From the moment we step into the Contact building to the moment we step back out into rainy Manchester, a sense of community fills the space. While waiting to be called into Space 1, people laugh, mingle and enjoy a drink.

Inside, a DJ welcomes guests into the theatre, where dimmed lights create a calm but captivating atmosphere. R&B grooves have people dancing their way to their seats, whether alone, in groups or alongside people they’ve only just met.

Host Inua Ellams engages the audience with his vibrant energy as he brings the party together. He explains how the night will work, introducing the interactive GAR (Ground stomp, Applause, Rupture) method of responding to performers, and keeping the audience involved, making the stage a safe space for the artists and drawing everyone into a celebration of old and new art.

A RAP party follows a structure where each artist is assigned a ‘Brown Sugar’ song to inspire them for their piece. Each artist has to write a poem and choose another song to complement their work. This creates a great way to celebrate the album and D’Angelo’s achievements as an artist.

Hearing poems from artists based in Manchester and neighbouring cities allows a close network which was demonstrated through hugs and excitement people show when greeting each other.

Keisha Thompson took her job as quite literally and decided to use her designated song ‘Cruising’ as inspiration for her poem ‘Cruising’ to talk about the concept of hopping on a cruise. Without being too literate, she discovers how to use her talent to look at cruises as a way of moving into a different period of calm when meeting someone. Her work shows how artists can use a person’s work as inspiration and create something new and meaningful of their own.

Walking onto the stage, each artist carries the strength that D’Angelo brought to this community and allowed for this space to emerge. Segun Le French uses his designated song, ‘Me And Those Dreamin’ Eyes Of Mine’, to express his timeline in love and meeting new people. Sharing his story of how he met his son’s mother and what advice he gives to him now, he shares the deeper meaning behind regrets and past.

Hearing these voices and fresh new poems makes for an inspiring, inclusive evening, with stories and styles of every kind. Many artists share what the album has meant in their own lives, showing just how far D’Angelo’s work has carried the neo-soul movement.

I leave feeling RAP parties are a great way to be introduced to a new community or find inspiration for your work surrounded by other people’s art and pure passion.

The Brown Sugar RAP Party was at Contact on 15 October 2026 as part of Manchester International Festival.

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Salford’s community has created a set of banners celebrating the city, and they are now touring the places where the people live who created and inspired them.

The Salford Voices Banner Exhibition, from award-winning Salford arts company Art with Heart, was made by local residents at Broughton Community Centre with artists Chris Alton and Emily Simpson.

The exhibition, which draws on several generations of the community, opened at Salford Museum and Art Gallery earlier this year. It is now on a seven-venue autumn tour, which began at Media City. The remaining stops include leisure centres, a shopping centre and community hubs across the city. These events on the tour allow a space to see the banners and have an interactive experience that resonates with visitors and invites them to reflect on Salford’s history.

The banners came out of artist-led workshops and a visit to the People’s History Museum, where participants explored the long tradition of protest and community banners. It includes art from younger generations who are looking to Salford’s future, while others reflect on its past and on what has made the city what it is. The designs bring together Salford’s landmarks, green spaces, waterways, industrial heritage and its modern media and technology industries.

The banners include a range of symbols from birds to represent migration to a sycamore tree from one contributor’s garden, each allows a different interpretation of Salford and personal approach.

The exhibition has been designed so that everyone can experience it. It includes audio description by access consultant Ada Eravama, and two small tactile banners let blind and partially sighted visitors explore elements of the work through touch.

Rosie Sergent, a freelance producer and artist who founded the zine project Drawn Poorly, is one of the artists running the tour’s craft pop-ups. “This is celebrating different art groups,’ she says, “and taking it out and about in public places allows people to physically come and see this artwork.

“We are interested in making things happen and allowing a space for people to create art which is authentic to them. Salford seems to be overlooked and is known as the second city, but there is a huge amount of history, warmth and sense of community here that these banners represent. As well as celebrating all the different arts groups which create Salford.”

Alongside the banners, free craft pop-ups offer Salford-themed activities such as zine-making, poetry and portrait drawing. The sessions are led by local artists including Rosie Sergent, community artist Phoebe Foxtrot, illustrator Alison Erika Forde, writer and performer Jenny May Morgan and mural painter Becki Miller.

