MCR4 Magazine by Marketing Manchester

MCR4 MANCHESTER CITY REGION

Manchester Magazine 09

Music and nightlife special

2-3 News & Developments 4-5 Brand Manchester Seen these before? Some of the city’s biggest exports

58-59 Irene Khan The University of Salford’s new chancellor talks student life

60-63 Streets ahead 50 years of Coronation Street

6-11 What’s On Music, festivals, exhibitions, sports events, LGBT and Christmas

12-17 Curtains Up Manchester’s theatre world uncovered

64-67 Digital Revolution Brendan Dawes tells us about his wife’s Nintendo DS

73 Rochdale A day out of town

18-19 Ingi-Thor Jonsson

75-77 Manchester: The perfect pitch

The city’s newest festival director

Could the 2018 World Cup be the next milestone in the city’s football heritage?

20-21 Manchester by numbers Some random facts and figures

78-79 Professor Brian Cox

22-27 Buildings through the ages

The former D:Ream man talks science

An architectural timeline

28-29 James Ramsbottom

80-85 King Cotton

All things Castlefield

Alice Ferguson on the region’s industrial heritage

30-33 Manchester’s menu

87-101 Where to stay Your accommodation options

36-37 Shopping spree

102-103 Serviced apartments

40-43 Pop goes Manchester

A home away from home

Dave Haslam on Manchester’s popular music culture

104-105 Manchester Airport Flight listings and more

44-49 Walls of sound The city’s very best music venues

111 Getting around Greater Manchester

50-52 Ones to watch

Public transport information

Cultural research from the comfort of your armchair

112 The last word Nick Johnson uncut

53-57 Manchester after dark Nightlife for all

Inside back cover Manchester city centre map

FIRST WORDS Welcome to the fourth edition of MCR, the destination magazine for Manchester. As the agency responsible for promoting the city-region it’s always nice to have something new to focus on - be it the sporting developments in areas like New East Manchester, or the reinvention of one of the more established quarters of the city, such as Cathedral Gardens, as it looks to better reflect its modern day identity. And so with MCR we aim to give you, not just lists of places to go and things to see, but a snapshot of Manchester as it stands on the day we go to press. From there, we leave it in your hands to discover the side of Manchester that most appeals to you whatever your passion. In this issue we take a closer look at the make-up of Greater Manchester’s theatre world, get the lowdown on the city’s popular music culture from DJ and industry commentator Dave Haslam, find out about Manchester’s part in the England 2018 FIFA World Cup bid and highlight the industrial heritage attractions that can be found across the Northwest region. Irene Khan, the new chancellor of The University of Salford, also talks to us about how studying in Manchester ignited a passion for human rights that led her all the way to the top of Amnesty International and The University of Manchester’s Professor Brian Cox tells us why his latest project isn’t going to cause the world to end - despite what you might read on the internet. Enjoy! Andrew Stokes, Chief Executive, Marketing Manchester November 2009

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NEWS & DEVELOPMENTS

Flights Manchester Airport continues to attract additional European routes making the city even more accessible for leisure and business visitors. Germanwings launched four flights a week from Cologne/Bonn for their winter schedule and easyJet increased the number of destinations to include flights from Copenhagen, Munich and Marrakech. In September, Icelandair increased the frequency of their Reykjavik flights to four times a week and Jet2.com is now operating a year round service on their Rome route.

Legoland The LEGOLAND Discovery Centre (LDC) is a new visitor attraction set to open at Manchester’s Trafford Centre in time for Easter 2010. LEGOLAND Discovery Centres are a new concept offering a fun, interactive and educational experience for children aged between three and twelve years old. This attraction will present a host of LEGO-themed attractions, including a 4D cinema, an immersive LEGO ride, and a ‘Miniland’ featuring key landmarks from Manchester and the Northwest, with models of Salford Quays, Blackpool Tower and the Lake District.

©Geoff Lloyd

LA Twin City Manchester and Los Angeles have signed a ‘new friendship agreement’ which will see educational, cultural, business, digital/new media and sporting links promoted between the two great cities. The agreement states that ‘Manchester and Los Angeles are cities of culture and sport, sharing a significant leisure offer for both residents and visitors. There are a number of opportunities to use the city partnership to develop international cultural and sporting links and promote visitor movement between the two cities.

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Award winning patisserie opens in Bamford She was made the first ever female head chef at Harvey Nichols in 2006 and has cooked for high-profile clients including Her Majesty The Queen and Victoria Beckham and now Alison Seagreave has opened her very own patisserie. In the short time that Macaroon patisserie in Bamford has been open, it has already been nominated for a prestigious award. Macaroon has made the shortlist of just six eateries competing for the Best Newcomer award at this year’s Manchester Food and Drink Festival. The patisserie is open Tuesday to Saturday from 9am.

NEWS & DEVELOPMENTS

Proposals for £24 million BMX Centre announced

Green Badge Guides In March, Manchester’s new tour guides met with the Lord Mayor, Mavis Smitheman, to celebrate the successful completion of a six month training course with the Institute of Tourist Guiding. The part time Green badge course was subsidised by Visit Manchester, with funding from the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA). Twenty-four new guides have been added to Manchester’s tourism offer following the training between September 2008 and March 2009. The Green Badge authorises guides to carry out public walks and coach tours within the Greater Manchester area.

Proposals for a £24 million national indoor BMX centre at Sportcity in East Manchester have been announced. Designed by Ellis Williams Architects, the 110,000 sq foot building will, with the existing Manchester Velodrome, form the National Cycling Centre, the British home of cycling. It will include a 2,000 seat capacity BMX area and offices for the headquarters of the British Cycling Federation. Subject to funding and planning approval, work on the scheme will start on site by January 2010 with completion by March 2011.

Manchester Trails Manchester Urban Culture Trails has recently launched with four themed, self-guided cultural city tours that are available to download for free on www.visitmanchester.com/trails The trails offer an interesting introduction to Manchester's art, music and culture scene. They each tell the Manchester Story, linking the city’s historical past with modern Manchester. It’s a great way to take in the city’s rich cultural heritage and discover Manchester's unique places and the stories behind them.

