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Dec 2, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Helen Nugent |Eileen Jones |Chris Wallis
Five minutes in and I was ready to loathe this production. But once I got over the fact that The Borrowers is a political allegory like Animal Farm and should be treated seriously, and saw this more as a Christmas entertainment, I began to enjoy it.
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Nov 25, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Helen Nugent |Eileen Jones |Amy Stone |Chris Wallis
Ah, The Three Musketeers. What can I say? I want lots, and I mean LOTS of sword fights, a very mean Cardinal Richlieu, a beautiful and scheming Milady, a diamond necklace, our three eponymous heroes and, central to it all, the gorgeous country bumpkin, terrific shagger and, um, expert swordsman D’Artagnan. With a great book, three movies and even a BBC radio dramatisation, Theresa Heskins’ own adaptation and production has a lot to live up to, and it nearly makes it.
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Eileen Jones |Helen Nugent |Amy Stone |Robert Hamilton
It had just started raining when I met The Brunette in the bar at Fenix. There was a slight tension in the air as our teams were playing each other later that day. I was also a little nervous because the scuttlebutt about this new Greek place was not good. The Brunette mentioned “all fur coat and no knickers”. Meanwhile, I’d read reports about other Manchester restaurants baulking at customers coming in with LED lights and tripods to produce Instagram food porn.
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Eileen Jones |Helen Nugent |Amy Stone |Susan Ferguson
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 event hosts. Tonight was no exception.
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Eileen Jones |Helen Nugent |Amy Stone |Robert Hamilton
It was a cold, damp evening when I set off to Opera North’s revival of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Lowry. I’d heard that Britten’s opera was ‘difficult’, and my only encounter with Shakespeare’s play was the 1935 Hollywood version with James Cagney and Micky Rooney some years ago. Despite this, I was in an optimistic mood, excited to be back at the opera.
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Eileen Jones |Helen Nugent |Amy Stone
The best books draw you into worlds you didn’t know existed and then change your own world view. Laura Fish’s evocative and immersive third novel does exactly this. After a sudden and shocking tragedy, Koliwe Dlamini takes a job as an aid worker in the land of her father’s birth. Eswatini is a land-locked country to the east of South Africa. Here we accompany Koliwe as she simultaneously searches for her identity, and tries to assuage her past.
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Eileen Jones |Helen Nugent |Amy Stone
There’s no wellbeing without nature’s wellbeing. That’s the maxim of Geoff Bockett, a man who has dedicated his life to caring for the natural world. Born and brought up in Nairobi, Kenya, he has spent half of his professional life working in different parts of Africa, and is now newly appointed director of Living Woods, a not-for-profit social enterprise based in Hexham and operating across the North of England. Living Woods helps to create new woodlands and orchards.
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Nov 9, 2024 | 
northwestbylines.co.uk | Eileen Jones
It’s not so long since older people found themselves edged out of the workplace by younger workers, or struggled to find a new career pathway in later life. But now, in an inspired initiative in the Lake District, mature workers are being head-hunted by companies in the tourism and hospitality sector, as they are short-staffed.
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Mar 21, 2024 | 
northwestbylines.co.uk | Eileen Jones
It’s not about running, it’s a new religion. That was the premise of the first book I wrote about a truly global phenomenon, How parkrun changed our lives. And as with all religions, there ensues discourse and discord; just because you don’t like what the bishop said doesn’t make you an unbeliever. And at the moment, parkrun is going through turbulent times. That’s not unexpected in an organisation that has signed up more than nine million devotees worldwide in 22 different countries.
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Mar 19, 2024 | 
northernsoul.me.uk | Helen Nugent |Eileen Jones
January 2023 and I’m in India with my wife. She’s working on a dance project and I’m trying to finish the first draft of my adaptation of Onjali Q. Raúf’s The Boy at the Back of the Class. One day, when I’d finally typed ‘snap to black’ (how I love those words), we took a morning off and I read the play out loud to my wife (she’s always my first, most patient, most honest and most critical audience).
