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Review: Wonder Woman 1984
When Patty Jenkins unleashed her acclaimed and inspiring interpretation of DC Comics’ iconic Wonder Woman back in 2017, many felt it was a turning point for the DC Extended Universe, a universe which has since taken off with creative risks and delivered some outstanding comic book pictures in the likes…
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Interview: Bethany Clift
Caroline Spalding
Features Correspondent
Bethany Clift
Bethany Clift’s debut novel, Last One at the Party, will be published on February 4th by Hodder & Stoughton and offers the reader some light-hearted escapism in the current circumstances, despite the novel’s uncanny prescience. In the book, the protagonist is a female sole survivor after a deadly pandemic has…
6:40 PM 22nd January 2021
The Still, Sad Music Of Humanity: The Colours By Juliet Bates
Steve Whitaker
Literary Editor
Juliet Bates does not privilege the terrain, over which her dramatis personae roll like wraiths in a sea fret, with certain provenance. The Colours is set somewhere on the North East coast of England, but we do not draw an instinctive association between the fictive landscape and any real counterpart…
2:02 PM 22nd January 2021
Countdown To The Kendal Poetry Festival
Jonathan Humble
Features Writer
I miss going to live poetry events: meeting friends, visiting the bookstalls, the bustle for perfect seats, listening to poets you admire while nursing a glass of wine (beer, coffee, hot chocolate etc.) and being inspired to try and improve your own stuff at the end of it all … So,…
6:48 PM 23rd January 2021
Bring Me The Horizon Are Coming To Hull
Graham Clark
Features Writer
BRIT and Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum-selling quintet Bring Me The Horizon is one of the most electrifying and successful rock bands to emerge from the UK. The Sheffield group released their sixth studio album, ​amo, ​in 2019, which debuted at Number 1 in 17 countries and was named “one of the most…
11:48 AM 22nd January 2021
Frank Turner To Perform Live Online Concert To Save Leeds Venue
Folk/punk singer-songwriter Frank Turner will perform a special fundraising livestream from his home this Thursday 21st January raising much needed funds for grassroots music venue BOOM in Leeds. The set will be an ‘all request’ solo set, meaning the audience gets to decide what songs will be played. Watching the…
11:49 AM 21st January 2021
Review: Ordesa - Manuel Vilas
When writing, authors decide how much of their own personality they wish to convey to the reader. Sometimes they remain elusive, sometimes their fictional characters echo their own personal traits and when writing autobiography, one does wonder what aspects a writer chooses to leave out, wishing to avoid censure from…
8:03 AM 21st January 2021
Interview With Daniel Donskoy
2020 continued to be a year of new beginnings for Daniel Donskoy. The cosmopolitan actor and musician with roots in Moscow, Berlin, Tel Aviv and London shows no signs of stopping after the release of his single '24'. The video was viewed more than 60k times in the first 4…
12:31 PM 20th January 2021
Last One At The Party By Bethany Clift: A Review
Bethany Clift’s prescient debut novel was likely never intended to depict what has become reality for the world of 2021. Its publication now is both apt and uncanny, given its subject matter, however, despite the unnerving similarity to our present circumstances, it does offer light relief. Because, when facing a…
9:12 AM 20th January 2021
The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka: The Multiple Meanings Of A Sparkling Gem!
Paul Spalding-Mulcock
Features Writer
Franz Kafka
Fiction’s capacity for polysemic richness can invite a dizzying, heterogenous cornucopia of hermeneutic approaches as readers and critics alike hunt for the possible meaning cocooned within a book’s intriguing pages. Each interpretive response is hypothetically valid, unless rooted in flawed assumptions or fanciful extrapolation. As with beauty, interpretation is in…
8:32 PM 19th January 2021
Midge Ure Announces 2022 Tour
Graham Clark
Features Writer
Midge Ure
At the start of 1981, Ultravox were laying their claim to be one of the defining acts of the 80s following the global success of hit ‘Vienna’. Heading back into the studio the same year invigorated, they recorded their second album with Ure as frontman, Rage in Eden, which hit…
11:32 AM 19th January 2021
Poem Of The Week: 'Paddy Dies' By Stewart Parker (1941-1988)
Steve Whitaker
Literary Editor
Stewart Parker
Paddy Dies Paddy dies: you never knew him. A deaf hunchback in a home for the old. Deafness drew the blind of his soul. Nobody knew him. Nobody knew him. A wild animal in him reared Up one night, I saw his eyes And for three days he disappeared They found him sleeping in a pig-sty. I wonder if…
8:17 AM 19th January 2021
Online Lithography Talks Offered In Leeds
Nora Hammenberg, founder and owner of Stone Tree Press
