Watching this stage adaptation of Thomas Harris’s iconic horror novel was a fascinating experience as somebody who enjoyed both the book and the film. It diverges from the latter just enough to be refreshing without upsetting fans. Drawing more heavily f…

Newcastle’s Frankie Archer—who released her incredible ‘The Dance of Death’ album earlier this year—looks set to be the next break-out star from the region. She’s at The Glasshouse this September. I recently heard Mark Radcliffe on BBC 6 Music declare …

Earlier this year, the North East Mayor, Kim McGuinness, pledged support for the region’s creative industries including a new £2.2m Small Venues Fund. Fancy a slice? Small venues (such as Independent in Sunderland – pictured) are the absolute lifeblood…

Newcastle is set for a masterclass in heavyweight roots reggae and dynamic live dub when the legendary Zion Train pull into The Cluny in early October. For decades now, the pioneering collective that is Zion Train has stood at the absolute vanguard of …

Sunderland is set for a massive dose of fuzzy, sugar-coated indie-pop when Coventry legends The Primitives take over Pop Recs for a special Sunday afternoon matinee in early October. Best known for their explosive 1988 top-five smash ‘Crash’—an infecti…

Tees Folk 2026 has four of the finest folk acts you’ll find anywhere on the planet for your delecation, and it’s all happening at Stockton Globe this September. The Unthanks are folk royalty, and, indeed, one of the most beloved of all north-east acts,…

The furious force of a nature that is the Molly Vulpyne Band is coming to Stockton this September to lob around some aural firecrackers. What was supposed to be a strict “one-and-done” live experiment has rapidly snowballed into one of the most exciti…

I’m a HUGE fan of Fickle Friends (yes, caps) and they’re in Newcastle in early October. Oh, my! Brighton’s premier indie-pop groovers, Fickle Friends are bringing their infectious, sun-drenched synth-pop to the intimate confines of Think Tank? this Oct…

Manchester’s bright new hopes Arkayla are coming to Sunderland this September to show what they’re all about (and what they’re about is well worth getting excited about). The conveyor belt of world-class guitar bands hailing from the north-west shows a…

One of the region’s foremost festivals dedicated to showcasing up-and-coming artists is back again this September, and thrills will undoubtedly ensue when ‘The Gathering Sounds’ crash once more over Stockton. I say in the sub-header above that ‘The Gat…

This year’s Hexham Abbey Festival is rich in journeys—musical and actual— crossing continents and oceans… This year’s festival is chockablock with amazing shows that will make full use of Hexham Abbey—surely one of the most evocative venues anywhere in…

Is the Durham Folk Festival a new event to get excited about? Kinda… You should be exited by the Durham Folk Festival, very exited given the line-up, but it’s not entirely a new event. It’s “sort of/kind of” replacing the Hartlepool Folk Festival, whic…

The Aanimals are inviting children aged 5+ (and their adults) to special workshops and performances at Ouseburn Farm this September. Tim, John and Jeremy are The Aanimals, and the trio have decades of experience in music, theatre-making and teaching. F…

The extravagantly gifted producer and DJ, 1-800 GIRLS (his mam calls him Jake Stewart) is playing Think Tank? in Newcastle this September. Oh, my! I’m about as on-board with this gig as it’s possible to be, as 1-800 GIRLS’ ‘LOVE’ album—which was releas…

This Hartlepool-based, vocal-led, jazz-soul quartet conjures up a heady brew of all manner of different influences—all of them good. I’m of the mind that a vocal-led, jazz-soul quartet—with designs on my heart—must be in possession of a quality singer…

Martha Hill is one of the finest singer-songwriters in Newcastle, right? Wrong! She’s one of the finest singer-songwriters in the UK. Evidence? Her new album. I’ve had it on repeat. And that album is ‘Tether’. Apparently it was written in conjunction w…

I'm willing to bet that everyone, at some point in their life, has asked themselves the question 'are we alone in the universe?' Few people, however, have created a festival based around the idea - with the notable exception of local space-funk band SKX…