Visitors can also sign a Centenary Celebration Book, made by Salford family bookbinders Walker Print, and write about the kind of place they would like Salford to be in 100 years’ time. Signatories so far include City Mayor Paul Dennett, Coronation Street actor Cath Tyldesley, members of the Salford Red Devils supporters’ club and the city’s Local History Society.

Where to see it:
• Worsley Leisure Centre: Monday 12 October, 3pm–7pm
• Broughton Hub: Wednesday 14 October. Banners on display 3pm–5pm, then zines, craft and portraits with Phoebe Foxtrot 5pm–8pm
• Swinton Gateway: Monday 19 to Friday 23 October in the upstairs exhibition space, with pop-up activities on Monday 19 October, 4.30pm–8.30pm
• Irlam and Cadishead Leisure Centre: Tuesday 27 October, 1.30pm–5.30pm
• Walkden Shopping Centre: Wednesday 28 October, 11am–3pm
• Langworthy Cornerstone: Monday 2 to Friday 6 November, 9am–8pm, with a closing celebration on Friday 6 November, 11am–1pm

Visit artwithheart.org.uk for more information. Read our interview with artist Emily Simpson.

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Mythic Reinvention: 50 years of Costume and Craft draws on the theatre’s vast 25,000 piece costume archive, collated over five decades of performances, including costumes worn by Dame Helen Mirren, Don Warrington, Andrew Garfield, Sir Tom Courtenay, Maxine Peake and Suranne Jones.  

Curated by award-winning set and costume designer Leslie Travers, the exhibition gives a unique insight into the artistry that helps reinvent stories for every new generation and shows how costume can still hold up a mirror to how we live today. 

It was a privilege to explore the carefully exquisite exhibition through decades of talent being explored and placed together to create a beautiful space. Following the red rope around the theatre, pieces have been placed to complement each other and showcase designs from multiple productions.  

As time has changed society, the exhibition collates different costumes and accessories to showcase how theatre has developed alongside society, highlighting how different generations have used costume art for storytelling. It is both fascinating and thought-provoking to see how this art has been used to portray society over half a century of change.  And as curator Leslie Travers explains, this look at the past also holds with it a glimpse of the future: 

“We are exhibiting costumes which we will reuse and reimagine,” he says. “It’s been thrilling going through the history of this incredible building and in the craft that has gone into costume. The costume is intrinsic within the production and its space especially with its 360 immersive experience. Even if you haven’t seen the shows the costumes are just beautiful to look it. It is inspiring to feel that new generations are coming into theatre and to show them that they’re a part of this history”.  

Walking around the exhibition, there is work from multiple productions including pieces from The Rivals dated back to 1976, which is the first production to be performed at the venue. Being able to walk around the pieces and experience the details in front of you reveals something of the time and effort put into the productions. Garments from Romeo and Juliet, in 2005, starring Andrew Garfield and Gugu Mbatha-Raw are displayed alongside those from the theatre’s 2023 production, starring Conor Glean and Shalisha James-Davis showing the development of design and craft in approaching the same Shakespearean text. 

The exhibition also explores how the costumes work within the theatre’s immersive in-the-round staging to bring characters to life, where details are viewed up close by an audience watching the actors from every angle. Throughout the exhibition there is clear representation of this with explanations to how the costume department uses this to their advantage.  

Alongside this, the exhibition is immersive with the option to wear headphones to listen to artists talk about working at the Royal Exchange and to hear stories from those who created the garments in front of you. When walking around it feels as if you are stepping into a magical wardrobe and the environment only enhances this. Being able to watch videos from artists involved and to hear their voices enables a wider understanding of the process of theatre and costume design that is bound to entrance theatregoers, designers and fashionistas alike. 

Mythic Reinvention: 50 years of Costume and Craft, a free exhibition at The Royal Exchange Theatre, runs from 16 September to 15 November 2026. 

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Can you tell us about your new show, ‘Toxic’?

Nathaniel: “It is a semi autobiographical show about two queer people in their early 30s who meet and fall in love and the polite version is they mess it up but the non-polite version is they f**k it up.

“After my ‘First Time’ show I had come out about my HIV experience quite spectacularly and I had such a great response with standing ovations. However, my personal life was not….my career life was on a high and my personal life was the complete opposite.

