Russell Brand’s The Pied Piper of Hamelin @ The Lowry, 04.11.2014

Russell Brand’s outspoken opinions have seen him draw flak from both the left and right of the establishment he fervently condemns. The media lackeys despise him, yet they can’t resist exposing him exposing them as cannibals for their own salacious flesh. In the red corner, left wing academics question his authenticity and generally continue to put working class people off political involvement with their affronted People’s Front of Judea routine.

The internet, narcissism’s great recruitment tool, doesn’t help matters. The nature of the web lends itself to contrarian posturing; a battleground to bash your keyboard in tandem with or against whatever is trending, distorting perceptions and pumping misinformation through this proud nation’s veins.

That’s why it is important to get a fresh look at things, free from the online mind pollution that clouds your judgement with Britain First memes and cat videos.

Although many people sully the reputation of the school playground with comparisons to Westminster, tonight’s book reading was full of well-behaved kids and it was refreshing to gauge a child’s perspective on the latest controversy surrounding this divisive figure.

Society’s latest point of contention with the gobby comedian? His children’s book. Not a pornographic novel or Holy Scripture, just a kids’ book. A silly rewrite of a fairytale with some mind blowing illustrations to prompt your imagination along.

Such is Brand’s current state of infamy that this book is garnering some of the most scathing attacks on his person. Granted, it is shameless in its encouragement of free thinking and critical of said establishment, but that doesn’t make it Mein Kampf for Penguin Beginners. Nicholas Tucker’s review in particular is so laughably austere that he comes across as a moralist from a bygone age, completely missing the point about what kids love.

The scatological, the grotesque and the rip roaring silliness of anarcho-rats spraying their ‘bum custard’ had the kids in stitches and, although I’m not a children’s literature lecturer like Tucker, it was obvious that these “pre-adolescent schoolchildren” were not “firmly stuck at the anal stage of their psychosexual development”.

Him on the other hand… But enough of this bum custard slinging.

The room was full of youngsters who’d been dragged along by excitable mums (and about three dads) all kept waiting in a hot room whilst some weird, hairy man whom they didn’t recognise was stuck in traffic. If you wanted an honest critical reaction free from the bile of the internet, then this was the place to get it.

Initially, Brand entered the room shame faced for his late appearance and then briefly chatted to a few children with a look of mortification, realising that he’d have to tone down his lewd persona. However, tone down his message he did not. He spoke to the kids with a shared curiosity and it quickly became apparent that this wasn’t just a vanity project. He didn’t patronise and in return the kids didn’t mock him for using big words, unlike the banter waging trolls of social media.

The book actively encourages vocabulary expansion with a glossary included. Afterwards, I spoke to Ollie (11) and Sam West (8), two brothers who loved how there was a rat in the corner of each page directing them to new words and meanings. When I asked them if they found any of it hard to understand, they shook their heads vigorously, eyeballing me like the condescending grownup that I am. Both are fans of Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake – there is a mischievous correlation with Brand’s delivery and Chris Riddel’s illustrations.

As Christmas draws near, people are encouraged to buy their kids computer games glorifying war, mobile phones, and other debris from capitalism’s shelves, and nobody bats an eyelid. When this book appears, the opposite is true. If this state of affairs doesn’t sit well with you, I’d recommend you buy Brand’s book for a relative.

Michael Gove’s jingoistic syllabus is more likely to lead your children into danger than the Pied Piper, so do them a favour and prepare them to question what they’re being spoon fed. Who knows, they may grow up being less selfish than their adult counterparts.

Words: Nathan McIlroy

Photo: courtesy of The Lowry

NOW THEN | ISSUE 11 | A MAGAZINE FOR MANCHESTER

We have all sorts of news to share along with this issue, our 11th. The final few drops of our ale collaboration with Marble Brewery are out and about (try the Marble Arch) after an incredibly successful run. Here's the photo blog of our brewing day again.

We have also launched our shiny new website, which will host each magazine's writing online. This time it features the Tycho interview, Mr Hass's art work, news, reviews and opinion, including features on Central Library, Urban Psychosis and nutritional reports - all the same as the printed magazine but with extra videos and links.

On Saturday 26 July we'll be in Moston for a free event, which is the area on the other side of Simon Bray's lens in our issue 11 photo feature. Running 2pm-7pm, the event includes a free DJing workshop run by Mind On Fire and Taste The Difference, followed by a special live soundtrack performance by beatboxer and vocal sculptor Jason Singh. If you don't know what a vocal sculptor is or does, then make you come armed with questions to ask him after his short talk about his craft. Sign up to the workshop by emailing ian at nowthenmagazine dot com with your name and 'MIND ON FIRE WORKSHOP' in the subject line. Did I mentioned it's free all day? See you there.

