there that I was going to be on stage doing what the children in Joseph were doing – and within a few years I was playing Oliver! on that stage in the Palladium. Theatre trips definitely set me off on the course of my life.”

Directing the action in There’s a Monster in Your Show is Miranda Larson. Writer of TV hits including Fireman Sam, Bob the Builder, and Thomas the Tank Engine, she has also adapted Fireman Sam and the YouTube phenomena Little Baby Bum for stage, as well as Fletcher’s previous book-turned-play hit, The Christmasaurus. “The Who’s in Your Book series is so mischievous and cheeky, with a huge sense of humour, and we’ve brought that to the stage,” she explains. “There’s a fun chaos to it all, slapstick humour, and the puppets have such a wow factor.”

Parents who struggle to keep their children sitting down for a single meal might worry how a pre-schooler will stay captivated for a play lasting almost an hour – but Larson, like Fletcher, is very relaxed: “the show is so engaging, with lots of interactive moments, songs to lift everyone up – plus the monster story just brings out giggles – the children will be laughing in the aisles.”

The theatre, both Larson and Fletcher believe, has never been more important for young children, with creativity being squeezed out of curricula. “There seems to be way more pressure on children these days, even really young kids are so much more aware of stresses than when I was a child,” Larson adds. “The great thing about theatre is they just get lost in this magical moment, the stage is a bubble where the audience of every age can escape their worries and have fun and smile.”

Fletcher reveals that his packed schedule saw him record demos of some of There’s a Monster in Your Show’s songs in the back of a car during a six-hour drive from Leeds to Margate during McFly’s UK tour. He’s famously a hands-on dad to his three kids with wife Giovanna Fletcher, as well as having achieved 10 UK number-one singles with McFly, written scores of books and he often pops up on TV, currently sharing a chair with his bandmate Dannny Jones as a judge on The Voice – how does he do it all? 

“It’s full on,” he grins. “The second they are in bed I’ll be in my studio writing until I fall asleep at my keyboard. But I feel so lucky to be able to do it all – if that means I sacrifice sleep and have bad blood pressure and feel slightly stressed then I’ll just eat lots of broccoli and hope for the best! Monster is an amazing show, I just can’t wait for everyone to see it.”

There’s A Monster in Your Show is currently on a UK Tour coming to Lowry, Salford from 27 May to 1 June 2025.

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The show, with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston, features the songs, ‘Be Italian’, ‘Unusual Way’, and ‘Cinema Italiano’. It tells the story of movie director Guido Contini who finds himself struggling to find meaning, purpose, and a script for his latest movie endeavour.

With only a week left before shooting begins, he desperately searches for answers and inspiration from his wife, his mistress, his muse, and his mother.

As his chaotic profession steadily destroys his personal life, Guido must find a balance between creating art and succumbing to its obsessive demands.

The story is based on the Federico Fellini film 8½. But after the musical’s Broadway success, winning two Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Original Score in 1982, the musical went on to become a big screen hit of its own. And most will remember Nine for the 2009 star-studded film version featuring Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Kate Hudson, Fergie, Sophia Loren and Judi Dench.

Given that it is a show that doesn’t tour often, Hope Mill have once again set an ambitiously high bar.

“As expected, the talent that we have assembled is truly remarkable,” says Hope Mill founder and co-director of Nine, Joseph Houston. “Ramin was born to play the role of Guido, and I truly think this will be a defining performance for him. The exceptional women we have on board are also outstanding, each of them bringing so much to these complex and wonderful roles. All of this including an ensemble of 24, a top tier creative team and a 24-piece orchestra, and I believe this will be an unforgettable night of theatre.”

These rehearsal photos give a peek behind the scenes of what promises to be a sensational two performances from Hope Mill at Lowry on 1 and 2 February, where the company recently staged its muscial version of A Christmas Carol. We can’t wait to hear what plans come next for birthday number 10.

The post Ramin Karimloo and Ruthie Henshall Celebrate Nine years of Hope Mill Theatre appeared first on Quays Life.

Those things that ON, almost without exception, do well, were a triumph. The singing was splendid, the orchestra (conducted by Garry Walker) superb.

As for the set and costumes. Well, interesting. The forest is represented by hanging strips of translucent Perspex. Towards the summit of these strips we have an moveable array of transparent Perspex balloons – the shifting clouds? The swaying arboreal canopy?

