As we approach the end of 2025, we’re looking back at the things that have brought us immense comfort during the year. For the team at Northern Soul, books were once again a source of great joy, and ...

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 ...

There once was a team of incredible women from Manchester who flouted convention. They were the Corinthians, a ladies’ football team based in Didsbury who became local superstars and refused to accept ...

Cotton twists its way through the North. Here, fibres and patterns are embedded in the surfaces and stories that create social fabric and identity. And they can be found, woven delicately, into the ...

Bernard Butler is at pains not to be misconstrued. This interest in (and poetic appreciation of) the bucolic is, by Butler‘s own acknowledgement, a more recent awakening; one which he describes in ...

I should probably admit that my knowledge of wrestling is not contemporary. It lives somewhere back in the strange, televised world of the 1970s with characters like Catweazle and Kendo Nagasaki, ...

There’s a painting at the heart of From Here To Here To Here, part way through a decade of Louise Giovanelli’s collected works, and it looks a lot like Blackpool. Light glistens across the liquid gold ...

For some, the idea of juggling two big jobs might be a daunting prospect. Not so for Heidi Dawson who, earlier this year, was appointed BBC Head of Salford. The post is in addition to her existing ...

As former controller of Radio 4 and the first woman to run BBC News, Helen Boaden has extensive leadership experience in creative organisations. Now there’s a new addition to her breathtaking CV: ...

Black Sabbath – The Ballet from Birmingham Royal Ballet brings together classical ballet and the music of Black Sabbath, the pioneering heavy metal band formed in Birmingham in 1968. It’s an ambitious ...

In a world brimming with artificial intelligence, the internet is awash with claims that 2026 is the year of ‘going analogue’. But what’s the evidence? Well, sales of physical media have surged (for ...

It’s been 20 years since BBC Three debuted Ideal, the left-field sitcom written by Graham Duff. Made at the Beeb’s (now gone) studios on Manchester’s Oxford Road, for seven series it starred Johnny ...