A friend of mine once ruined his parents’ Christmas morning by throwing a blue strop because the tricycle they’d saved for months to buy him didn’t have the boot that he’d so clearly explained to them was essential. The boot was the bit where he was...
The second time I was stopped in the street for questioning by the police, was not an ordeal. It was a bright spring morning. I was walking away from Bolton town centre, on my way to teach a class at the Chadwick campus of Bolton Institute of Higher...
“Hi-yo, Silver, away!” the Lone Ranger used to cry at the end of each episode. Silver, as the name suggests was a magnificent grey horse, the trusty steed of one of the most popular heroes of children’s TV in the 1950s and early 60s. I imagine this...
My mum’s Auntie Nora and her husband, Uncle Ben, really, really loved each other. However, their deep and enduring mutual affection might not have been immediately obvious to anyone just listening in. I called round once, unexpectedly, just after...
The first place we lived in after I was born was an ancient stone cottage, with walls four feet thick, property of the printing and dyeing factory in Bradshaw, where my dad worked at the time. I was not quite three-years-old when the factory closed...
There was a time when every bus ride was a job for two people. The driver had his own separate cabin and his own personal door to climb in through, with a single inset step (almost like a stirrup) to help him mount his steed. The other member of the...
To the Stars is an uplifting coming-of-age story from the producers of It Follows and Midnight Special. Martin Thomasson reviews: Small town Oklahoma at the dawn of the 1960s; no place for a wild child, no place for anybody with dreams they hope...
Set in a Leeds of the near future, “The Good Book’ directed by Brett Chapman with a script by James Phillips, tells the story of a community beset by fear and suspicion. A young woman called Bear, having had visions that society needed to return to...
“A bit of humanity and a hell of a lot of glitter and giggles.” (Lockie Chapman’s take on “Insane Animals”). In rehearsals Viewing the plight of 21st century humanity from afar, a couple of glam and compassionate aliens decide to pay us a visit and...
Thick and Tight’s modus operandi – quirky choreography, hitched to voiceover and lip-synch as well as music – serves up enough treats to bring sunlight into the hearts of those of us braving a bleary February evening in Salford. Humour and charm...
Martin Thomasson