Their fairy majesties, Oberon and Tytania (in Britten’s version pronounced like ‘titanic’), are bedecked like giant glitter balls, the metallic chain mail of their costumes reflecting the spotlights back at the audience as they move. It’s magical to be intermittently dazzled by their glory, or irritating to have to squint so regularly – take your pick.

Puck – a speaking not a singing part – fawns like a doting pet around his master Oberon, as often at his feet as at his side. Vocally and physically Daniel Abelson plays the mischievous fairy like some hybrid of Keith Allen and Caliban. Not so much the “gentle Robin,” Oberon addresses.

For the greater part of the performance, audience laughter is sporadic. The humour is forced, heavy-handed even occasionally vulgar (the bewitched Lysander leg-humping Helena like a randy spaniel is a bit too Joe Orton). That said, the crowd is enthusiastically behind the Mechanicals’ play, later on.

Britten’s score recognises that the play is both funny and touching. When, in Act Three, the young Athenian lovers finally get their emotions unscrambled the music and the singing cascade beautiful sounds out into the auditorium. If only direction had enabled us to care more about Helena, Hermia, Demetrius and Lysander up to that point. Having performers, intentionally or inadvertently, stripping down to their underwear is no guarantee of sending the laugh-o-meter into the red zone. True, these four young lovers are ludicrous in their passions and their antics, but they must also be loveable. The production falls short on that latter requirement.

Similarly, when Tytania dotes on Bottom the Ass, the intimacy between this grotesque and ridiculous hybrid and the narcotically-demented yet magnificent fairy queen should simultaneously amuse and disturb us. The staging of this episode is stilted and so lacking interaction between the two characters as to undermine any sense of either emotion.

Shakespeare’s playful presentation of the Mechanicals, whilst making merciless fun of them, also recognised the truth in their hopes and fears (such a performance before the great and the powerful could make or break these simple men). The cavorting, fumbling, desperate enthusiasms of tonight’s group only occasionally offer unfamiliar delights; they may be clowns in our eyes but we also need to see them as vulnerable, inadequate but sincere. (The group hug they share when their play is ‘preferred’ is original, affecting and funny – if only we could have had more of this kind of creativity).

My companion for the evening says, “you can just close your eyes and listen to the music.” Wise words, indeed.

Henry Waddington booms compellingly as Nick Bottom, a veritable steamroller of excess enthusiasm.

Of the young Athenians (each of whom grabs her or his own moment to shine) Peter Kirk’s Lysander snatches the bouquet by his fingertips from the other three, though I look forward to future roles for Camilla Harris (Helena), Sian Griffiths (Hermia) and James Newby (Demetrius).

It was an inspired choice of the composer to make Oberon a counter-tenor. James Laing’s natural physical presence adds an other-worldly quality to his performance. Britten also set Tytania’s voice in the higher range. Daisy Brown aces her high C# (“Come now a roundel”) with apparent ease, and moves through the evening with regal command.

An utter treat for the ears, less so for the eyes, but, on the whole, well met.

Opera North – A Midsummer Night’s Dream was at Lowry, Salford on 13 November 2024.

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The fact this ambitious dance show is touring for the second time in as many years hopefully tells you otherwise. While some might say there were few better ways for the Rambert to fill seats, there certainly would have been easier ones.

Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby is Rambert’s biggest show in its near 100-year history and it feels epic in scale.

There’s always a challenge when bringing something new to the familiar, but fans can be reassured their favourite characters are in good hands with a story written by the original series creator, Steven Knight.

Set as a prequel to the BBC show – how Thomas Shelby and his brothers came to be the men we know – it opens in 1916 with graphic scenes of fighting in the trenches of the Somme. Rambert’s Artistic Director and choreographer Benoit Swan Pouffer holds nothing back from the audience, giving the action a filmic quality which moves at pace.

We’re taken from the horrors of war to the heady atmosphere of a 1920s nightclub, where Tommy (Conor Kerrigan) falls for singer Grace (Naya Lovell) and a tragic love-story begins.

Fans of the show will recognise central characters like Arthur (Dylan Tedaldi), Polly (Simone Damberg Würtz) and Ada (Adél Bálint), but even if you’ve never seen a single episode the essence of the story is easy to follow with the use of some explanatory narration voiced by the late poet, Benjamin Zephaniah, who played a street preacher in the TV show.