Richard Goodall Gallery

The People’s History Museum The People’s History Museum is coming to the end of its multi-million pound redevelopment project that will see The Pump House, a former hydraulic power pumping station, renovated to its former glory. The four-storey extension adjacent is now being constructed and the buildings will be joined together by a spectacular walkway. Re-opening in early 2010, the new People’s History Museum will be bigger and better than before displaying almost 1500 objects. www.phm.org.uk

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BRAND MANCHESTER We’re surrounded by familiarity in the brands that we consume on a daily basis. There are plenty of well known products and logos that originated right here in Manchester.

Bugged Out! In 1994, ‘Madchester’ had become old news and the city’s relationship with acid house and rave had either declined, or matured and moved on, dependent on how you look at it. A new movement was needed to push things forward and it came in the form of Bugged Out, a regular night of underground dance music held in the former Sankeys Soap factory (now ‘Sankeys’ nightclub). Over the years Bugged Out has hosted superstar DJs including Daft Punk, the Chemical Brothers, Miss Kittin, Laurent Garnier, Erol Alkan, Felix Da Housecat, and Tiga. The night branched out into Liverpool where it worked particularly well in contrast to the superclub brand ‘Cream’. It has also presented itself successfully in London, Milan, Rome and Barcelona.

Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls

The Guardian The UK’s popular liberal newspaper was formed in Manchester in 1821. Its beginnings can be traced back a couple of years earlier to the 1819 Peterloo massace, a turbulent event in Manchester’s history and in British politics, which ultimately changed public opinion and was a major factor in gaining ordinary people the right to vote. The Manchester Guardian, as it was originally known, gained a reputation for its outspoken views and radical opinions. In 1959 the paper became ‘the Guardian’ and production moved to London in 1964. The newspaper has a present circulation of over 336,000 copies per day.

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The famous sweets have been produced in Wigan since 1919. They were originally created by Ellen Seddon, a skilled confectioner whose unique toffees inspired her partner William Santus, to abandon his fruit and vegetable stall and become a budding sweet entrepreneur. Uncle Joe was first introduced as the face of the company brand in 1932. The fictional character helped to take the famous sweet to every corner of the globe whilst in 1975, songwriter Mike Harding dedicated a humorous song to the brand. The song has been chanted in children’s playgrounds across the Northwest ever since... “Un-cle Joe’s Mint Balls, keep you all a-glow”. They do indeed.

Soreen The uniquely soft & sticky fruity malt loaf was created by a family whose surname was Sorenson - hence the brand name Soreen. This year Soreen celebrates 50 years of malt loaf making in Trafford Park, just outside the city centre. Soreen has evolved to meet changing consumer eating patterns with the addition of pre-buttered snack packs for eating on the go and for lunch boxes. www.soreen.com

Umbro

Gio-Goi

For over a century Umbro has established a reputation as one of Manchester’s most iconic brands. The company was founded in 1910 in Wilmslow, Cheshire, as Humphreys Brothers Clothing. The name Umbro was created from a contraction of this title; Humphrey Brothers. In summer 2009, Umbro and Manchester City Football Club announced a 10-year brand partnership. The news was welcomed by Manchester City’s fans - Umbro have a long history with the club dating back to the Humphrey brothers themselves, who were both keen supporters. Umbro first manufactured kits for Manchester City in 1934 and in the same year the team went on to win the FA cup. Umbro’s headquarters are today in Manchester, at Cheadle in Stockport. As well as supplying kits to Manchester City, Umbro are also official suppliers of sports apparel to England’s national football team, the FA (Football Association) and the FA Cup.

Gio-Goi was born in Manchester in the 1980s and has proudly served three generations of high-profile UK musicians, as well as becoming a well recognised streetwear brand. Via the Haçienda nightclub, brothers Anthony and Christopher Donnelly supplied clothes to band members in the Happy Mondays, Primal Scream and New Order. The brand was later sported by members of Blur and Oasis in the mid-nineties ‘Britpop’ era, and has since been worn by the likes of Calvin Harris, Mike Skinner (the Streets), Amy Winehouse and The Arctic Monkeys.

Vimto The inventor of Vimto was (John) Noel Nichols. Vim Tonic, as it was first known, began life on 49 Granby Row in 1908 when Noel was just 24. His secret recipe included a mixture of herbs and spices along with grape, blackcurrant and raspberry juice. It was registered as a health tonic and later reregistered as a cordial. Vimto is also available as a fizzy drink, as lollipops, chewy sweets and an Ice Lolly. The brand was revitalised in the 1990’s by using the popular animated character, Purple Ronnie, as its mascot. In 1992, a sculpture called ‘A Monument to Vimto’ was carved out of an oak tree from a sustainable forest by Kerry Morrison. This can be found at Vimto’s original Granby Row birthplace, opposite the University of Manchester’s Sackville Street building.

Warburton’s Warburton’s family bakery started life in 1870 as a small grocery shop in Bolton. It was Ellen Warburton who suggested to her husband that they should bake their own bread to sell on the premises. Today, Warburton’s produces over one million bakery products per day from fourteen national outlets including their flagship bakery which is still based in Bolton. It is the UK's third biggest bread manufacturer and the fifth generation of the Warburton family continue to this day with their tradition of baking bread.

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WHAT’S ON MUSIC by Stuart Avery, MD of SA Promotions, Manchester Manchester has long been renowned for an inspiring and exciting music scene second to none in the UK. The references to The Haçienda, Stone Roses and Happy Mondays are obvious and - quite rightly - still close to the hearts of many discerning Mancs. But we should never allow this to overshadow the fact that Manchester’s music scene today is as vibrant, exciting and diverse as ever. As a concert promoter who has been putting on events in Manchester for eight years, I have seen the music scene grow, change and diversify in a lot of ways. Now more than ever, the city is bursting with excellent gig and club nights from independent promoters with the music at their hearts – Sideways Saloon, Green Bohemia, Blowout, Friends of Mine,

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Contort Yourself and Hit & Run to name but a few. The explosion of independent promoters in the city a few years back really shook things up for the better suddenly it wasn’t just venues putting on gigs... anyone with enough energy, drive and vision could bring their own offering to the city. As well as a whole host of great new venues - Moho, The Deaf Institute, Ruby Lounge, Band on the Wall and now Sound Control - Manchester is very pro-active when it comes to themed events and festivals. One of our proudest moments of 2009 was Hungry Pigeon – The Northern Quarter Festival, one of our biggest undertakings yet, which saw a massive four day event take over the entire Northern Quarter with an outdoor stage in the middle of Piccadilly Gardens. The event boasted some great headliners Kid British, Nine Black Alps, The Travelling