Leeds based Stone Tree Press has announced its new online talks about stone lithography, set to take place this during our current lockdown. Participants will be able to learn about the history of stone lithography, how it works and experience a virtual printing demonstration with printer and artist, Nora Hammenberg the…
11:57 AM 18th January 2021
Author Interview: Carolyn Hobdey:All The Tw*ts I Met Along The Way
For decades, Carolyn Hobdey's personal life didn't quite match up to the success of her professional life. A senior and respected business leader in HR, she regularly smashed career goals, while her personal life consisted of love triangles, divorce (albeit amicable) following the discovery her husband of 15 years was…
10:14 AM 18th January 2021
Review: Soul
Life eh? What an effort. As we have not long since ended one of the worst years in recent memory, it is not hard to see why many of us have lost a bit of our lust for life. But trust the mighty talents at animation studio powerhouse Pixar to…
3:45 PM 16th January 2021
Review: Expectation by Anna Hope
I was full of expectation (pun intended) when I picked up this novel, the third by Anna Hope. I so enjoyed The Ballroom, which I reviewed for the Yorkshire Times, and looked forward to reading her next opus. Unlike her first two novels, which were both set in the early twentieth…
7:09 AM 16th January 2021
Interview With Kerri Watt
Glaswegian singer-songwriter Kerri Watt has just released her debut album, Neptune’s Daughter. The album was recorded in 2018 with Texas based producer Machine who has worked with Fallout Boy, Lamb of God and Clutch. I spoke to Kerri about her debut album and how she ended up working with Yorkshire band…
5:59 PM 15th January 2021
The North Will Rise Again With The Charlatans And The Lightning Seeds
Graham Clark
Features Writer
Known for their famous rivalry, Liverpool and Manchester have reached hands and hearts across the M62 and come together to host The North Will Rise Again over two days on 30th and 31st January - a live-streamed micro festival featuring The Charlatans, Lightning Seeds, Red Rum Club, Ist Ist, Zuzu…
9:19 PM 13th January 2021
Sheffield's Def Leppard Launch Digital Museum
Graham Clark
Features Writer
Download Festival June 2019
One of the biggest bands to come out of Sheffield in the 80's were Def Leppard. Now the band have uploaded this innovative living and breathing digital museum entitled The Vault - with a treasure trove of history, including exclusive never-before-seen photos, products, video, audio commentary, interviews, and more. They…
8:58 PM 13th January 2021
Mill’s Milestone Exhibition Is A Breath Of Fresh Aire
William Horn in the Mill Pond - Thwaite Mills Society Archive - Copy
For centuries Thwaite Watermill helped swell the surging waters of British industry by harnessing the power of the River Aire. From making oil that powered some of the world’s first locomotives to manufacturing putty that repaired London after The Blitz, Thwaite Watermill played an important part in Leeds becoming a powerhouse…
5:46 PM 13th January 2021
Wagnerism – Art And Politics In The Shadow Of Music – Alex Ross, 4th Estate
Mike Tilling
Arts Correspondent
This is a monster of a book. I will unpack the monsterishness later, but just consider the scale: 660 pages of densely packed text with another 120 of Notes, Acknowledgements and Index. The only other book I have on the subject is Bryan Magee’s modest 116 page monograph Aspects of…
1:36 PM 13th January 2021
Great Shows Coming To King’s Hall, Ilkley
Les McKeown’s Bay City Rollers will bring a new energy to all the classic hits when they perform at King’s Hall, Ilkley on Thursday 2 September 2021! The show promises to be a unique voyage back to the 1970s, when Les and his legendary band ruled the world's pop charts and…
12:12 PM 13th January 2021
'There Is No Such Thing As Fate, Because There Is Nobody In Control': My Name Is Monster By Katie Hale
The debut novel from award-wining poet and writer, Katie Hale, is a compelling page-turner; a story told from the dual narrative of the two protagonists, both named Monster. The first we meet is almost thirty and alone in a deserted world, and she considers what is the price of survival…
9:57 AM 13th January 2021
He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother: The Comic Short Stories Of Anton Chekhov
Perhaps when we consider Chekhov, our first thoughts may not gaily run to whimsy, frolicsome mirth or indeed lighthearted, playful satire. Conversely, we might recall The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters or Lady with the Dog. Chekhov’s (1860-1904) works mirror Russian life authentically, warts and all. His…
10:48 PM 12th January 2021
The Architecture Of Sky: Two Tongues - Claudine Toutoungi
The moment you reach the sharp edge of an escarpment and are clobbered by a sudden gust that momentarily takes your breath away is unexpected and exhilarating; you cannot speak for the scintillating shock. Words are briefly lost to the wind. Claudine Toutoungi’s poems are a blistering hail of words, a…
9:02 PM 12th January 2021
Album Review: Hello Cosmos - Dream Harder (Cosmic Glue)
Graham Clark
