When Yorkshire-born Kieran Hodgson joined the cast of BBC Scotland’s hit comedy series Two Doors Down, he decided to go “all in” and relocate with his partner to Glasgow. “I haven’t done a show for ...

Perhaps the greatest difficulty facing any reviewer of the poetry of John Cooper Clarke is resisting the temptation simply to quote all the best bits. The difficulty is further compounded by there ...

During lockdown, retail manager Aiden Ryan wanted to use his time constructively. Armed with only a whisk and a dream, first-time baker Ryan decided to try his hand at cake-making with a view to ...

Writing a pop song is more difficult than it looks. Compressing the poetic with the melodic in phrases memorable enough to catch the rhythm of the heart, its surface sheen of simplicity is the glamour ...

You know that thing where you buy a new blue mini and all you see for days are new blue minis? Or you have a baby and suddenly the world is full of people with babies? I’m having a moment like that ...

Sixteen: it’s such a tender age, when young people are discovering exactly who they are and finding their true passions. At the age of 16, John Maher left St Bede’s College to join Buzzcocks as ...

Relax. You know the song. And you probably know the band, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. But can you recall who sang lead vocals on the 1984 track? Top pop points if your answer was Holly Johnson, the ...

The team at Manchester Literature Festival does a heck of a good job. The cynical might think it’s about shifting a load of hardback books, but MLF puts a great deal of thought into its authors and ...

The act of writing is by nature a solitary one. It’s also – and here I must ask for your forgiveness for what follows – an endeavour all too ripe for metaphor. In many ways, the writer is a perennial ...

When I was asked to review the 18th anniversary menu at Vermilion, self-styled as ‘Manchester’s most glamorous restaurant’, I thought two things: (a) after 18 years, why haven’t I heard of it? And (b) ...

You know the kind of thing you’re getting with a Shakespearean comedy. Lovers falling out with each other amid some crossed wires. Someone (usually a hapless male) dressing up in ridiculous fashion.

Words have their own particular architecture. A scaffolding of syntax and a skeleton of grammar that both shapes and constrains the sayable. Dance, by way of contrast, has the facility to slip beyond ...