Band, Mistys Big Adventure - at a rock bottom ticket price, and Manchester City Council’s backing meant the outdoor stage event could be free to all, which was important to us, as it meant everyone and anyone could enjoy the centre piece of the festival. But for me, the greatest achievement of Hungry Pigeon was the sheer diversity we managed to achieve by drawing on a wealth of musical and artistic talent from the city. In one weekend you could catch some big headliners on the outdoor stage, walk a treasure trail through the Northern Quarter, catch some poetry or live art exhibitions, head out to a late night electro club, or end your night moshing to some heavy metal courtesy of the Rock Kitchen DJs depending on your preference! And that is a real testament to what this amazing city has to offer!

Of course there are many other great festival events in Manchester over the course of the year. Future Everything is great for anyone who is serious about their electronic music, and manages to put together some pretty impressive bills, (one of my highlights was definitely seeing Venetian Snares at Paradise Factory last year), while Eurocultured succeeds in bringing a genuine flavour of music from further afield to Manchester. Our newest venture on the festival theme was the Spinningfields Summer Festival, a great free event every Friday throughout the summer which saw the likes of Badly Drawn Boy, Liam Frost and Puressence taking to the stage in Manchester’s newest redevelopment district. It was great to be able to host an event with the focus firmly on intimate acoustic sets rather than full bands as this is a group that the city’s music scene can sometimes struggle to provide for.

In the past few years we have worked with some truly exceptional acts.... and the real reward of being a promoter is seeing acts like Kid British and Karima Francis grow from playing a tiny mid-week gig or open mic show into the latest best thing that everyone is talking about - and deservedly so! Other personal favourites of ours are the fabulous Beggar Joe - featuring the incredible talent of Jon Kenzie, Rook & The Ravens, Nomad Jones, Eskimo Cowboy and Faker Junior.... although in a city so bursting with talent it is fruitless to even try to compile a wish-list as there aren’t enough pages in this magazine, let alone space on this page! So Manchester, it seems, is still doing us proud, and as long as all the promoters, venues and artists in this wonderful city keep each other on their toes with plenty of healthy competition and diversity, it’s all there for the taking, loving and enjoying, for anyone serious about their music!

Stuart Avery, SA Promotions (Indigo, Hungry Pigeon, Manchester Pride, Green Bohemia, Manchester Academy venues) www.myspace.com/sapromotions

Images: above Hungry Pigeon Festival left Badly Drawn Boy facing page The Travelling Band

2010 Future Everything 12 - 15 May www.futureeverything.org Eurocultured May www.myspace.com/eurocultured Hungry Pigeon May www.myspace.com/hungrypigeon Manchester Jazz Festival July www.manchesterjazz.com In The City October www.inthecity.co.uk For dates check website closer to the time.

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WHAT’S ON FESTIVALS, EXHIBITIONS & SPORT

Manchester Comedy Festival

Angels of Anarchy

Da Vinci - The Genius

FESTIVALS

Literature Festival

Science Festival

14 - 24 October (provisional) The Manchester Literature Festival provides unique and imaginative opportunities for audiences to experience high quality live literature through this annual event. The festival celebrates the power of writing across all creative and technological media. www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk

October 2010 This is the festival to explore and discover, with over 150 science events taking place at different venues across Greater Manchester. There will be cutting-edge science, hands-on activities, debates and comedy. www.manchestersciencefestival.com

Food & Drink Festival

EXHIBITIONS

Manchester Irish Festival 5 - 21 March 2010 Celebrating its 15th year, the Manchester Irish Festival 2010 promises to be a two week extravaganza featuring hundreds of events across a number of venues throughout the city. Having become one of Europe’s biggest Irish festivals, it will feature art, comedy, dance, music, sport and theatre. www.manchesteririshfestival.com

Chinese New Year 2010 14 February 2010 Manchester has one of the largest Chinese communities in the UK, and each year celebrates Chinese New Year with a colourful family-friendly parade in the city centre. The year of the Tiger will be welcomed with a glittering array of festivities including traditional dragon dances, a fireworks display, martial arts exhibitions and plenty of stalls and workshops in the city’s Chinatown area. www.fcam.org.uk

24:7 Theatre Festival 26 July - 1 August 2010 Now in its sixth year, Manchester’s annual 24:7 Theatre Festival has been a springboard for new writing and acting talent in the Northwest. www.247theatrefestival.co.uk

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October 2010 This established urban food and drink festival revels in the fact that it has no single location; rather it takes over as much of the city centre and surrounding districts of Greater Manchester as possible, with a huge programme of events taking place, both indoor and outdoor. www.foodanddrinkfestival.com

Comedy Festival October 2010 Over 90 shows grace theatres, clubs, bars and pubs throughout the city centre and Greater Manchester in just over a week. With a full spectrum of comedy, from traditional stand-up to sketch, films to cabaret and cartoons to improvisation, there is a show for everyone. www.manchestercomedyfestival.co.uk

Angels of Anarchy Until 10 January 2010, Manchester Art Gallery Angels of Anarchy shows work by some of the world’s most radical women surrealists and offers a theme fitting to Manchester’s own radical past as the birthplace of the suffragette movement. The exhibition features over 150 artworks, including paintings, photography, sculpture and surreal objects. www.manchestergalleries.org

The Evolutionist A Darwin Extravaganza Until 30 August 2010, Manchester Museum Find out all about Charles Darwin, and why he is so important to our lives even in this day and age. During this extravaganza of exhibitions and events for visitors of all ages and interests, find out about Darwin's life and work, the theory of evolution and science since Darwin. www.museum.manchester.ac.uk

Winter Waves at Slaughden, II, by Maggi Hambling

Captured Until 3 January 2010 Imperial War Museum North Captured examines the experience of prisoners of war during the Second World War. With an engaging mix of objects, art, documents, photographs, film and sound, the exhibition reveals the incredible personal stories and experiences of men and women during periods of captivity in Britain, Europe and the Far East. www.north.iwm.org.uk