Here are our supporters for this issue (in page order). Be independent, buy independent.

MANCHESTER ACADEMY VENUES.
Manchester Academy.

MARBLE & NOW THEN ALE.
Marble Beers.

CHORLTON DRINKING.
Electrik / Volta.
MONO Chorlton.
Strange Brew.

FOOD AND DRINK.
Proof Chorlton.
Morley Cheek's.
International Anthony Burgess Foundation.

HEALTHY LIVING.
The Eighth Day Shop & Cafe.
Lotus Vegetarian Kitchen.Manchester Acupuncture Clinic.
Chin & Tonic.

ARTS & DESIGN.
East Street Arts.
Opus Distro.
Hazel Bee.
Chorlton Art Market.

GOING OUT IN MCR.
Museum of Science and Industry.
Hot Damn @ Liars Club.

SUMMER FESTIVALS.
Cloudspotting Festival 2014.
Ramsbottom Festival (sponsored by Outstanding Beers.).

MUSIC AND THEATRE PERFORMANCE.
Brighter Sound.
Band On The Wall.Into The Road @ 3MT.

TWENTY TWENTY TWO.
Brand new ping pong room now open.

NOW THEN | ISSUE 10 | A MAGAZINE FOR MANCHESTER

We've reached double figures on our tally of printed magazines - you may have already seen Kid Acne's art on the issue 10 cover out and about across the city. Flip over to the back page and you'll see that we've again improved the map thanks to the skills of local design team, Mogul.

Turning the pages, you'll find the words of the people of Manchester on topics ranging between statues, hiking, food, film, theatre, music, charity shops, local history and independent trade, as well as interviews with Stewart Lee, Mr Scruff, Kathika Rabbit and this issue's artist Kid Acne, whose artwork is featured across the magazine. Click the link below for the online version, or pick up your copy now around the city.

Here are our supporters for this issue (in page order). Be independent, buy independent.

MANCHESTER ACADEMY VENUES.
Manchester Academy.

CHORLTON FOOD AND DRINK.
Proof Chorlton.
Morley Cheek's.

INDEPENDENT COFFEE.
The Eighth Day Shop & Cafe.
International Anthony Burgess Foundation.
Passion Fruit Coffee.
MONO Chorlton.

INDEPENDENT ALE.
Outstanding Beers.
Marble Beers.
Electrik / Volta.
Abbeydale Brewery.

CREATIVE MINDS.
Kagyu Ling Buddhist Centre.
East Street Arts.
Manchester Craft & Design Centre: Tactile Illusions vs Sonic Delusions.

EVENTS AND DESIGN.
Opus Distro.
Mogul.
MONO Chorlton.
Party For The People.

FESTIVALS.
Cloudspotting Festival 2014.
Sheffield Doc/Fest.

LIVE MUSIC.
Glasswerk Concerts.
Band On The Wall.

PERFORM AND SUPPORT MUSIC.
Brighter Sound.
MoodWarp Studio.

STUDY DESIGN IN MANCHESTER.
Shillington College.

NOW THEN. ISSUE 6. A MAGAZINE FOR MANCHESTER.

The final batch of issue 6 magazines went out yesterday, so look out for a copy in the usual areas in and around the city if you missed it the first time. It features some cracking illustrations by Peter Et Le Wolff, along with articles on the London Road Fire Station campaign, a retrospective on the riots, an homage to fish 'n' chips, interviews with Norris and Parker, BC Camplight, and The Natural Curriculum, and plenty more.

Here's the online version in the meantime:

We'd like to thank all our supporters for this issue (in page order):

SUPPORT INDEPENDENTS.
Morley Cheek's.
Manchester MULE.
Proof Chorlton.

MCR FOOD AND DRINK.
Battery Park Juice Bar.
The Eighth Day Shop & Cafe.
Épicerie Ludo.
POD Deli.
OPUS Distro.

MCR INDEPENDENT ALE.
The Hope Inn / Fool Hardy Ales.
Marble Beers.
Mary And Archie.
The Hillary Step.
First Chop Brewing Arm.
Privateer Beers.
The Spoon Inn.
Pie & Ale (By Bakerie).
Sandbar.

ART & DESIGN.
Agapanthus Interiors.
H Blyth & Co.