An immersive, contemporary score by Roman GianArthur played live on stage, provides an added layer driving the action. There are also recognisable songs from the Peaky soundtrack from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Radiohead and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. It’s not until the curtain call that we realise this rock gig sound has been created by only three musicians: Yarron Engler (drums, percussion, vocals), Joe Downward (Cello, bass, vocals) and Mitchell Emms (vocals, guitar, keys).

There is so much happening on stage at any one time that you can’t take it all in. But striking throughout is the strength and grace of Rambert’s talented dancers whose performances bring both emotional intensity and a highly stylised edge to this visual storytelling.

It’s a thrilling ride with carousel race horses, punk police dogs, gun weilding women, blazing buildings and centre of it all the iconic Thomas Shelby.

If you like Peaky Blinders – go. If you like Rambert – go. Or just go anyway – it’s a helluva spectacle.

Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby is at Lowry, Salford from 22 to 26 October 2024. Age recommendation 15+

The post Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby – Dance Review appeared first on Quays Life.

“Birthmarked” offers up excellent musicianship, catchy songs, some beautiful vocals, some laughs, some tears, and lots and lots of fabulous campness.

Less a musical, more a ‘new concept gig’, “Birthmarked” is Tate’s account of life as a young gay man raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. Delivered in direct address with humour and panache, punctuated with some fine original compositions, the telling, as you might imagine, is not just one of self-discovery, but of cruelty, poignancy and loss.

Cleanliness may be next to godliness but, in the view of the three Elders who “de-fellowship” him, on the scale of debauchery, homosexuality is right next to bestiality. Once ‘de-fellowshipped,’ the sinner must not be spoken to – even by friends and close family members – no matter that in Brook Tate’s case, he was still living with his family. He gives a heart-rending account of helping his sister unpack her shopping in mutually tearful silence.

The artsy scene of Bristol and renewed contact with uncle Adrian (himself long de-fellowshipped) provide Tate’s first steps along his own road to a kind of salvation.

Gayle the Whale (voiced by excellent percussionist, Eva Redman) is both nemesis and foil for Tate’s narrative, eventually tempting this gay Jonah (and the rest of his band) into her belly – from which they will emerge… even more fabulous and outrageously camp (of course!)

Tate is not afraid to ad-lib and improvise – nor should he be, he does it with verve and shameless wit. The 90 minute (no interval) show is good value for money. Stick around for the tap dancing zebra (in platform heels).

Along with Redman, the other four musicians (Tom Bonson, Samuel Fox, Sam Fox – yes, two of them – and Eddie Benfield) clearly buy into the project, playing with passion and unafraid to be more than a little fabulous in their own right.

Although there is a reference to sex in China (Tate was there for religious reasons) it’s done with a nod and a wink (and no jokes about missionaries and positions). Parents will, of course, use their own judgement, but there’s nothing here remotely like Olly Alexander’s Eurovision bump and grind.

The encore song (dedicated to his Grandma Maude) is the most touching and most beautifully sung number of the evening. Tate has a truly lovely tenor voice that can soar into a countertenor reminiscent of Jeff Buckley.

He finishes the night by clambering down to chat to the audience (in full regalia). A little boy on his birthday and his even littler sister are rightly thrilled by this close encounter. Charm and human warmth ooze from him, even done-up as a mohican zebra.

Two shows to go at the Lowry. Go see!

Birthmarked is at The Lowry, Salford from 29-31 May 2024.

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Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s histore-mix look at Henry VIII’s wives has become a global phenomenon since its early days as a student production at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Earlier this year the show was regularly playing to sell-out houses in London’s West End, on tour across the UK and Australia. And it was about to make its Broadway debut when the Covid-19 pandemic struck, causing the show to be cancelled just three hours before curtain-up.

Now despite likely financial losses producers Kenny Wax, Wendy and Andy Barnes, and George Stiles are keen to bring the Queens back to life, opening productions in both London’s West End and on tour, coming to The Lowry, where it played to sell-out audiences last Christmas for another festive run.

“We accept that with social distancing it is unlikely to be economically viable,” says Wax. “We also understand that restarting productions, particularly musicals, remains impossible for most producers for reasons of scale, finance and lack of cancellation insurance. But we have the opportunity to give work to 100 or so actors, musicians, technicians, stage managers, production managers, costume makers, marketing, press, ticketing and office staff across the two productions. And we hope to entertain many thousands of theatre goers who have been starved of live entertainment since March.