Da Vinci - The Genius 14 November 2009 - 13 June 2010 MOSI (Museum of Science & Industry) Da Vinci - The Genius sees some fascinating 3D animations of Da Vinci's most famous paintings and sculptures as well as large-scale interactive machines, hand-crafted by modern-day Italian Artisans. With over 200 items on display, this is the most comprehensive and inspiring exhibition about the man who is arguably the greatest genius the world has even seen. www.mosi.org.uk

The Sea: LS Lowry & Maggi Hambling Until 31 January 2010, The Lowry Maggi Hambling, one of Britain’s most distinguished contemporary artists, exhibits her latest, extremely powerful paintings of the North Sea alongside Lowry’s own deeply compelling seascapes. www.thelowry.com

Facing East - Recent works from China, India and Japan from the Frank Cohen Collection 4 February - 11 April 2010, Manchester Art Gallery An exceptional opportunity to see a dozen of the most exciting works from the Frank Cohen Collection, many of which have never been exhibited publicly before. These groundbreaking contemporary paintings and sculptures by major artists from India, China and Japan include Bharti Kher’s The Skin Speaks A Language Not Its Own (2006) a lifesize elephant with skin made entirely of bindis and He An’s Matrix (2007) - fibreglass figures inspired by kung fu fight scenes from The Matrix films. www.manchestergalleries.org

English National Badminton Championships 5 - 7 February 2010, MEN Arena Watch the cream of England’s badminton talent competing for the title of National Champion, where emerging players will take on the elite stars. They are not only competing for the coveted National titles but will also be preparing for the European Individual Championships (also in Manchester) in April 2010.

National Squash Championships 7 - 14 February 2010, Sportcity The National Squash Centre at Sportcity will host the 2010 Championships in February. Both leading players and emerging talent will battle it out in an effort to claim the crown of National Squash Champion.

SPORT

European Badminton Championships 2010

UCI Para-cycling World Championships

14 - 18 April 2010, MEN Arena The world’s fastest racket sport hits Manchester in April, when the MEN Arena will play host to the European Individual Championships. Manchester has a rich heritage in staging top level badminton tournaments, having hosted the Commonwealth Games and being the regular home to the annual National Championships.

6 - 8 November 2009, Manchester Velodrome See the Great Britain Para-cycling Team heroes take on the world’s best cycling nations in the electric atmosphere of Manchester Velodrome. The Championships will feature top international disabled track riders including members of the highly successful GB Team, which won 20 Paralympic medals, 17 of which were gold, in Beijing in 2008.

For further information about all these sporting events, visit www.manchesterworldsport.com

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WHAT’S ON LESBIAN & GAY by Andrew Gilliver The Great British Bear Bash

Queer up North

Sparkle

29 April - 3 May 2010 Men. Big, burly, brassy, brazen beasts of gorgeousness. This weekend is just one huge festival of fur. An event that attracts visitors from every corner of the bearniverse because it’s all about how much fun hundreds of hairy Mary’s and their admirers can cram into a bank holiday weekend (and that’s a whole lot since you ask). If you go down to the village in May you are sure of a fabulous surprise. You don’t have to be a bear to enjoy the Great British Bear Bash but you won’t be able to escape the fun and frolics - it’s as infectious as honey is sticky. www.manbears.co.uk

May 2010 We are so cultured up north you know. This is Manchester's international queer festival, the first of its kind in Europe (since 1992). Queer up North commissions, produces and presents a diverse, annual programme of live theatre, music, comedy, art and ideas from the avant garde to some of the more cult names in LGBT performance. The last few years have seen the festival present work from Poland, Hungary, South Africa, France, Italy, Australia, Canada and the USA. Imagine the Edinburgh festival, edit out the rubbish bits, concentrate on the gay bits and there you have it! www.queerupnorth.com

9 - 11 July 2010 The largest and most high profile national Transgender event. It’s often said there isn’t enough going on for the trans community but over the last five years Sparkle has shown the world that there is a huge need for such a celebration of gender diversity. Sparkle is an opportunity to make new friends and obtain help, support and information on gender issues while enjoying a great weekend of entertainment. The village is lively and everyone is friendly, there are a host of special events at regular venues and Sackville Gardens in the heart of the village plays host to entertainment with Sparkle in the Park. www.sparkle.org.uk

Manchester Pride August 2010 Ever since Manchester hosted EuroPride in 2003, visitors to the city say that the reason Pride is so special is because it has the reputation of an international event with the spirit of a community celebration. Now in its 20th year there really is something for everyone and the many thousands of revellers are the best part of the experience. Don’t just think of Pride as a big weekend blow out: if you have time for a longer stay, checkout some of the events that happen during the whole ten day festival. If you feel that it’s just too much merriment, the closing vigil reminds us what Pride is all about - still the biggest LGBT/HIV fundraiser of its kind in the UK. www.manchesterpride.com

Andrew Gilliver is Communications Manager for The Lesbian and Gay Foundation (LGF) based in Manchester and one of the UK’s leading LGB organisations. Andrew is regularly approached by the media to talk about lesbian and gay issues, speaking on behalf of The Lesbian and Gay Foundation and as a representative of the LGB community.

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WHAT’S ON CHRISTMAS Whether you want to do your shopping, feel like a break from the stress of festive planning or just want to catch up with friends, Manchester is an unforgettable pre-Christmas break. Light-Switch On 12 November, Albert Square Join in the celebrations and enjoy sparkling entertainment to herald the start of the festive season. There’s fun for all the family, with special celebrity guests, live music, costumed characters and an amazing firework finale.

Christmas Markets 18 November - 21 December Albert Square, St Ann’s Square, New Cathedral Street, Exchange Street, Brazennose Street Twinkling chalets bursting with unique gifts, the scent of mulled wine and delicious alfresco snacks will get you in the festive mood. Pretty stalls grace every square of the city centre, be enticed by an array of decorative ceramics, hand-made toys, decorations, jewellery and much more.

Spinningfields Ice Rink 12 November - 3 January 2010, Spinningfields In partnership with Manchester City Council, Spinningfields will host one of Manchester’s most popular festive attractions. Hardman Boulevard will be transformed into the ultimate winter fun destination, complete with dazzling outdoor ice rink, sparkling Christmas tree, contemporary yuletide decorations and a variety of quality eateries.

