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Hello,
It looks like this year’s Manchester International Festival will offer an exciting array of music, art and theatre. We’ll be discussing the festival with What’s On editor Jenna Campbell in today’s newsletter.
We'll also be taking a look at yet more problems with HS2 and what it's like to judge the British Pie Awards. Let’s begin.
Janelle Monáe, art by Mata and inflatable sculptures
Grammy-award winner Janelle Monáe will take up a three-day residency at Manchester International Festival this summer. Monae is one of the star attractions for the festival -which takes place at the new Factory International and other spaces throughout the city between June 29 and July 16 - with the full lineup announced by bosses this morning.
Visitors will be able to step inside the new £210m arts centre when it opens for the first time to display Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s inflatable sculptures as part of the exhibition You, Me and the Balloons.
Former Manchester United player Juan Mata will also be at the festival, premiering an art project based around the beautiful game. With co-curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, The Trequartista - Art and FootballUnited will bring together eleven contemporary artists and eleven footballers to produce new works inspired by the Trequartista - a style in football that is rapidly disappearing.
The exhibition has been developed by writer Josh Willdigg and 11 teams of footballers and artists will work together over two years, culminating in a group show at the 2025 edition of MIF. The project kicks off at MIF23 with a world premiere of a new work by artist Tino Sehgal, made with the involvement of Mata and presented at the National Football Museum and The Whitworth.
Alison Goldfrapp will also return to the festival and John Grant and the Richard Hawley band will debut their new show singing the songs of pop and country legend Patsy Cline.
The Grammy-award winning Angélique Kidjo will perform, Sufi singer Sanam Marvi will celebrate the rich culture and sound of Pakistan and Desi Factory will showcase some of the best of British South Asian music.
Manchester Collective and theatre company Slung Low will also present a vibrant staging of Benjamin Britten’s community opera, Noah’s Flood featuring Lemn Sissay live as the voice of God with 180 schoolchildren alongside a professional cast.
Meanwhile, Kay Dick's They will be brought to life by Maxine Peake, Sarah Frankcom and Imogen Knight at the John Rylands Library.
Manchester International Festival artistic director and chief executive John McGrath says MIF23’s programme covers a huge range of art forms and styles. "MIF23 will be a true celebration of the city and its cultural offerings,” he says.
What’s On editor Jenna Campbell was at New Century for the MIF launch this morning and heard Mr McGrath describe the event as one ‘rooted in the spaces and places of Greater Manchester’.
And as Jenna says, there is much to look forward to. “There's palpable excitement in the air. It's the first time since the pandemic that many projects, shows and exhibitions will play out in front of audiences minus restrictions,” she says.
“And for the first time, visitors will be able to see events taking place inside the ground-breaking new £210m Factory International arts venue, ahead of its October launch date. Judging from the mood in the crowd, it certainly feels like we're building to a huge moment for Manchester and the wider region.”
A pivotal time
Manchester’s answer to SXSW festival will take place later this year. So what better launching pad than the Texas-based festival itself to kick off proceedings?
Beyond The Music - the new global music conference backed by New Order - was launched at SXSW this week with specially-commissioned visual artworks by students at Manchester’s School of Digital Arts.
New Order, pop-rockers The Orielles and post-punk quartet Loose Articles performed in Austin to launch the event - with the younger bands supported to attend the U.S. festival by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
The first wave of tickets for Beyond the Music, which begins on October 11, have now been released. Set up by Tony Wilson’s son Oli, it will look at issues facing the music industry and the opportunities in the ‘new cultural economy’.
"It’s a pivotal time in the history of the music industry and for Manchester, so it’s only right the two are coming together again to decide what the future is going to look like,” Oli says.
There will be four days of live music, including a 'Skyline Series' of shows performed on rooftops and exclusive performances from established music names across ten venues.
New artists and bands will also be given the chance to submit music to a panel of industry experts and perform at a music venue in the city centre.
Claim HS2 delay will actually cost jobs
HS2 could ‘cost jobs’, cause construction firms to go ‘bust’ and terminate on the outskirts of London ‘until 2041’, Labour has claimed.
Shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh says she has seen a leaked Government document which undermines the Transport Secretary’s claims that extending HS2’s timetable will save money.
Mark Harper last week announced HS2’s timetable would be revised as a cost-saving measure, with the Birmingham to Crewe leg delayed by two years. Plans to extend the line to London’s Euston station and to Manchester also face delays, with Mr Harper ‘prioritising’ the initial services between Old Oak Common in west London’s suburbs and Birmingham Curzon Street.
As the PA news agency reports, Ms Haigh today claimed to have seen a leaked document written by senior officials which shows delays will actually increase costs.
“They admit it will cost jobs, that construction firms could go bust,” she told the Commons. “They cannot rule out slashing high speed trains serving Stoke, Macclesfield and Stafford altogether.
“They suggest it could terminate on the outskirts of London until 2041. Isn’t it time the minister came clean? This absurd plan will hit jobs, hurt growth, and cost taxpayers even more.”
Transport minister Huw Merriman said he could now comment on leaked documents, but the construction of Curzon Street station is expected to create ‘36,000 new jobs’. “In Manchester, to her point about not levelling up across the country, the redevelopment of Piccadilly station is expected to create 13,000 new homes,” he said.
Conservative chairman of the Commons transport committee, Iain Stewart asked: “Can we be assured this is the last delay to the project?”. To which Mr Merriman replied: “Whilst the pandemic and Putin’s illegal invasion… were not anticipated, we do expect these HS2 plans to be the plans that deliver it from London to Manchester.”
