As Rowetta and The Real Thing join the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra in Salford, The Music is Black: Live offers a chance to listen again to a region whose musical identity reaches far beyond its familiar guitar bands
In Morecambe, The Bay International Film Festival is building an invitation that extends beyond the screen: affordable films, shared conversation and somewhere to stay for a cup of tea. As the festive build-up begins, its January return asks a useful question about how we make room for one another
As Liverpool Artists’ Book Fair returns to the Bluecoat this October, a weekend of handmade books, unexpected forms and conversations with their makers offers another way into the North’s literary life
Punks, goths, emos, metalheads, rockabillies and the gloriously unclassifiable will inherit Manchester this October, as the city’s first Alternative Fashion Week puts subculture - and the people who create it - firmly under the lights
For seven years, the Middleton writer has been sober. Horror fiction has become one way to explore the feelings she once struggled to name. Now she is bringing that experience to Manchester’s Recoverist Month
A lost pair of shoes. A classmate’s notebook. The money to buy a goldfish. At Hyde Park Picture House, five rarely seen Iranian films reveal how the smallest childhood struggles can illuminate poverty, authority, disability and the structures governing adult life
They learnt their craft in one of Britain’s great colliery bands. Now the musicians behind Dizzy Brasscals are replacing competition pieces with Arctic Monkeys, Pulp and Oasis - and asking Manchester to supply the vocals
For some neurodivergent young people, going back to school requires a largely invisible expenditure of energy. A West Yorkshire charity is reminding families to look beneath behaviour - and creating a place where parents and carers can find support of their own-
Liverpool’s international celebration of bodies, movement and visual storytelling returns to Unity Theatre next week - bringing artists from across Europe and Japan to a festival that has spent more than 20 years making space for adventurous performance in the North
One hundred years after the birth of Eric Morecambe, his hometown is launching a comedy festival that brings leading stand-ups and television legends together with local performers, children’s workshops and the possibility of a new generation finding its voice
The Sheffield-born writer’s newly extended poetry collection finds romance, grief and identity among the streets, coastlines and complicated relationships of everyday life. Her debut play, SPADEFOOT, is set to follow this autumn
After an inaugural festival that confounded expectations and sold out events across the town, Whitby Lit Fest is returning with more than 50 conversations, performances and workshops. The famous names matter - but so does a festival being built from Whitby’s history, landscape and living community