Theatre & Music November/December, various city centre locations Christmas with the Rat Pack, Scrooge the Musical, Rocky Horror Show, Sound of Music, Aladdin and White Christmas are just some of the shows on offer at the city’s array of theatres. The Bridgewater Hall showcases Christmas inspired performances and carol concerts from the Hallé as well as other orchestras and performers. There are also many rock and pop concerts across the city.

Manchester Markets Various city centre locations. See website for more information T. +44 (0)161 234 7357 www.manchester.gov.uk/markets

Manchester’s many markets offer a completely different and exciting shopping experience where atmosphere, character and personal service come by the bag-load. Specialist street markets take place throughout the year, the most famous being the Christmas Markets (Nov-Dec). Other specialist markets include fashion, spring, jewellery, French and fine food markets. Or visit the Arndale Market (open daily), a modern indoor market offering everything from the freshest of fish, a revolving sushi restaurant and milkshake bar to the very latest mobile phones, exclusive watch brands and express nail bars.

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Curtain Up! Manchester’s pioneering spirit isn’t limited to science and industry. Here, Kevin Bourke celebrates the city’s theatrical heritage: the world premières; the remarkable buildings and the stars of stage and screen that have graced the stages of the city-region’s theatres. It might seem an extravagant claim but modern British theatre started in Manchester! Just over a century ago in 1909, tea heiress Annie Horniman, who had already supported the first public performances of WB Yeats and George Bernard Shaw, as well as establishing Dublin’s famed Abbey Theatre, founded Britain’s very first repertory theatre company here. The repertory company, which was soon adopted as a model by theatres across the land, would present a different play every week, either a revival from the classics or a new play, and it was how generations of actors, producers and directors, honed their craft, including such local luminaries as Ben Kingsley, Albert Finney and Robert Powell.

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Annie staged her first productions at the Midland Hotel on Peter Street, opposite what is now the Library Theatre, while Frank Matcham, the leading theatre architect of the day, redesigned the Gaiety, opposite the Theatre Royal in what is now Television House. The venue (which in its previous incarnation as the Comedy Theatre was where La Boheme was premiered in Britain in 1897) saw Annie not only put on works by Euripides and Shaw but also, having encouraged local writers to “write about their friends and enemies, about real life”, helped found the ‘Manchester School’ of theatre, featuring writers such as Stanley (Hindle Wakes) Houghton and Harold (Hobson’s Choice) Brighouse.

Images this page: Matthew Bourne’s Edward Scissor Hands at The Lowry Facing Page: John Thomson as Willie Mossop in Hobson's Choice

Manchester these days has more theatre seats than anywhere outside London and Annie certainly wasn’t alone at the turn of the last century either. Just down the road at the junction of Oxford Street and Whitworth Street was, and remains, the Palace Theatre. Often referred to as “The Grand Old Lady of Oxford Street”, it opened on 18 May 1891, having been built at a then-staggering cost of £40,500. A capacity audience enjoyed the opening show, the ballet Cleopatra, and artists such as Danny Kaye, Gracie Fields, Charles Laughton, Judy Garland, Noel Coward and Laurel & Hardy have appeared there. It is now one of the best equipped and most popular theatres in the country, hosting many major touring musicals, often with major celebrities. The regional premiere of Les Miserables ran there for 13 months from 1992-1993, and that hugely popular show is due to return soon. Other notable shows to have played successful seasons at the Palace include regional premières of Miss Saigon, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mamma Mia, The Wedding Singer, and Mary Poppins. The hit Broadway and West End musical The Producers opened at the theatre in February 2007, with Peter Kay starring as Roger Debris for the Manchester dates. It has also hosted flagship events for the Manchester International Festival, including the World Premieres of Damon Albarn’s Monkey: Journey To The West and Rufus Wainwright’s first opera Prima Donna. The Palace’s sister theatre is the Opera House on Peter Street, which plays host to touring musicals, ballet, concerts and a popular Christmas pantomime. The theatre opened its doors on Boxing Day in 1912 and famously hosted the 1958 European premiere of West Side Story as well as the British regional premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera with a production that ran from 1993 to 1995, an exceptional run for a regional production. More recently, the venue saw the premiere of Never Forget, the Take That musical. The DVD of the show was also filmed there.

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Images this page: top The contact Theatre below Brenda Blethyn & Pete Postlethwaite at the Royal Exchange Theatre by Jonathan Keenan Facing page: The Royal Exchange Theatre

Albeit indirectly, the Opera House provided the inspiration for that famous slice of Salford life A Taste Of Honey. When a teenage Shelagh Delaney saw a production there of a Terence Rattigan play, she thought it so bland and trivial that she spent the next two weeks changing a would-be novel into the play, which became a sensation after Joan Littlewood took a production to London in 1958. A seminal film and a major influence on the lyrics of Morrissey, A Taste of Honey was recently revived at the Royal Exchange theatre, a significant player on the local theatrical scene since the late Seventies. A visionary group of theatre enthusiasts called 69 Theatre Company formed at Manchester University Theatre, off Oxford Road, in 1968 to stage an ambitious series of plays. But their ambition to build a new theatre for Manchester was foiled until the notion came up of creating, for the 1973 Manchester Festival, a temporary tent theatre within the empty shell of the Royal Exchange, once the trading floor for Manchesterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s powerful cotton industry. This proved so successful that they commissioned a bold and ingenious seven-sided steel-and-glass module within the space, now the biggest theatre-in-the-round in the world. An astonishing list of greats have performed at the Exchange since its 1976 opening, ranging from Tom Courtenay, Lindsay Duncan and Albert Finney to Vanessa Redgrave, Kate Winslet and Michael Sheen. The University Theatre itself also took on a new lease of life in 1999, reopening as Contact in a striking fortress-like design that incorporated elements of its Sixtes predecessor. The artistic direction of the new theatre has proved equally daring, concentrating on innovative new work and community initiatives whose inventiveness and verve have attracted numerous awards. One especially remarkable undertaking has been Contacting the World, a revolutionary international theatre project for young and emerging artists from across the globe.