“I was stuck at the end of a very toxic and at the time abusive relationship and after I left that relationship I wanted to delve more into that setback and the fact it was all a lie. The ‘First Time’ was all true but obviously when you write a story you crash when it ends. But that wasn’t the end of that story, so I wanted to delve back into it and explore what had happened in my own life. I started to speak to other people and do creative workshops with other queer people and I soon found out that there were common themes and most of us had found that we were carrying extra trauma from things that had happened in our lives which was showing up in our relationships.

“As queer people we have to deal with transphobia, homophobia, queerphobia and racism in the community as well as in the country there’s misogyny and HIV stigma and extra things that are thrown in there. We watch them fall in love within all of these issues within society and see the red flags that they don’t see and they find a very powerful trauma bond. It is a very hopeful show and relatable if you have been in a toxic relationship before. The show ultimately is about queer resilience and showing that there is hope and that you cannot only survive these things, you can thrive from these things”.

What can the audience expect from this show compared to your last?

Nathaniel: “It is set in the underground Manchester queer rave scene. The minute you are in the space you are confronted by the beautiful set, lighting and visuals with original music by a local musician called Shar (Charlotte Barber), which mixes a lot of Britney Spears songs, as we can’t ignore the title ‘Toxic’ without Mrs Spears being thrown in there.

“It is a more serious play and messier play than the first one and it dares to sit in the messiness and complexity of life. It doesn’t necessarily give suggestions on how to deal with life and no answers.

“I wanted to capture the queer community as magic. They are the wittiest and kindest, most compassionate people in the world. It is because we overcome so much and that resilience is there, we have to go out into the world and say we are proud, right? We have Pride celebrations because we have to actively fight the shame that is put upon us but behind that glittery curtain of Pride I know that many people in our community still hide with all that crippling shame.

“Hopefully it’s for anyone who has felt shame in their lives or who has had these things that have impacted their personal relationships and make them feel seen and validated by that, because it is really important for us to acknowledge that LGBTQ life isn’t always Pride parades and that there are challenges that we do face”.

How do you feel about using your own experiences in your work?

Nathaniel: “I use my personal stories in this play. ‘First Time’ was easier to write as an autobiography as it was almost 15 years in the past. But with this show it was very much more recent and I was very clear from the start that this isn’t a revenge art piece against any of my ex partners or about saying they were bad people.

“One in 4 gay men will experience domestic abuse in their lifetimes above the age of 16, which is almost as high as hetrosexual women, but it isn’t something we talk about as there is a real stigma and shame attached to it. When I found myself in this abusive situation I found it difficult to label the abuse as I felt partially responsible. The longer I was in that situation the longer I felt I was potentially behaving in ways that I thought wasn’t an expectation of myself and also abusive.

“It states at the start and end that all of what happens in the show has happened to someone although it’s not all my story. All of the elements are true and have happened to someone and come from other people’s life.

“Writing and performing for my trauma is part of my therapy to share my experiences. Some people do it in private but I do it on stage. So I think it is really important to not just recreate a list of awful things that have happened to me on stage as it isn’t healthy to relive that. I wanted to use this play to show how we are going to work through that and share a message for others through the work that we make”.

What is the goal for the audience?

Nathaniel: “I really want people to come out of the show and have real compassion for themselves and to really look at some of the things that have happened in their own lives with compassion.

“In the modern Pride movement and more generally in the world there is a space with forced positivity and it’s unhealthy. I think it’s really important to have spaces to grieve, to get angry, to be rageful, to sort of pick things apart and rebuild ourselves. Hopefully people feel moved and feel less isolated if in particular they’ve experienced anything that they see in the show. The show deals with a lot of layers of different complicated themes such as HIV stigma around the time PREP came out – 2017 – when this couple met. We’re still living with that trauma and the magic.”

Why do you think it is important for your show to be performed now?

Nathaniel: “Drugs are present in the show and casual sex ,although it’s not a play necessarily about chem sex, which is a sort of slightly different issue within our community. I think what people don’t realise is that actually, you know, often we mask a lot of pain which some people don’t escape from as well. I mean you know, we’ve just seen that The Vivienne‘s family has come out and said that it was an overdose of ketamine. In London, three men die a month from overdoses at parties and those are the ones we know of.

“I think one of the things as a community we are always a little bit fearfull of doing is showing the bad things, because it gives the homophobes and the haters fuel to the fire. We try to cover it and suggest everything is fine and we’re all great, but that’s doing a disservice. So, that’s why I want to bring this up again, as it is important we don’t forget the shame this community has been through”.

Toxic is at Lowry, Salford from 16 -19 April 2025.

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