SUPPORT INDEPENDENTS.
Mogul.
Ken Foster's Cycle Logic. (10% off see magazine advert for info.)
Mockingbirds.
Chapel St Folk Festival.

MANCHESTER ACADEMY VENUES.
Manchester Academy.

TROF VENUES.
The Deaf Institute.
Gorilla.

GIGS AND FESTIVALS.
GrimmFest 2013.
The Manchester Print Fair No6.
Chapel St Studios / The Black Lion.

RAMSBOTTOM FESTIVAL 2013.
Outstanding Beers.
Ramsbottom Festival.

Review: To Be Confirmed at Three Minute Theatre, Monday 6th August 2012

TBC @ 3MT. It could be a code, it could be a meme. It could be a cypher spoken using the phonetic alphabet across a long-wave radio frequency. What it actually stands for is a group and a venue at a specific time and a specific place. How else do cultures culture?

To Be Confirmed is a poetry project that is in its infancy but forms part of a tapestry of Manchester that is much older; diverse people coming together. It attracts a rich multiplicity of persons applying poetry, first-and-foremost to their lives and then in performance on the monthly night. A Monday. But not your typical Monday.

3 Minute Theatre is a relatively new venue to the city of Manchester. It occupies a place on the ground floor of Afflecks Palace - which, as we know, is seminal to Manchester culture as a site for the alternative consumer and poignantly was recently threatened with foreclosure.

A bright neon sign leads you through from the entrance on Oldham Street to a quaint room filled with staggered rows of seats that acquires a cosy yet vibrant atmosphere as the place fills up with warm bodies and hot air.

Here are some of the voices of the TBC professionale coterie:

Daniel Clayton: Existential.

“I like to think a lot. Sometimes I over-think things. I like to encourage other people to think about things that are interesting or things that are not necessarily conventional; philosophical questions like why do we exist?”

Dan performs a surreal spoken word piece about a fruit bowl that personified fruit - making them kill each other and getting drunk, etc. - and another piece that brings us to question the senses in their interpretations of the world:

“Everything we see is light, and what we hear is just vibrations, so how do we know that you're not just a brain in a vat?”

Anna Percy: Rhymes in the middle.

“Some friends of mine, well, John G. Hall, the poetry guy in Manchester, started up a thing called the Arran Poetry Adventure. Basically, I started going three years ago, but it's been going a bit longer than that. What we do is, because writing retreats are really expensive, we have six hundred pounds and we hire out some houses and all you do is pay for accommodation and travel and then you can join in the workshops or go off and adventure around the island.” “We run workshops but it's relaxed; like a holiday with a bit of writing thrown in. They've been going since 2009.”

Anna classes her writing as confessional. As with time and writing about life, the same as with Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, who mostly wrote about what was going on with their lives at the time, Anna believes that:

“…writing saves lives.”

“Similarly to Anne Sexton - she wrote 'cause she was a bit mad - I suppose my stuff is confessional but as I've gone on I've kind of got more into doing experimental stuff like found poems. It basically just means that you nick the text from somewhere else.”

Above: The To Be Confirmed compere.

Ren Coulson: Extreme tactility?

“I write a lot about nesting and homes and cocooning yourself. I like limbs and wool!”

Ren says writing verse like this creates a visceral image, deep inward feelings, rather than intellectual garblings, aroused by things like looking at skin.

“I like exploring texture and elbows and feet, being wrapped in wool.”

Wool, visceral wool. Can wool really be visceral? Ren says:

“If you have a feeling that's based on raw and non-intellectual roots towards an inanimate object then, yes.”

Can poetry be aspirational?

“My ultimate dream is to have a narrowboat and to create that space, that tiny space, woodsmoke and the way it clings to clothes,” she says.

Fat Roland: Macabre scenery involving animals.

Roland doesn't consider himself a poet; he admits that he is a short story writer above all.

Roland goes to the printers and gets paraphernalia done up previous to shows. For the latest TBC, Roland went to the printers and got twenty Peppa Pig cards made, which he used as props for his latest thought experiment, taking participants through macabre scene which involved a narrative surrounding animals.

“The story comes first and the props come later,” he says.

Roland tells us that laughter works as a defence mechanism, if, sometimes, Roland takes us to dark places, people laugh because they have to.

“Dark is funny,” says Roland. “Peppa Pig is very light and colourful and fluffy and really nice, so I thought I'll have her having a major LSD psychosis, murdering Porky Pig and having sex with Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh. Why not?”