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©Tristram Kenton

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The next year another theatrical powerhouse opened in the former Salford Docks. When the area was being redeveloped as Salford Quays, the potential was recognised for the area to host a landmark arts venue and one of the country’s most exciting theatrical venues The Lowry opened there in April 2000. Named after the much-loved painter L.S.Lowry, the complex houses two theatres the 1,730-seater Lyric, boasting the largest stage in the United Kingdom outside London’s West End, and the smaller, infinitely adaptable Quays - as well as studio spaces and a gallery, boasting hundreds of paintings by L.S.Lowry alongside contemporary exhibitions.

Prestigious visitors have included The Kirov Ballet and the Dance Theater Of Harlem, as well as the likes of Lorna Luft in The Wizard of Oz and Matthew Bourne’s Edward Scissorhands. The fiftieth anniversary production of West Side Story also played there. Also a little way out of town is the historic and fascinating Plaza on Mersey Square in Stockport, which first opened its doors to the public late in 1932 and is currently being restored to its full glory. No less than 10,000 tons of rock had to be removed from the sandstone cliff that forms one side of the Mersey Gorge to make room for the new,

Images this page: Bolton Octagon Theatre Left page: top The Lowry Theatre below Mozart’s Così fan tutte at The Lowry

architecturally sophisticated public entertainment building and, despite its extensive frontage, most of The Plaza is actually underground with twelve dressing rooms forty feet below street level. The dramatic front elevation, in white terracotta, was originally illuminated by 300 feet of red and green neon lighting and it is planned to restore this as part of the current works. Originally, The Plaza stood on the cusp between silent movies and the talkies, so it looked both backwards and forwards. It also created a luxurious escape for people accustomed to the hard life of a Northern industrial town. More recently Badly Drawn Boy played there and, next morning, enthused with Jonathan Ross about the Plaza on national radio.

A Taste of Honey was also revived in 2006 at Oldham’s Coliseum Theatre, with Oldhamraised Dora Bryan, who starred in the Tony Richardson film, in the first-night audience. The theatre, which now boasts a passionately loyal audience for its sometimes challenging but always entertaining shows, had something of a troubled beginning. In 1885, a certain Mr Myers engaged local carpenter Thomas Whittaker to build “a Grand American Theatre” in the heart of Oldham. After Myers found himself unable to pay for the completion of the theatre, Thomas Whittaker became the reluctant owner of a theatre surrounded by almost a dozen other theatres. The need to get a return on his unintentional investment forced Whittaker to make a go of the theatre and stars such as Charlie Chaplin and local boy Eric Sykes trod its historic boards. Almost 125 years later, the award winning Coliseum is the only surviving theatre in the town.

One of the most exciting theatres around Manchester is the Octagon Theatre Bolton, another vibrant product of the rep tradition, where David Thacker has just taken over as Artistic Director. Founded in 1967, the theatre has had its ups and downs but has always endeavoured to provide theatre written and performed for the audience it hoped to reach. To award-winning effect, it has premiered work by the likes of Jim Cartwright and Alan Plater. The latter, whose musical play Blonde Bombshells Of 1943 won an MEN Theatre Award as Best Production in 2006 and continues to successfully tour, perhaps sums it up best. “A good producing theatre is a sign that a city or town is a proper, civilised community and not just a conglomeration of people,” he observes. “It’s a key element along with schools, colleges, libraries, playing fields - a way of talking to each other about things that matter, a workshop and a shop window where we can try to make sense of a weird and sometimes frightening world”.

The Royal Exchange Theatre is housed in Manchester’s historical Cotton Exchange building, a must-see on your visit to the city. Housing The Round restaurant, Bar Exchange and two gallery spaces, there is plenty to do… and that’s before you decide to come to see a production from the city’s nationally-renowned producing theatre company in our state-of-the-art, unique in-the-round space. 4 NOV - 5 DEC 2009

27 JAN - 20 FEB 2010

THE ENTERTAINER

A RAISIN IN THE SUN

by John Osborne

Archie Rice celebrates 21 years without paying tax in this state of the nation classic.

by Lorraine Hansberry

Set in Chicago in the 1950s, see a family struggle for the right to survive.

9 DEC 2009 - 23 JAN 2010

BLITHE SPIRIT by Noël Coward

Enjoy festive fun with a spirited classic. Starring SURANNE JONES from Coronation Street.

For the full line-up in both spaces and more info visit royalexchange.co.uk Tickets priced £8.50 - £29.50

Call 0161 833 9833

St Ann’s Square, Manchester

Royal Exchange Theatre

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Manchester Voices

Ingi Thor Jonnson Ingi Thor Jonsson is the director of the acclaimed NICE festival (Nordic International Cultural Events). After two years in Liverpool, Ingi Thor is looking to expand the festival’s boundaries by choosing Manchester as host city in 2010. What brings an Icelandic former Olympic swimmer to the Northwest? As an Olympic sportsman, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to a number of countries all over the world, making several of them my temporary home. However I was always drawn to the UK and made London my base for 13 years, moving north in 2001. I feel a real affinity with people in the North West. I find them very welcoming and interested in who I am and what I do. I love the history of the industrial towns and cities in the north and the feel of being near to water here in Liverpool; it’s important to an Icelander! I was amazed to find place names here in the North West that have their roots in my own language - I’m a Viking abroad that’s come home!

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You are about to launch the 2nd NICE Festival in Liverpool. Why do you think that Nordic culture is of such great interest to audiences in the Northwest? Nordic culture is still an unexplored area for many people, although everyone has experienced Nordic design to some extent in their everyday lives, whether its IKEA, Nokia or Alvar Aalto, but what about other aspects of Scandinavia? I think audiences are ready for a festival that acts as a focus to bring together elements that explore the heritage of Nordic culture through contemporary art and design, and hopefully shows them something new and surprising. There are so many links here in the North West, through trade and industry, the maritime history, right back to the Viking settlements. I think it’s time to recognise that part of your ‘DNA’ and explore what Scandinavia has to offer now.