“We are sure that opening SIX will help to build audience confidence and bring business back to the local economy. And we continue to look forward to the day when social distancing is removed and theatres can play to 100% capacity”.

The London production will temporarily move from its West End home at the Arts Theatre to The Lyric on Shaftesbury Avenue for a limited 11-week run beginning on 14 November through to 31 January 2021.
Meanwhile, the touring production starring Lauren Drew (Catherine of Aragon), Maddison Bulleyment (Anne Boleyn), Lauren Byrne (Jane Seymour), Shekinah McFarlane (Anna of Cleves), Jodie Steele (Katherine Howard) and Athena Collins (Catherine Parr), will restart at The Lowry on 27 November, playing 8-shows a week in the venue’s large Lyric Theatre. Capacity has been reduced from 1730 to approximately 740 seats inside the auditorium (depending on the booking number in each party) with one metre+ distancing between each group of seats.

Temperature checks will be taken for all audience members before entering the building. Government face covering policy at the time that the show opens will be followed. Hand sanitising stations will be available around the theatre. Theatre staff will undertake a thorough cleaning of the auditorium between shows.

Family favourite, The Gruffalo based on the children’s book by Julia Donaldson is also going ahead with socially distanced performances at The Lowry from 12 December 2020 – 10 January 2021.

SIX the Musical is at The Lyric Theatre at The Lowry from Friday 27 November 2020 – Saturday 10 January 2021

Read our review of Six on a previous run at The Lowry.

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There are songs that transcend time and space, ones that were out there in the ether long before some of us were born, and yet, they are there, somewhere in the back of our minds and all it needs are a few chords and there we are humming or singing along. For many ‘Matchstalk Men & Matchstalk Cats and Dogs’ must be one of those songs. For me, it takes me back to my youth and while I had forgotten I knew the words I was instantly reminded of them when I heard the all too familiar lyrics being sung earlier this year.

I was attending the Ceremonial Mayor of Salford’s Valentine Ball and after the meal, two vocalists were welcomed to the stage, their names, Mick and Tim Coleman, their band ‘Me and our Kid.’ Mick greeted the guests and said he would open their set with the song he wrote and, there it was, we were back in 1978.

‘And he painted matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs
He painted kids on the corner of the street that were sparking clogs
Now he takes his brush and he waits outside them factory gates
To paint his matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs.’

A variety of 60s music followed, and the dance floor was soon filled with guests of all ages, singing and dancing along. After a most enjoyable evening Mick and Tim promised to tell me their story and so during the Covid-19 lockdown the pair have spent a good deal of time on their phones to me and I have been spellbound by their story. A story of two brothers and a famous song, taking one of the brothers all the way from the workhouse to Top of the Pops and the London Palladium, and many places across the world.

First I spoke to Mick, the writer of Matchstalkmen and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs, and then to his brother, Tim and it soon became evident to me that Mick and Tim’s story is not about Mick having written a Number One song but of a pair of brothers who have lived a full life and stayed close all their lives.

Mick (short for Michael) and Tim cannot guarantee that timelines and facts are 100% accurate, reminding me that their joint age is 148 years! But, I only had to ask how it all began and Mick immediately began his story…

“I was born in 1945, the oldest of five,” he said. “We lived in Ardwick, near the Apollo, the area was called Ardwick Green, not so sure why. My brother Tim came along 18-months after me. Times were hard and whilst our mother was a diamond, with the best will in the world, as more kids came along, it was hard for her to cope.

“Tim and me were sent to a convent in Tottington in Bury and us kids and our Mam weren’t back together until I was about five-years-old. We lived in an old war hospital in Ancoats, it had a posher name, but it was in effect a workhouse and we lived in the top floor dormitory for the next seven years. There was a tea chest for a cupboard and a window from which I could see, the smokey tops of the chimneys on the houses and shops around Philips Park and Bradford Pit.

“I used to play football near the Roundhouse on Every Street and I remember seeing a man, collecting rent and I presumed making notes – in those days a rent collector was known as a ‘Rent Man’, obviously the title has other connotations today. I have since come to realise that Rent Man would have been L. S. Lowry, who used to log sketches as he went about his debt collecting. I wish I would have met him; he has been such an important part of my life.