More than 100 complaints
Dozens of Greater Manchester Police employees have been accused of behaviour relating to violence against women and girls over the last six months.
A total of 117 complaints and misconduct allegations relating to 141 members of the force were recorded in the six months to February. In the same time period up to March last year, the force recorded 108 complaints relating to 143 employees.
As Sophie Halle-Richards reports, new National Police Chiefs' Council data which shows complaints about police officers' treatment of women and girls are highly unlikely to result in action.
Nine in 10 complaints were dropped in the six months to March 2022, according to the NPCC. Where cases were completed, no further action was taken against police officers and staff accused of violence against women and girls in more than nine in ten complaints from the public, and seven in 10 internal reports from police against colleagues.
GMP has reiterated its promise ‘to ensure those who are entrusted with the privilege of keeping people safe and caring for victims are fit to do so’. The force says it more than doubled dismissals for sexual offences or misconduct in the 12 months to December 2022.
Chief Superintendent Nicky Porter, force lead for tackling violence against women and girls, says GMP is ‘taking strides in the right direction, but there is more hard work to be done’. “With my oversight, I promise that we will continue to do everything we can to ensure women and girls feel and are safe.”
During her first week in office, deputy mayor Kate Green asked GMP for a detailed report so she could understand the scale of the issue locally. “The Chief Constable treats this matter with the utmost seriousness, and GMP are imposing the toughest punishments possible on those found guilty of these offences,” she says. “Alongside this, GMP’s vetting unit will play an integral role in ensuring police officers recruited are fit to protect the public.”
The past cannot be airbrushed
Over in Rochdale, a councillor has been forced to apologise for ‘insensitive’ plans to name a street after Richard Farnell.
Locals spotted a sign for ‘Richard Farnell Avenue’ on the site of the old working men’s club in Kirkholt - an area the two-time Labour council chief represented for several years, as Nick Statham reports.
The sign named after the councillor - who was found to have lied to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse - was removed when lawyer Richard Scorer got involved.
He represented victims at the national inquiry and says the council’s ‘past failings cannot be airbrushed in that way’ if the borough is to change for the better.
Council bosses said the intention was to ‘recognise the contribution’ Mr Farnell made to the ward, but the decision was reversed due to the ‘sensitivity around this issue’.
Now, councillor Danny Meredith has taken the blame. “Ultimately, responsibility for this rests with me as the cabinet member for highways and for that reason I would like to personally apologise for any upset that has been caused,” he said.
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Weather etc
- Wednesday: Cloudy changing to heavy rain in the afternoon. 6C.
- Road closures: M67 Eastbound entry slip road closed due to long-term roadworks at J2 St Annes Road (Denton). Until December 1, 2025.
- A669 Lees Road, Oldham, in both directions closed due to water main work between B6194 Cross Street and Moorhey Street. Until March 15.
- Trivia question: Bakers in which Greater Manchester borough recently entered the British Pie Awards with a lamb and Uncle Joe's Mint Balls pie?
Manchester headlines
Flare ups: Police could be called to 'flare ups' at polling stations, Pat Karney has warned as voters are required to present identification at the ballot box for the first time this year. The Labour councillor predicts that some voters will be turned away at the local elections in May for failing to show ID. It comes as new laws will require all voters to show photo ID at polling stations this year. Anyone who does not have a passport, driving licence or another acceptable form of identification can apply for a free voter ID document. Coun Karney urged Mancunians to 'fight back' and called on Manchester council to be more 'proactive'. "I fear that with the ID ignorance in the city and the lack of knowledge about it, that there's going to be flare ups at polling stations and I think for the first time in this country, we'll see the police called to polling stations to sort situations out,” he says.
- Gasoline: Residents say a turning by Chorlton Park is 'chaos' every morning, afternoon and on match days at Old Trafford. Cars are bumper-to-bumper on Nell Lane where the roadway meets Mauldeth Road West - made up of four lanes of traffic with trams travelling right through the middle. Teachers estimate that there are more than 5,000 young people using these roads every day and say they have had to 'leap out' to pull children away from potential collisions while on patrol. Locals are calling for better road safety measures as plans for a new Lidl are out forward. "It's like throwing gasoline on the fire," one parent told Joseph Timan, in this piece.
Fees: More residents living in city centre flats managed by Rendall & Rittner have blasted the company over their ‘super-worrying’ service charges. Leaseholders in the Skyline I building, on Rochdale Road, have previously complained about ‘obscene’ fees and now more have come forward. Owner-occupiers and leaseholders in the Lumiere building, on City Road East, say ‘Rendall & Rittner are a horror story’. The company says it is committed to keeping costs under control, but due to the impact of ‘wider economic issues’ on both utility and insurance providers service charge levels have ‘regrettably increased’. More here.
Worth a read
Gary Bainbridge is a man of many talents. He’s a comedy writer, he looks after the M.E.N’s newsletters and he judges the British Pie Awards.
He has written this very funny and very entertaining piece about what it’s like to judge the awards. In it he discusses the politics of pies (we’re looking at you, Wigan), laments the use of salt and vinegar on a Hollands meat pie and gets into the intricacies of ‘boil-out’.
“The night before, judges had been warned that heating in the stone church had gone kaput, and thermal underwear was required,” he writes. “It was clear that this, like the inaccessibility of Melton Mowbray from anywhere other than Melton Mowbray, was just another obstacle to weed out the fainthearts from the line-up of judges. Only the true pie lover is good enough to judge.”
I highly recommend you give it a read.
That's all for today
Thanks for joining me. If you have stories you would like us to look into, email beth.abbit@menmedia.co.uk.
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The answer to today's trivia question is: Wigan of course.
