Chris Wallis

United Kingdom

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Articles

'magic' Dear England, The Lowry, Salford

2 weeks ago | northernsoul.me.uk | Chris Wallis

I know nothing about football. Actually, that’s not true. I have two sons who grew up in Manchester, one a City fan, the other, well, the other, and I’ve lived here for 30 years, so it would be impossible not to know something about it. But what I do know could be written on the back of the proverbial stamp, and to be frank, I couldn’t care less. And yet, at the end of the penalty set piece that closes act one of James Graham’s Dear England, there was water in my eye.
'the big surprise were the kelp pakoras' Vermilion, Manchester

1 month ago | northernsoul.me.uk | Chris Wallis

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) given Manchester’s propensity to bling, that’s quite a claim. I set off to investigate. Now I have the answers. I probably hadn’t heard of it because it’s a bit off the beaten track, in an industrial estate in Hulme Hall Lane, not far from the new Co-op Live arena.
'a romp' North by Northwest, HOME, Manchester

1 month ago | northernsoul.me.uk | Chris Wallis

Well, that was fun. Emma Rice’s stage adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 movie from a script by Ernest Lehman is a pleasure from beginning to end. Even more so if you know the movie, because much of the pleasure is in watching how this intrepid team of actors tackle what would seem to be unstageable filmic set pieces. I give you the crop duster plane attack on Cary Grant in the middle of the prairie for one.
'a riot' Gods of Salford, Lowry, Salford

1 month ago | northernsoul.me.uk | Chris Wallis

The Lowry in Salford Quays is 25-years-old this year. It decided to celebrate its community outreach programme, one of the largest in the country, with a youth theatre production led by Not Too Tame, the Warrington–based company committed to working-class culture created by working-class artists, and ‘a good night out’. And it is a good night out.
Krapp's Last Tape, York Theatre Royal

2 months ago | northernsoul.me.uk | Chris Wallis

This is as fine a production of Krapp’s Last Tape as you are ever likely to see, which is quite a feat when you know it was designed, directed and performed by one person: Gary Oldman. With this new staging, Oldman has come full circle. He began his career at York Theatre Royal in July 1979, just two months after I started my first job as a director there, running the Young People’s Theatre Company.
Theatre Review: The Moth, The Lowry, Salford

2 months ago | northernsoul.me.uk | Chris Wallis

It’s 1997 and two men meet on a train. A white man and a black man. They drink some beer. Six hours later, towards the end of the journey, the white man tells the black man a story which makes the black man very angry. The black man writes a story about the encounter which is published in The Guardian, and sets him on the road to fame and fortune as a journalist and writer. Some 20 years later the white man turns up unannounced at the black man’s Hampstead house.
a children's fantasy classic or a political allegory?

Dec 17, 2024 | northernsoul.me.uk | Chris Wallis

Since publication in 1952, when it won the Carnegie Medal for outstanding children’s book by a British author, Mary Norton’s The Borrowers has been constantly in print.
Interview M.W. Craven crime author

Dec 11, 2024 | northernsoul.me.uk | Helen Nugent |Chris Wallis

Helen Nugent is the Founder and Editor of Northern Soul. A Northern lass, born and bred in Manchester, Helen has been back in her home town for 13 years after working in London for The Times and a number of other national newspapers. You can find articles by Helen in, among others, The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, The Times, the i newspaper, The Observer, Big Issue North, The Yorkshire Post, and The Spectator.
Review: Comic-Con 2022, San Diego, USA

Dec 11, 2024 | northernsoul.me.uk | Helen Nugent |Chris Wallis

Back in 1970, some comic-book dealers in southern California got together to hold a three-day convention in the basement of a hotel in San Diego. Three hundred people came. Like Topsy, it grew. The figures for this year aren’t out yet, but in 2019, 135,000 people came to the four day Comic-Con in San Diego’s huge convention centre. This year, I was one of them. The first thing that hits you, apart from the heat, is the queue.
Gardening: the joy of houseplants

Dec 9, 2024 | northernsoul.me.uk | Helen Nugent |Chris Wallis |Desmond Bullen

During the many years that I lived in a first-floor flat, houseplants were my only source of greenery. As a nascent gardener, I bought impervious species, playing it safe with ivy, cacti and mint. I killed them all. I look back on those days with a sense of shame. I mean, these are plants that many gardeners regard as indestructible. Sir Monty of Don, please don’t judge me. Today, my houseplants benefit from oodles of TLC, and I’ve learned how to keep them alive. Dare I say that they thrive?