“I went to St Anne’s RC school from the workhouse every school day and was a bit of a dreamer, I liked poetry and writing. When I left school at 15 my last report said, ‘Not much promise, always looking out of the window.’

“On leaving school I went to a slaughter house in Trafford Park and I learnt my trade as a butcher and spent some time working at Salford Docks. It was 1961 and the film Taste of Honey was out and I would look at the Ship Canal and think of that children’s rhyme that was played in it, ‘The Big Ship Sails’, there’s no definitive proof of a link but we used to call the Ship Canal ‘The Alley.’ The opening scenes of the film included Bradford Pit and the chimneys that I remembered so clearly from my childhood and what featured in my songs.

“I had never stopped writing and singing in my bedroom, we’d all moved to a house by then, and when I had saved up enough from my wages – from what I didn’t ‘tip up’ to my mum – I went into Manchester to buy my first guitar. I went to a shop on Oxford Road and I was so eager, the shop hadn’t even opened. So, I walked and looked at the ‘posh’ shop next door, I don’t know if it was a shop or an art gallery but, in the window, on an easel was a painting. It looked like the scenes of my childhood and I felt an instant affinity, it was by a man called L S Lowry and it was on sale at £48.

“I practised on my guitar all the time, in my bedroom, in the parlour even in our scullery while making a brew. My friends got tired of asking me to go out with them at the weekend. They wore Italian shirts and went to Birch Park skating rink ‘Pulling birds’ but I just wanted to be the best musician I could be and that meant practicing, I am self-taught.

“My brother Tim and me formed our first band and then I joined The Hornets and I played all over Manchester; we got some big gigs in Wales as well and eventually I was head hunted by ‘The Big Sound.’

“The ‘Big Sound’ played abroad too and so I had to get a passport and we toured all over Germany, we were in Germany the same time as the Beatles were in the country and we played many of the GI Camps.

“We were spotted whilst playing in Scandinavia and we lived in Copenhagen for three or four years. It was the mid-60s and I used to write home to mum, and she used to send me a shoebox of all the things we couldn’t buy in Copenhagen; it was an expensive country. In the shoe box she would put Arrow Bars and Milk Chews and Beecham Powders and half-pennies. The half-pennies I asked her to send because my mates tipped me off that a half-penny was the same size as a Danish Krona and these fitted in the Bowling Alley Machine, so we could play two games of 10 pin bowling for a penny.

“We might have got away with that little ruse but sadly my Beecham Powders got my mates into trouble. Our hotel was near the station and as in all cities, there is a lot of vice to be found. The customs had seized my Beechams Powders from my mum’s shoe box and thinking they were drugs; they raided the hotel. My Beechams passed the test but sadly some of the other inhabitants weren’t so lucky with their white powder!

“Touring continued around Scandinavia and then we went on to Israel. One of my loveliest memories is sailing through Genoa, Napoli and on to Haifa. I was reaching burn out; I was the only singer in the band, and we were playing eight hours a night every night with just a 15-minute break. I had to get away and I returned to the UK.

“Adapting to ‘Civvy Street’ was difficult and if it weren’t for my brother Tim, I don’t think I would have gone back to my old self. I became fit again and I couldn’t have recovered as I did without Tim.

“One of my other brothers was getting married and off we all went to the wedding, little did I know that I would meet my own bride to be there. Dheverance was one of the bridesmaids and I knew instantly that we were meant to be. Luckily, she agreed, and we have been married 45 years now. I am a lucky guy.

“As a married man with two young children, Denver and Tamlah, I didn’t want to be on the road doing gigs, so I found myself a comfortable niche in the Folk Clubs around Manchester. I was still writing my songs and they fitted the folk club vibe and it meant I was home at a decent time back to my family and I could listen to Hyde Football Club games on my radio on a Saturday afternoon.

“Many of my songs were about my roots and one of the songs was my Matchstalk song and it went down well around the Folk clubs, there were so many in the region, I remember a great club in Stevenson Square in Manchester, I played there a lot and everyone knew the chorus of the song! I did some working men’s clubs too and cabaret. I was signed to a manager, Jim O’Farrell and Kevin Parrot was producer and the song got taken around the record labels.