Features Writer
Manchester based collective Hello Cosmos release their debut album, Dream Harder. If you could imagine what The Fall would sound like mixed with Happy Mondays with a touch of Jesus Jones you will get some idea of what Hello Cosmos sound like. You might have already seen the band live (though…
9:13 PM 11th January 2021
Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook Volume 1 (EMI Records)
Graham Clark
Features Writer
Barry Gibb - photo Desiree Prieto
Barry Gibb is now the last one left of The Bee Gees who were in the latter 70’s the kings of disco. After a string of ballads in the second half of the 1960’s the trio reinvented themselves as masters of the dance floor with the…
10:57 AM 11th January 2021
Kerri Watt - Neptune’s Daughter (Cooking Vinyl)
Graham Clark
Features Writer
You might not have heard of Glaswegian singer-songwriter Kerri Watt yet. Already no stranger to the stage she has in the past starred in musicals such as Jekyll and Hyde. Thankfully her transition from musicals to the world of music seems to be the right move on this appealing debut. Delayed by…
9:49 PM 10th January 2021
Poem Of The Week: 'A Parable Of Sorts' By Malika Booker
Steve Whitaker
Literary Editor
Malika Booker
A Parable of Sorts We danced to rancorous tunes on spiked ground and our knees sang with each puncture, so that several agouti colonies, melanic in our russet strengths, learned as wild rats to scurry or guard ourselves from skin-spite. Immune from nocturnal drowsiness we strong-bellied creatures assembled, campaigned; gyrated to blowed trumpets and cradled songs, but, us…
7:29 PM 10th January 2021
Musical Coup For That JORVIK Viking Thing
One of the world’s most famous Nordic folk musicians is set to headline a livestreamed event during That JORVIK Viking Thing, the online festival being hosted from 15-20 February 2021 by York’s JORVIK Viking Centre. Einar Selvik – who fronts the Nordic folk band Wardruna – will talk about his…
12:49 PM 9th January 2021
Interview With Frances Quinn - Author Of The Smallest Man
Regular readers will know that I recently reviewed Frances Quinn’s debut novel The Smallest Man. Historical fiction can be as dusty as the facts that scaffold its narratives, desiccated contrivances sometimes bereft of the humanity precipitating their events. Some impressively erudite authors, dry-eyed from hours spent in the quiet sanctuary…
7:00 PM 8th January 2021
Interview With Lucy Spraggan
No stranger to the spotlight, Lucy Spraggan is one of the UK’s most exciting and talented young, female singer songwriters today. Despite shooting to fame after only a short time on the primetime TV show X Factor, she found herself hitting the headlines and becoming a household name as a…
10:57 AM 8th January 2021
Review: Troubled Blood By Robert Galbraith
Troubled Blood is the fifth novel in the Strike series by Robert Galbraith – aka J.K. Rowling – and it is the first cold case that the protagonists have investigated, looking into the disappearance of a GP forty years previously. The previous books in the series have been solid, if…
8:23 AM 8th January 2021
Hill Farming In A Phone Box
Ingleborough Fell
‘A Year in Hill Farming’ is the title of the new exhibition at the Gallery on the Green in Settle, the former telephone box, believed to be the world’s smallest art gallery. The exhibition by local photographer John Bentley opens on January 8 and runs until March 12. Gallery on…
3:33 PM 6th January 2021
Deacon Blue Return Riding On The Tide Of Love
Graham Clark
Features Writer
Deacon Blue are to release a new mini album. The first single is the title-track “Riding On The Tide Of Love”. The album itself is released 5 February 2021 on earMUSIC and was described by Classic Pop magazine as “A high tide indeed”. The single was performed for the…
11:54 AM 6th January 2021
'Numbers Rule The Universe': Q By Christina Dalcher
James Goodall
Features Writer
Q is the second novel of bestselling author Christina Dalcher, a Georgetown-based doctor of theoretical linguistics. Not only is Q a welcome addition to the genre of dystopian fiction, I suspect it is also going to be an important one, as more readers come to discover its pages. Dalcher’s is…
11:49 AM 6th January 2021
'A Hero Of Our Time!': The Smallest Man By Frances Quinn
Paul Spalding-Mulcock
Features Writer
Mikhail Lermontov exploited the fractured prism of his anti-hero Grigory Pechorin to eviscerate his society from the perspective of a disillusioned 19th century aristocrat. Tall, debonair and privileged Pechorin has it all and yet his ennui and soul-sick malevolence is all he can offer the world. A callous disregard for…
10:22 AM 6th January 2021
The Lawrence Batley Theatre Huddersfield Launch January Programme Of Free Positivity Activities
The Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield has launched a programme of free digital activities aimed at promoting positivity which will run from 4 – 31 January 2021 After the rush of the festive season January is often described as the ‘gloomiest month of the year.’ To encourage positivity and keep its community…