David Loy: Docker (apparently the same thing as a scouser); quixotic or realistic?

“What reflects through my poetry is how I see the world and things I live through,” especially, he says, “how information lives through me. That's everything that comes out of my poetry.”

What David has to say about Facebook is appealing: a virtual fax roll upon which each of us is writing our own story, each successive status contributing to that. But just because you're making a statement through Facebook doesn't make everybody else's statement any less of a status, from the quixotic to the realistic:

“Each to their own, kinda thing,” he says. “Some people might want to write something poetic, or provide a motivational quote, or a Bible verse, and some people just want to write, like, 'I'm going to the shop for a pint of milk'.”

Soliloquies are often followed by a silence of recognition and on Facebook this translates to them being 'liked' via the Like button more so than they receive comment upon. Does this tell us anything about their interpretation?

“I'll only write things that people can relate to,” says David, “I won't try and baffle people.”

TBC also features Manchester-based poets Des-Lexic & Alvin Sawdust as well as Karen Little who have spread their prosaic wings further abroad at other venues across the city. It's an exclusive group but an inclusive scene for anyone interested in poetry to a unique night out at one of Manchester's hidden gems of a venue.

Words & photo #3: Elijah James
Photos #1 & #2: courtesy of 3MT
Photo #4: courtesy of Fat Roland & FlashTagMcr

Bad Language literature event: Deadline for submissions

Today is the final day for submissions to be in with a chance of performing at the Bad Language literature event scheduled to take place at Manchester Museum on 22 August.

Manchester literature and poetry group Bad Language have organised the opportunity for writers to secure a five minute slot on the same bill as Helen Mort and Jenn Ashworth, who are both spending the month of August developing new writing based on the museum’s exhibits.

Entrants may submit a new piece written specifically for the occasion or an existing work, but will be judged on suitability for the event with the Manchester Museum venue in mind.

The headlining pair of Mort and Ashworth, both previous prize-winners in their field, will perform these pieces to an audience in The Living World gallery. In 2010, Mort became the youngest ever poet in residency at the Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere, having previously earned the Manchester Young Writer Prize in 2008. Ashworth’s debut novel, ‘A Kind Of Intimacy’, was published in 2009 and the following year gained the Betty Trask Award. She has also been featured as one of BBC Culture Show’s Best 12 Novelists.

Words: Ian Pennington
Poster: Bad Language

The Bad Language event will take place at Manchester Museum on Wednesday 22 August. Deadline for submissions to appear on the line-up is today, 10 August. Email badlanguagemcr@gmail.com to enter. Ticket information for the event can be found here.

Chorlton Arts Festival and Flash Tag call for submissions

The organisers of Chorlton Arts Festival are preparing for its twelfth year in 2012, with the town-spanning multi-arts celebration scheduled for 17th to 27th May.

Tickets are available for the larger events via the Chorlton Arts Festival website. Standouts so far include The Handsome Family, Chew Lips and a solo show by Cinematic Orchestra’s Stuart McCallum, while Swimming will perform the first ‘binaural’ headphone event to appear in Chorlton, at Wilbraham St. Ninian’s United Reformed Church. For that, a live performance by Nottingham band Swimming will be broadcast to a separate room from which binaural artist Dallas Simpson will remix the sounds before they reach the headphones of audience members.

On the literary side of the festival a group of Manchester based writers, editors and bloggers named FlashTag will judge a short story competition, which will culminate in a literary event as part of the festival on 23 May. The deadline for submissions is 27 April and guidelines for entry can be found on the FlashTag website.

The FlashTag group are also involved with the organisation of National Flash Fiction Day, which will take place on 16 May and will accept entries until 10 April.

Words: Ian Pennington
Images: Courtesy of Chorlton Arts Festival

An edited version of this article first appeared on Manchester Mule.

Baptists & Bootleggers presents ...Of The Wolves

Times haven’t been easy for the recorded music industry since the turn of the century. The millennium bug hit hard and there’s no popular solution in sight. Punters are being shown a series of unhealthily prohibitive legislation all with designs on disabling online freedoms.

And then an email from a project like Baptists & Bootleggers pops into your inbox.

Baptists & Bootleggers is a new Manchester record label that also, in a sense, separates its output from the internet, but instead of harbouring intent on devious commercial gain it has poured all of its heart into a tangible product. The result is a rejection of mp3 norms and a nod towards the concept album. But, more than a mere album, it becomes a concept experience. Music, art, literature and live performance all free of charge for their audience’s enjoyment.

