In Henry Roberts’ new one-man play, a young man’s anonymous encounters with other men collide with the relationship and identity he presents to the world. Touring northern venues this autumn, Close Enough to Touch asks what shame becomes when someone cannot find the words to describe what they want

York Unlocked is back this October with free access to more than 25 remarkable buildings and spaces across the city. Some can simply be walked into; for others, you’ll need to be ready when booking opens on 4 September

In Flagging, filmmaker Jon King meets seven people divided by flags, migration and belonging. What emerges is not a verdict, but a troubling and unexpectedly hopeful portrait of a country struggling to hear itself

A monumental new artwork has transformed an overlooked Newcastle wall. But behind it, something much more significant is taking shape: a new creative campus offering North East talent another route into music, performance, film and television - and another reason not to leave the region to begin

When MagNorth joined the launch of Culture Start, Sunderland made a bold promise: children deserved opportunity by design, not accident. Fourteen-year-old Belle Collier - and the £500 bursary that helped her family meet the price of participation - shows us what that promise means in practice

When Joe Hodgson was asked to celebrate Goole’s bicentenary, he avoided the heritage clichés and wrote from inside the town instead. MagNorth meets the Sandra’s Wedding songwriter whose poems, records and civic imagination all begin with the same radical act: paying attention

Northern Auntie has had enough of your Bluetooth speakers, speakerphone conversations and outdoor screenings of Mamma Mia! Nobody else consented to join in

Record grades and record university acceptances headline A-level results day. Beneath them sits England’s widest regional attainment gap - and a financially strained university sector hungry for domestic students. For northern families, “you can still get a place” is not the same as “this is the right place for you”

Evidence of large-scale prehistoric iron production unearthed in Thornton may shed some light on the origins of parts of the Melsonby Hoard - but many mysteries remain

This September, the North York Moors is inviting us to put down the phone, quieten the noise and rediscover the restorative power of walking, making, listening and paying attention

Flowers are set to fill two Kelham Island venues this month for a joyful new city festival - helping Bloom Sheffield continue providing free therapeutic gardening sessions for women who need support

That pebble fits perfectly in the palm. The shell would look lovely on a bathroom shelf. But on coastlines already being remade by tides, storms and millions of summer visitors, when does a harmless souvenir become something we should leave behind?

On a Yorkshire Wildlife Trust walk at Spurn, MagNorth explores erosion, wildlife, military history and the power of helping young people connect with conservation

A Yorkshire Dales charity has helped build a national recycling network for redundant tree shelters. But with millions of plastic guards still scattered across Britain’s woodlands, campaigners say their eventual removal must be planned - and paid for - before the first tree goes into the ground

At Yeavering, one of early medieval Britain’s most important royal centres has almost vanished back into the Northumberland landscape. This summer, archaeology, storytelling, food and communal celebration will bring it vividly into view again

The curlew’s cry remains one of the defining sounds of the Yorkshire uplands. Keeping it there will require communities, conservationists and farmers to begin working together long before next year’s mowing starts

For 16 performances this autumn, one of London’s grandest theatres will belong to the shipbuilders of Tyneside. Sting’s newly reimagined musical The Last Ship brings the world of Wallsend to Theatre Royal Drury Lane - and gives northern audiences a compelling reason to follow it south

After its largest audiences in ten years, Morecambe Bay Fringe is looking beyond the boundaries of a single town. Its 2027 ambition could connect performers, venues and communities from Lancaster to Grange-over-Sands - with the railway becoming part of the festival itself

Part doll’s house, part art-school fever dream and part institutional hall of mirrors, David Steans’ new exhibition at Leeds Arts University uses paper, collage and architectural models to explore how creative worlds - and the places governing them - are constructed

Linocuts, collagraphs, monoprints and wood engravings will fill the Chapel and Harriet Room at York Cemetery when York Printmakers return for their annual fair - a free weekend celebrating original art, handmade processes and the people behind the press

Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant brings the star wattage, but Durham Book Festival’s 2026 programme makes a much larger case for northern stories, working-class voices and the increasingly vital act of reading

Run by volunteers and screened in places where films are not usually found, Scalarama Leeds returns this September. First, its programmers are gathering at Hyde Park Picture House for Postcards from the Edge, free popcorn - and the unveiling of this year’s gloriously unpredictable programme

Kate Mosse, Prue Leith, Sophie Raworth, Ben Okri and Heather Morris are among the first headliners announced for this autumn’s Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival - bringing stories of ageing, endurance, resistance and renewal to North Yorkshire

A felled oak, a boyhood in Scriven and a bunch of flowers carried home from a garage have found their way into Thomas James Butler’s most personal exhibition. In Harrogate, the Yorkshire artist asks us to look again at the natural world - while there is still time