9:46 AM 5th January 2021
Review: Death In The Cotswolds By Rebecca Tope
So, Christmas has been different this year for many of us, me included. Not allowed to visit grandchildren in Scotland, or Mum in her care home, the 25th was a quiet one. However, trying to be positive, Christmas has been good for long walks and curling up with a good…
12:00 PM 4th January 2021
Shed Seven Go For Gold At Doncaster Racecourse
York’s premier Britpop poster boys will be headlining a very special show at Doncaster Racecourse on Saturday 15th May. This unique show will invite audiences to enjoy an entire day of racing at one of the UK’s most prestigious arenas, with the added bonus of a full Shed Seven set late…
8:31 PM 2nd January 2021
Interview: Thomas McMullan, Author Of The Last Good Man
Thomas McMullan is a writer, critic and journalist, based in London, whose debut novel, The Last Good Man, was published in November by Bloomsbury. The book is a disquieting and sinister story and a unique take on the modern zeitgeist; I was keen to find out more about the author,…
7:16 PM 1st January 2021
Yorkshire Inspires Saxon With New Album
Graham Clark
Features Writer
British Heavy Metal legends Saxon will deliver a full-roar-fun-down set of covers with their latest album Inspirations, which drops a brand new 11 track release featuring some of the superb classic rock songs that influenced Biff Byford and the band. Set for release on 19 March 2021, via Silver Lining…
11:06 AM 31st December 2020
Kylie Invites You To The Disco On New Year's Eve
Graham Clark
Features Writer
With all of the north of England now in Tier 3 or 4 we need something to brighten up what has been a year we will all never forget. Kylie Minogue released one of the most uplfting albums of the year in November with her Disco album. Full of what…
8:32 PM 30th December 2020
Review: The Last Good Man By Thomas McMullan
Caroline Spalding
Features Correspondent
The Last Good Man is a uniquely disquieting and sinister debut novel from the writer, critic and journalist Thomas McMullan. It is set in an unspecified era which is just one of the many unanswered questions posed by the narrative. Despite the apparent simplicity of the scenario, the reader soon becomes…
7:45 PM 29th December 2020
Kaiser Chiefs Announce Doncaster Racecourse Show
Graham Clark
Features Writer
On Saturday 26 June 2021, Kaiser Chiefs will be headlining a huge gig at Doncaster Racecourse. This special show will invite audiences to enjoy an entire day of racing at one of the UK’s most prestigious arenas, with the added bonus of a full live set by the Leeds indie titans…
9:09 AM 29th December 2020
State Of The Union: Rachel To The Rescue By Elinor Lipman
Donald J. Trump’s failure to accept the outcome of the most fairly and judiciously executed election in US history might one day be his albatross – his resolute deafness to the clamour of probity is the indignation of a spoilt child who is overfond of wearing the emperor’s new clothes.…
11:41 AM 28th December 2020
Poem Of The Week: 'And Yet' By Jonathan Humble
And Yet Curtains remain drawn, as the day comes with rain like a returning memory. In darkness, early moments rest on heavy eyes, closed to a wave of sickness. In the residue of cracked ashtrays and stale alcohol, sit diary entries of dissolute nights with succubae; a debt of bad shillings…
8:28 AM 28th December 2020
Interview With Nikki Smith - Author Of All In Her Head
Hunter S. Thompson once said, ‘There is no such thing as paranoia. Your worst fears can come true at any moment’. A sentiment hardly brimming with incandescent comfort! If we seek light at the end of this metaphorical psychological tunnel, Freud is unlikely to provide it – ‘the paranoid is…
4:50 PM 26th December 2020
'I Don't Know Who I Am Anymore': All In Her Head By Nikki Smith
‘The finest thing in the world is knowing how to belong oneself’. Michel de Montaigne might not have cut it as a psychiatrist, if these words were meant to comfort tortured souls dislocated from their own frail sense of self by dint of psychogenic or post-partum psychosis. Nikki Smith’s debut…
1:37 PM 23rd December 2020
The Snow Queen At Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre – The Movie!!
Polly Lister in The Snow Queen. Photo by Tony Bartholomew
If you can’t make it to the Stephen Joseph Theatre this Christmas – why not let the theatre come to you? A brand new film of the Scarborough theatre’s sell-out Christmas show, The Snow Queen, will be available on the SJT website from noon on Wednesday 23 December 2020 until…
11:20 AM 22nd December 2020
Poem Of The Week: 'The Magi' By W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)
Steve Whitaker
Literary Editor
Yeats photographed in 1903 by Alice Boughton
The Magi Now as at all times I can see in the mind's eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depths of the sky With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones, And all their helms of silver hovering side by side, And all their eyes…
6:02 PM 21st December 2020
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