Fresh off the back of their Finsbury Park homecoming gig, Wolf Alice took to the stage at Exhibition Park in Newcastle, bringing their energy packed fan favourites from 2015 to the present day. The stage was set with their familiar silver star curtain and…

I got to see The Awakening, the debut show from The Feminist Cult Agenda, as part of Live Theatre’s Unearthed Festival, spotlighting new talent and showcasing performances with a feminist slant. If The Awakening had slanted any more feminist, it would’ve …

Two local all-female variety shows, Hendrika Seguro-Bigg’s Girlie Show and Rosie Bowden’s Lasses, teamed up at Live Theatre this month to deliver a weird and whimsical mixture of skits, stand-up, music, and other revelry. Contending with swelteri…

I can’t stop thinking about Jason Isbell’s teeth. A man with his history of cocaine and alcohol addiction shouldn’t have two decks of perfect shiny whites, but he does. Maybe they’re just a representation of his story, and his songs; all about surviving a…

Ah, the damage you can wreak with a gauzy scarf, a tutu, an overweening ego and perhaps just a hint of chest hair. Yes, the Trocs have been on tour again, delighting all afficionados of classical ballet with a programme of dance excerpts that embody every…

This was the first time that Irish shoegaze/noise rock band Just Mustard had played Newcastle. The five-piece from Dundalk are riding high at the moment having secured support slots for the likes of Fontaines D.C. and The Cure this summer, and they …

China Crisis are marking 40 years in the game with their 2026 Tour. If the Gosforth show was anything to go by, they’re doing it in style, just without the usual overblown anniversary hype. Kicking things off earlier this year, the tour feels more like a …

The only thing I love more than a romcom is a romcom parody, and The Fit Prince - or, The Fit Prince who gets switched on the square in the frosty castle the night before (insert public holiday here), to give it its full title - is nothing if not pure, ta…

During WWII composer Benjamin Britten, an East Anglian lad, toyed with the idea of settling in America, but was drawn back to coastal Suffolk by a Victorian poem about life in the fishing village of Aldeburgh which became the basis for his first opera, “P…

Difficult to imagine that back in the late eighteenth century Beaumarchais’ trio of plays (and, indeed, the operas based on them) about wily servant Figaro presented a political hot potato. Valets and barbers weren’t supposed to be smarter than their up…

Echo and The Bunnymen were back at Newcastle City Hall with their “Very Best of Echo & The Bunnymen 1978-2026” tour which celebrated the songs that have brought the group twenty top 20 hits and nine top 20 albums spanning across their legendary career. I…

Though this 1930 comedy of manners must be one of Noel Coward’s most popular and enduring plays, there’s no doubt that the social conventions creating the plot are so dated that a younger audience probably needs footnotes. In a lovely, neatly turned game …

It seems impossible that a decade has passed since the release of Ken Loach’s uniquely powerful Newcastle-set movie “I, Daniel Blake”. I say uniquely because the film deals with issues of social justice not via politics, criminality or violence but by hi…

Right from the start of the play, where a queen has effectively disinherited her son by marrying the brother-in-law who less than two months earlier had surreptitiously murdered her husband the king, it would be fair to describe the Kingdom of Denmark as…

On the night I went to see Pilot Theatre's production of Noughts and Crosses, they had the most terrifying, difficult-to-impress audience that I can imagine. Not reviewers. Worse: a whole room full of teenagers. Noughts and Crosses is adapted from the …

Newcastle’s abundantly talented Melanie Baker has just signed to Tambourhinoceros, news which gets a hearty “Woo hoo!” from me. And the first fruits of Melanie Baker’s dalliance with Tambourhinoceros is her latest single ‘Sad Clown’, which is a blister…

Dolder are Dani and Zara Dolder, twin sisters from Newcastle who have been turning plenty of heads recently with their harmony-dunked alt-pop. And one of the heads that Dolder has been turning is that of Little Mix’s Perrie Edwards, who, on hearing a t…