The record is a gloriously packaged one-off; a keeper in a world of throwaways. While opening, you’re filled with increasing wonderment and desire to satisfy your curiosity. But there’d be no point producing such superficial sheen without following it up with substance.



Based around the 1930s film of Dante’s Inferno, a fiery adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s epic verse Divine Comedy, the experience is afforded hinges to guide its creativity. Five musicians interpret the same 8 minute 12 second video clip, making the largely instrumental five-track LP entitled ...Of The Wolves the focal point. Electronic duo Borland set a moody scene; ‘Nightmare’ is almost an onomatopoeic title for a track progressing through phases from unnerving calmness to industrial pounds and filthy scuzz.

Veí contrasts that dive into dystopia with the undercurrents of hope flowing through the cleanly ‘Decaying Bodice’ before Stagger reaches into your inner ear and leaves the recalcitrant disharmony that is ‘& The Flaw’. It descends back into a sci-fi world where klaxons and shudders reign and you’re left to fend for yourself on street level in Blade Runner. Dafydd Jones, aka Crown The Wolf, visits a similar theme, but instead entwines a loftier, galactic tone with nagging running dialogue. The record is rounded off with psychedelic prog rockers Go Lebanon lambasting their initial starkness with suffocating swells of racket, erupting densely, viciously and vigorously.

It’s both surprising and reassuring that five musical artists could provide such a range of ideas originating from the same source and that is perhaps the most rewarded aspect of the project. But the Baptists & Bootleggers experience is the sum of its parts; Paul Hallows, Dan Watson, Edward Williams, Jess Higgins and Matthew Walkerdine all illustrate their readings of quotes from Divine Comedy – an abstract collection impossible to decipher without having read the same passages – and Dan J Luck and Dave Firth imagine prose (morbid, reflective and ethereal) based on the recorded music.

Veí’s debut EP also falls out of the sleeve. To say it’s his debut isn’t to belittle his digital release through Mind On Fire Records last year, Thank You For Talking, but the feeling that this is his first debut proper does serve to back up the idea that a recording as a physical product still holds a certain allure. Veí recently ditched the assembly of gadgets that made up his looping orchestra and one of his first outings with a trimmed live luggage was at the first Now Then Sunday Soirée, at which he wrapped his ambient glitches snugly around the visual serenity of a Limbo computer game walkthrough film. The tracks are recognisable from that show, which has been an obstacle when linking Veí’s previous recordings to past improvised performances.

Taken as a unit, the EP is varied enough while remaining distinctly the work of the same artist. ‘Faceplant’, a standout, evokes Four Tet’s knack for matching samples of acoustic guitar finger picking with processed beats and harmonies. It’s almost his ‘Everything Is All Right’. ‘Internetiquette’ harnesses a gently mechanical steadiness of pistons, shuffling like brush strokes incongruous to a solemn piano lilt, while ‘When We Were Things’ carves a path through fragmented electronica.

As for sleeve notes, they’re printed onto a piece of tightly woven material; no paper cuts trying to prise these words away from a plastic case.

--

So far, the project has been aided by Umbro’s art funding scheme, but label co-founder Callum Higgins says that they were never expectant of or reliant upon the financial support: “When we first came up with the idea of Baptists & Bootleggers we hadn’t even considered applying for any funding, everything was going to be split costs between ourselves and the artists that wanted to work with us. And even when we thought about funding we never actually thought we'd get it. We were pretty shocked when we did to be honest.”

He continues, “Once we'd decided we were going to give the funding a shot we started putting in a lot of work. The only way we'd succeed in proving to people that spending their money on making things to give away for free is a good idea would be to prove that we were serious about it. We put in a lot of hours putting together budgets so we knew exactly how much we needed and didn’t ask for any more. Although it turned out that they liked our idea so much they decided to give us more than twice what we asked for.”

But given the support there is now an added security to the near future with other releases in the pipeline and a more stable platform for affiliated artists, who are already being recognised further afield

But is this a model that others could copy? “Not necessarily,” says Higgins. “It’s something we want to do because we and the artists we work with believe in free art and free music and we feel it's a good way to give back to the people that support your work. But that's not to say we're against the idea of people making a living doing what they love.”

Jonn Dean, aka Veí, shares the sentiment that artistic continuance should take precedence over money: “I've been in bands and making music for the last thirteen years and over that time I've realised just how hard it is to make a sustainable career within the industry as a recording artist, especially without compromising on the music you ideally want to release.”

