John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London continue their survey of Broadway's golden age with Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls — and if any show in the catalogue merited this treatment, it is this one. It opened in 1950, ran for 1,200 performances and carried off the Tony for Best Musical, its book drawn from Damon Runyon's short stories of the 1920s and 30s: tales of gangsters, gamblers and Broadway lowlifes, told in a dialect entirely Runyon's own, in which formal, contraction-free English collides with the choicest New York slang.

The six pieces could hardly be more different from each other — some barely a few minutes of melody, others built from movement and gesture as much as sound — and yet what emerges is not six unrelated experiments but something closer to a group portrait: one instrument, caught from six entirely different angles.

Two illustrated books — one a plea for Britain's vanishing birdlife, the other a journey back through deep time — have taken the top honours at the UK's foremost nature and conservation writing awards, in a year the judges said proved storytelling can still be "a powerful step towards awareness, action, and ultimately, hope".

Visiting a medieval country church whose bells were forged during the reign of Elizabeth I, and whose tones must have tolled the passing of the Civil War and the Napoleonic dead, we were reminded of another form of commemoration, in the numberless wedding celebrants who also passed this way over the intervening centuries.

The north’s longest-running literary festival, Ilkley Literature Festival, has announced its 2026 line-up. A host of household names including politicians, national treasures, journalists, novelists, poets, historians, comedians, and academics head to the spa town across 17 packed days from Friday 2 to Sunday 18 October.

The Anastasia File is a disturbing drama and sober reminder of an horrific evil act which shook the world and ended the Russian monarchy - and three centuries of the Romanov Dynasty. ...or did it?

Northern Ballet’s beloved ballets for children return with Robin Hood, an adventurous retelling choreographed by Northern Ballet Soloist Heather Lehan. Friendship and bravery lead the way as Robin Hood and Maid Marian try to outwit the greedy Sheriff of Nottingham. Facing unexpected challenges, they discover that kindness and determination can be just as powerful as strength.

The winners of the Creative Future Writers' Awards, the UK's only national prize for under-represented writers, were announced this week, with £25,000 in cash and development prizes shared among fifteen winning entries spanning fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction.

Budding artists across the UK are being invited to put their creativity to work and imagine a greener future, with the chance to win cash, internships and the opportunity to see their work displayed across the UK.

The Bayeux Tapestry, a seventy-metre long embroidery, which tells the story of the French invasion of Britain and the Battle of Hastings in 1066, is a masterpiece. It has also come to the UK for the first time in nearly one thousand years, to be displayed in the British Museum, from September ’26 to July ’27, and tickets to see it are selling fast.

Opera North has announced two significant appointments as it continues to ensure opera remains a vital part of the cultural offering in Leeds and further afield. Garry Walker will step down as Music Director at the end of his current term in August 2028 to be succeeded by Patrick Lange.

Quartetto Gelato Flight Rodeo and Juliet Suite - A. Copland, P. Tchaikovsky, S. Prokofiev, N. Rota, arr Charles Cozens; Summer (Four Seasons) - A. Vivaldi. arr. M. Pulkki; Brahms' Polka - J. Brahms, arr. C. Maier; Intermezzo in A - J. Brahms, arr. Eun-Chul Oh Passacaglia - Handel 'Halvorsen; Song Of the Birds - P. Casals, arr. M.

Bishop Auckland attraction goes head-to-head with some of Europe’s leading theme parks after landmark first season for The Storied Lands Kynren has secured three nominations in one of the attractions industry's leading awards, just weeks after opening the gates to its new live-action show park in Bishop Auckland.

Nine awards will fund a dozen new productions, eight commissions and 200 performances, reshaping the region's theatre landscape for years to come.

There are some interviews where you spend the first few minutes establishing a connection. Then there are the ones where, despite the years that have passed, you simply pick up where you left off. My history with Clark Datchler goes back to the Johnny Hates Jazz comeback campaign.

Operation Mincemeat at Leeds Grand is a delight from start to finish. Directed by Robert Hastie, it is witty, inventive, silly and surprisingly moving. This true story was first told in paper form by Ben Macintyre and was followed in 2021 by a highly successful film by Michelle Ashford.

My friend asked me if I had any books on sobriety. Having never had a drink in her life, she wanted to understand her new partner's five-year recovery. Being the go-to for matters of addiction, abuse, and homelessness (I'm quite the library), I furnished her with a few, assuming that the reason I'd hung on to them was they were the best of the crop. Time passed.

Mahler's Symphony No. 3 in D minor is a work that dares almost too much. Six movements, the best part of a hundred minutes, and a programme that runs from the awakening of Pan to a final movement of wordless, all-embracing love: it asks a conductor to hold together a vast orchestra, a mezzo-soprano soloist, a boys' choir and a women's chorus without the whole edifice splintering into episodes. I went into this recording expecting admiration. I came out with something closer to reappraisal as Petrenko unlocked Mahler's cosmic Third and the RPO, and Harmonia Mundi's engineers are on inspired form

Andrew Palmer finds a play that trades on nostalgia, then quietly detonates it, as two men's secrets collide on the eve of the Brighton bomb. There is a particular kind of dread that arrives dressed as nostalgia.

When it comes to sculpture, nowhere in the UK compares to Wakefield. Home to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Hepworth Wakefield, and a thriving community of contemporary artists and makers, the district has earned its reputation as the UK's Capital of Sculpture. Yet art is only part of the story.

Appleton Side By Side Tracks: Ready To Begin, Falling Into You, Strange Kinda Paradise, Monster Label: Appleton Recordings Back in 2002, after the dissolution of All Saints, sisters Nicole and Natalie Appleton decided not to take the solo route. Instead, they paired up and released the driven anthem Fantasy.

It would be easy to file Brouček away as a Janáček footnote, the one even his admirers tend to skip. Rattle and his forces make a compelling case that it shouldn't be. A comic opera, treated with real seriousness, and all the better for it.