What can audiences look forward to from the NICE festival 2009? NICE has a programme that we hope will appeal to all age groups and interests. H2 Dance, a Swedish/Norwegian dance group will do two different shows. There’s a play for children about Iceland’s 13 naughty Santa’s, ‘Greela and The Yule Lads’. Music, both classical and pop; a great up and coming artist from Sweden, Daniel Milton, will be exhibiting his paintings and there will be an exhibition of contemporary Finnish design. Exhibitions of knitting from the Faroe Islands - but a different sexy kind of knitting! We also have a fantastic film strand with some great films premiering here in the UK, with talks by up and coming directors.

Participants will be coming from Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Check the festival’s website for our full programme www.nice-festival.co.uk You have plans to hold the festival in Manchester in 2010. Why do you see that city as being particularly receptive to the festival model - will there be a theme for the festival? Manchester has grown to become a real contender as an international destination and I think culturally it has so much to offer in terms of venues and audiences keen to experience something new. The success of the Manchester International Festival has proved the city has audiences willing to explore new cultural territory, and with Manchester airport having around 80 flights a week to Nordic countries, maybe we will inspire Mancunians to take that interest even

further. There are so many aspects of what NICE has to offer that echoes what goes on in Manchester already, we feel it will be quite an organic process to hold our events there, design, music, architecture and art are all already important in the cultural landscape of the city. 2010 is the year of ‘Contact’ and again this as a theme is ideal for the purpose of our festival, making new contacts and partnerships in order to grow and evolve. What are the long term ambitions for the NICE festival? NICE is a festival that has a great deal to offer to both the public and its participants: we aim for the festival to continue to grow and to showcase some of the most engaging aspects of Nordic arts and culture to new audiences throughout the Northwest region. We also want to make use of our ever

expanding contacts within Scandinavia to secure links and partnerships that can offer opportunities for artists and performers from the Northwest to travel to Nordic countries. We aim to become more than a two week series of events; I think the Northwest could do with its own ‘Nordic House’: a place permanently dedicated to celebrating Nordic culture, don’t you? NICE 2010 will take place between 18 November - 2 December. Direct flights are available to Manchester Airport from the following destinations in the Nordic region: Stockholm with SAS (twice daily) Gothenburg with City Airline (twice daily) Billund with BA (twice daily) Copenhagen with SAS (twice daily) Copenhagen with easyJet (four times per week, from 6 November 2009) Helsinki with Finnair (twice daily) Oslo with SAS (four times per week) Reykjavik with Icelandair (four times per week)

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MANCHESTER BY NUMBERS

£1 The amount paid by Greater Manchester Council to purchase the 1830 part of Liverpool Road Station in 1978. The site is now the home of MOSI (The Museum of Science & Industry).

The number English Premier League football clubs in the city.

The percentage of the world’s population that support Manchester United.

23 The number of Nobel prize winners from Manchester University.

£36 The amount David Browning was paid for playing the trumpet for the theme tune to Coronation Street (in 1960 and again 1964).

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79 AD The year that Manchester, or Mamucium as it was then called, was put on the map by the Romans.

1653

5,500

Chetham’s Library was founded, making it the oldest public library in the English-speaking world.

The number of pipes in The Bridgewater Hall’s Marcussen pipe organ.

7,244 The number of solar photovoltaic panels on the CIS Tower. The CIS Tower is the UK’s largest solar project.

43,593

100,000

The number of seats in Greater Manchester’s theatres and cultural venues.

The number of students studying in Greater Manchester across four universities.

168.87m The height of the Hilton Tower in Manchester - the tallest residential development in Europe.

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Buildings Through the Ages By Mark Coleman Manchester city centre offers a hotchpotch of architecture, mixing the extremely old with the strikingly new. It often pays to walk around the city with your head held high. Just make sure that you keep an eye on the pavement from time to time, or you could be very sorry. THE ROMAN FORT OF MAMUCIUM In 79AD, General Agricola’s Roman soldiers built a defensive fort overlooking the road between Chester and York. Its location on a natural sandstone bluff led it to be called ‘Mamucium’, which means ‘breast-shaped hill’. After the Romans left the site, it was pillaged for building materials and in the medieval period it became known as ‘the castle in the field’. Today, Castlefield houses a reconstruction of a section of the original fort, amongst its decorative railway lines, waterways and contemporary bars.

MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL An example of medieval perpendicular gothic architecture, Manchester Cathedral has the widest nave in the country. Work began on the present building in 1215. King Henry V chartered the cathedral as a collegiate practice – a training ground for priests – in 1421. The church, which is dedicated to St Mary, St Denys and St. George, officially became a cathedral in 1847 when the Diocese of Manchester was created.

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CHETHAM’S LIBRARY AND SCHOOL OF MUSIC The oldest free public library in the world was established at the request of the wealthy cloth merchant Humphrey Chetham, following his death in 1653. The medieval library is sited in the 15th century training ground for priests of the collegiate church and incidentally is where the original manor of Manchester was located. It now forms part of Chetham’s school of music, a prestigious college for truly gifted young musicians.

THE OLD WELLINGTON INN Manchester’s beloved poet John Byrom was born in this building in 1692. The Old Wellington, along with its neighbour, Sinclair’s Oyster bar, has been moved twice from its original resting place. The building, with its ultra low wooden beams and periodic features was first moved in the 1970’s to allow for the construction of the Manchester Arndale. Having survived the blast of an IRA bomb in 1996, it was moved again to its current location where it is now a popular resting spot for locals, shoppers and visitors to the city.

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ST ANN’S CHURCH In the late 18th Century, Lady Ann Bland was the lady of the manor of Manchester and the leader of fashionable society. She put forward some of the funds required to build a new church in town. The church of St Ann’s was consecrated in 1712 and is dedicated to three Anns; Lady Ann Bland, St Ann and Queen Anne (who was ruling the country at the time). The architect is thought to be Sir John Barker and it has been suggested that the design may have been influenced by Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

LIVERPOOL ROAD STATION (now part of MOSI) The world’s first passenger railway station opened in Manchester in 1830. It connected the city to Liverpool, some 35 miles away. As nobody knew how to design a railway station in 1830, its exterior can be forgiven for appearing more like a charming row of houses. The opening ceremony attracted the Duke of Wellington and the unfortunate Liverpool MP William Huskisson, who became the first casualty of the railway when he was hit by Stephenson’s Rocket.