He continues, “It also really frustrates me whenever I hear more established artists (some of whom might never actually need to earn another 'cent' in their lives) complaining about file-sharing ruining the industry, etc, when I know countless and more talented artists who would love the same amount of exposure and success, but who also have to strike a balance on a daily basis between holding down a day-job whilst finding time to write, perform and promote the music they love.”

With the broad experience behind this first outing for Baptists & Bootleggers, Dean describes an altered perception with the monetary valuation removed. He pinpoints “a sense that people interested in the release genuinely want to own it, which is a feeling a lot more rewarding than me trying to flog an EP to people for a few quid after a show.”

And Higgins hopes that the want to own the Baptists & Bootleggers output will continue from this early groundwork. While the ...Of The Wolves project can hardly be labelled uninventive, he admits that they stayed fairly safe in terms of working with people they know and could trust, but now that the seed has been sown, they intend to guide the growth of many an artist in the future.

“For our first release we decided to work with artists, writers and musicians who we already knew and whose work we were fans of. As this is our establishing release we felt that the people involved were important as it would reflect what people can expect from us in the future.”

“We have quite a few releases lined up, some of which we can't reveal at the moment but they're pretty exciting. But we can tell you about our first mainly literature release coming up, we've been working with online publication Kollektivnye to put out their first print edition in March.”

Words: Ian Pennington
Logos: Courtesy of Baptists & Bootleggers
Photographs: Paul Green

Go Lebanon, Borland and Veí will all perform at the Baptists & Bootleggers launch gig at Islington Mill on Thursday 9th February. Entry will be free, as will your copy of the ...Of The Wolves package.

Preview: Chorlton Arts Festival

The Chorlton Arts Festival is back for another not-for-profit year of music, art, literature, film and performance. It has achieved a success that belies its humble origins a decade ago. However, it seems they had big ideas even back then. Festival Director Phillip Hannaway states: “There were three guiding principles: to provide a platform for local artists; to provide opportunities for our local children to experience the arts; and finally to provide high quality events, free of charge or at low cost. These principles are still as relevant in our tenth year as they were in 2001.” Last year, it attracted 25,000 visitors, from local to city-wide and national, to a massive programme of goings-on and happenings.


This audience figure suggests both the broad appeal that the festival holds, and also the big names that they attract to raise the profile of the event and bring world-renowned music to South West Manchester. In the past, jazz luminaries Courtney Pine and Jacqui Dankworth have graced the stages, and must-see big names this year include a collaboration between Jazz maestro(ess) Clare Martin and composer Sir Richard Rodney Bennett fresh from world tours, folkster(ess) Beth Jeans Houghton, Canadian band The Acorn, and that guy from Bottom (the bald one) making music.

But with all this global talent, is it ever difficult to keep it a locally-focused event? “It's not a struggle at all,” Hannaway replies, “as being at the heart of such a creative suburb means we are never short of local artists who want to get involved in the festival, and the quality of the performances that come from local people never ceases to amaze us”.


There are hundreds of small events, choir performances, workshops, film showings, gallery exhibitions, artist talks, dance classes, local musical talent and such. This isn't just nice talk about being 'community-based' or 'local' – it's at the heart of the festival's programme.


There are also showpiece art-involvement events like 'Flashlight'. The idea is that lots of people from Chorlton buy a light and then meet in a flashmob style at various points around the 'village' to 'take away a new perspective or experience of the place in which they live'. So it might just be a few people holding some torches, or it could be something more... How will you know unless you join in?

And it's not just about an evening's entertainment – there is a strong emphasis on educational value. A schools programme runs concurrently with the festival, asking respected cultural bodies like the Hallé Orchestra to get involved with 5,000 of Chorlton's schoolchildren “who might get their first taste of the arts in Chorlton, which will go on to foster a lifelong interest” enthuses Hannaway. There is clearly great passion here, and it is reflected throughout the festival's ethos and attractions.


One of the great things about an event like this is the diversity. It feels like this whole article is just one a big list of all the things to do – and it could be. But it's not just about how much is going on – it's about local and international combining to provide Chorlton, and the region, with quality, low-price entertainment. It's an opportunity to shine a spotlight on all the amazing grassroots stuff that goes on below the cultural radar all year round, and put it on the same billing as big names that garner respect the world over.

So what are you waiting for? Hop on the 86 and come and join us in the 'burbs for 12 days of good times!

Chorlton Arts Festival runs from Thursday 20th May until Sunday 30th May.

Words: Andy Rees
Pictures: Courtesy of Chorlton Arts Festival