“I remember going to EMI and in those days you all stood in booths, just a partition between you and the next hopefuls and you played your tapes , so me and Brian Burke were there, he was with the Oaklands around then, but sadly EMI didn’t want it. They did sign us all up as songwriters though and by a stroke of luck another man heard us singing in the booth and asked EMI if they definitely wanted it because he liked it and so, eventually, we got in at Pye Records.

“By 1977-78, the record was soon being played on Piccadilly Radio and on radio stations across the North and in North Wales. The record was known in the business as a ‘sleeper.’ It was thought that the South of England would think it was too Northern. I was still doing my gigs, earning around £30 a night but the record was still around and then it started to slowly rise the charts. It would go to Number three then back to five then two and then, in April 1978, there it was, at Number One in the Charts.

“Suddenly life was very different, I remember being at Hattersley British Legion on the Saturday and on the Sunday was being picked up in a Limousine at the station on my way to play at the London Palladium and there were telegrams in the dressing room. There we were standing on a spot on the stage where the likes of Bob Hope, Judy Garland and Sinatra had stood!

“One of my best moments was being in the limousine and stopping at the lights at Charing Cross. The song came on the radio and as we wound the windows down, we heard people in their cars singing the song!

“I kept up all my £30 gigs because I wouldn’t let anyone down, even when we were on Top of The Pops. By then Brian had moved on and Kevin joined me, he has spent years having to explain his name isn’t Brian as we were introduced as ‘Brian and Michael’ as that was on the first pressing of the record. I can remember Peter Powell presenting us with the Gold Disc as if it were yesterday. Receiving the Ivor Novello Award for best song lyric 1978 is something I am really humbled and proud of.

“My brother Tim and me were still really close and soon we went back to us singing together and in 1982 we worked in Lanzarote and we were out there for four years.

“Eventually we came back because my darling wife was becoming increasingly ill with liver failure and I will always applaud the NHS for the care she was given, by the year 2000 a transplant match had not been found and she was slipping away, she had just 48 hours to live. By a miracle for us and devastation for another family, a match was found. I will be thankful for ever to the MRI and Jimmy’s Hospital Leeds. Every year on the anniversary we hold the family of the donator in our hearts.

“And now Tim and me still sing and we love it. We play the ‘big dos’ but we love our gigs in the care homes. We have become very supportive of people living with dementia and their carers and have been fascinated to hear about the different types of dementia. We play at loads of venues and we meet such amazing people.

“We love to sing; we love each other’s company and we feel that this is THE best phase of our lives right now!”

Another telephone call, this time to Mick’s brother Tim, gave me an even closer insight into the bond between these two brothers.

“I was about five-years-old and I remember our Mike making a guitar out of cardboard, he was always singing and writing,” said Tim. “When I left school, I went to work as a Barrow Boy on Manchester Smithfield Market, I worked there for about 30 years at Broadbelt’s Vegetable stalls. I had to be up very early because the lorries came into the market by about 3.30 am and they had to be unloaded and off site as it was very busy. I played football for Smithfield Market team and I would sing at some of the gigs with Mick.

“I remember Matchstalk song being a slow burner and then it started moving up and down the Top 10, but not getting to the top spot and then in April 1978 it made it to Number One. I remember exactly where I was, when I heard, I was working in Hyde Sewage Works by that time.

“We were all so proud of our Mick, but in life there are highs and lows and it was certainly a kick in the teeth when Mick’s wife, Dheverance, was so ill with liver failure. I remember the day I got the call from Mick to say that she had been saved as there was a donor match, we will always be grateful to that family who lost their loved one; we will never forget them.

“Mick is my best mate; we might have had a rough start in life but what times we have both shared. Who would have thought that two brother’s who spent their childhood in a workhouse would swim with dolphins as we did when we were living and working in Lanzarote?

“You ask me when was the best time of my life? Well it is now! Mick and me have sung together since we were five-years-old. We are always together, and we count our blessings. It’s hard now because of Covid-19 that we can’t see each other but we are always there together in our hearts.

“In these later few years, singing to the Dementia Groups has really opened our eyes to this cruel disease and we witness it for ourselves that people who live with dementia, they might not remember their own name or even who their carers are but we start to sing and they know all the words and sing along, its wonderful!

“So, what’s the best time of my life…it’s now!”

How Salford actor, Jonathan Ainscourt creates a new musical every night

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