Ahead of Lost In Transit Theatre’s northern tour of 1984, Christine Mackie talks to MagNorth about recasting O’Brien as a woman, why Orwell feels more urgent than ever, and why, in tough times, theatre still needs “kindness and creativity”.

As Kielder Forest marks the centenary of its first planting in April 2026, the public is being invited to celebrate a triumph of renewal: a vast northern woodland born from national purpose. But beneath that official story lies another one - of First World War survivors, long interwar depression, coerced labour, and unemployed men sent into remote camps in return for the means to live.

From Culture Start to a global summit, Sunderland is saying that culture isn’t a side strategy - it’s the system.

A vivid new public artwork might look like play - but in Morecambe it signals something more serious. Through Deco Publique’s sustained programme, culture is being used as infrastructure to reshape how the town works, feels and connects.

From Rochdale to RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, Kevin Grogan has built a career on performance, identity, and truth. But in Trompe l’oeil, his most ambitious work yet, illusion becomes a political act - and visibility comes at a cost

A masterpiece arrives at the Grundy - but the real story is about power, place, and who art is actually for

Outside a Reform UK rally in Leeds, protest, counter-protest and a growing ecosystem of “performative journalism” revealed a deeper shift in northern politics - one where anger travels faster than answers, and where the conditions driving populism remain unresolved

In Sunderland, where thousands of children are growing up in poverty, a radical idea is taking hold: that culture is not an add-on, but part of the infrastructure that shapes a child’s - and a city's - future

This is what widening participation sounds like: football chants, orchestral music and a room full of people discovering they belong there. Enyi Okpara and Manchester Camerata are making it happen.

A Monet on the Lancashire coast: Not a stunt, but a statement - about access, inequality, and who gets to experience great art in the UK

Fadi A. Thabet’s Lens on Gaza comes to East Street Arts

Peter J Walsh on RAVE ONE, Manchester, opportunity, and the infrastructure that no longer exists