MANCHESTER TOWN HALL Since 1877 the gothic-revival architecture of Manchester Town Hall has attracted visitors from far and wide. The building was designed by Alfred Waterhouse whose other notable works include the National History Museum in London. The structure is a bold, arrogant statement about Manchester. It conveys the city at the height of its 19th century dominance as the producer of 80% of the world’s cotton. Every detail is thoughtfully included to represent Manchester’s history, from stone statues and sculpted features to the famous murals painted by Ford Maddox Brown.

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Images: above House of Fraser below St Ann’s Church, left page detail of Manchester Town Hall

THE PALACE HOTEL

HOUSE OF FRASER

This red terracotta building was prepared in three separate stages as offices for the Refuge Assurance Company. Alfred Waterhouse set off the construction process in 1891 and his son Paul Waterhouse, added the striking clock tower in 1910. Today the Grade II listed building is a luxury hotel. Hints of its past are still evident in the exterior reliefs and upon periodic features throughout the interior.

This department store began life in 1796, as a smaller shop owned by S and J Watts. Kendal, Milne and Faulkner took over the business in 1835. It is the oldest department store in the UK and perhaps even the world. The present building was designed by J.S. Beaumont in 1939. House of Fraser, as it is now known, is a stripped down version of 1930’s German department store architecture. The building continues its reign as one of Manchester’s most attractive department stores.

JOHN RYLAND’S LIBRARY Manchester’s first millionaire didn’t kick a football for a living. He made his fortune from the city’s cotton trade and by the time of his death, his third wife, Enriquetta, chose to immortalise him with a gothic library. The library houses the impressive book collection that John Ryland built up throughout his lifetime. Enriquetta also went on a spending spree to add a significant amount of stock to his collection, the highlight of which is a piece of First Century New Testament: the St John fragment.

DAILY EXPRESS BUILDING This black and silver curtain-walled building in Ancoats has a deceptive contemporary appearance. The art-deco design by Owen Williams purposely echoes a similar structure that was located on London’s Fleet Street. The Daily Express newspaper left Manchester in the 1980’s. The building has since been used as contemporary office space.

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Images: top to bottom interior Imperial War Museum North, Manchester’s Civil Justice Building, CIS Tower. Left facing page Hilton Tower.

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM NORTH Daniel Libeskind designed the Imperial War Museum North after dropping a teapot and picking out some of the shards. The teapot represented our world, shattered by war. He selected three shards which are integral to the entire structure. They represent three stages upon which conflict takes place; Earth, Water and Air. Imperial War Museum North is open to the public every day of the week with regular, changing exhibitions.

HILTON TOWER

CIS TOWER Manchester’s second tallest building dates from the 1960’s and is currently the home of the Co-operative financial services. Since 2005, its new facade of photovoltaic panels has been contributing electricity to the national grid. This is the UK’s largest solar panel project to date. Music fans will be interested to know that the building is also the decoration on the album cover of Rae and Christian’s 2002 remix album, Nocturnal Activity.

GRANADA TELEVISION Sidney Bernstein made broadcasting history when he decided to locate his television network in the heart of Manchester. Over the years, Granada (named after the Bernstein’s favourite Spanish region) enjoyed success with groundbreaking shows that included World in Action, Coronation Street, University Challenge and the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Granada is today part of the national ITV network and the site is still the home to the set of the UK’s longest running soap Coronation Street, which is filmed on a daily basis.

Currently the tallest residential building in Europe, Manchester’s Hilton Tower was designed by Ian Simpson Architects. The main man behind the project now lives in the top two floors which offer stunning views across the Northwest and include his very own indoor olive grove. A Hilton hotel occupies the bottom 22 floors, as well as the Cloud 23 bar, which aptly occupies the 23rd floor. The bar is open to the public during evenings and weekends, allowing an opportunity to look out to the sights of Greater Manchester and beyond.

MANCHESTER’S CIVIL JUSTICE CENTRE The Civil Justice Centre was designed by Australian architects Denton Corker Marshall and has won an impressive list of accolades since officially opening in 2008. It incorporates a number of environmentally sustainable features and certainly brings a character of its own to Manchester’s modern business centre, Spinningfields. The design has been likened to a filing cabinet and in this sense, is a powerful representation of the building’s purpose. The Civil Justice Centre is the biggest court complex to be built in the UK since the Royal Courts of Justice opened in London in 1882.

For information on guided tours in Manchester, please contact the Visitor Information Centre on 0871 222 8223 or visit: www.visitmanchester.com

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Manchester Voices

James Ramsbottom

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Castlefield is one of Manchester’s most historic and popular districts. In recent years it has been the focus of much regeneration and restoration - central to which was the Ramsbottom family and their bar and restaurant alongside the Rochdale Canal. Here, James Ramsbottom talks to us about his love of the area and plans for the future. Castlefield was one of Britain’s first urban heritage parks and one of the first regeneration projects in the Manchester area. What it is about the area that inspired you to help preserve its heritage? The area has a unique place in history, being one of the first major expressions of the industrial revolution in Britain and providing the termination point for the first cut canal in the world. More significantly for me, is the fact that as you walk around the area you can still feel this legacy in the waterways and buildings, many of which have survived and been converted to more modern uses. Dukes 92 and Albert’s Shed have both been central to Castlefield’s renaissance. How involved have you been in the whole process? I personally have played a very minor role, certainly when compared to my father Jim who has been working for the last 25 years developing the Castlefield area. I joined the family business in 2000, so by that stage Dukes 92 had already been converted from a stable block for horses pulling barges to a modern bar. Since then, I have overseen its expansion which now incorporates two restaurants, a busy bar and three events spaces. Albert’s Shed was built in 2004 and was originally where my great uncle, Albert Clapham, stored his tools. Albert was instrumental in the re-development of Castlefield and worked with Jim on the refurbishment of the lockkeeper’s cottage in the early 1980s and Dukes 92 in 1991. When I first mooted the idea of a restaurant on the shed site Albert only agreed to move his tools out to make way for the restaurant if I called the restaurant after him, hence the name “Albert’s Shed”

When would you say is the best time of year to explore the Castlefield area? And what, in particular, would you recommend visitors should see? I think Castlefield has something to offer all year round, particularly with the world class MOSI on the doorstep. In addition, part of Castlefield’s charm is the fact that it’s only a stone’s throw from Deansgate and therefore is somewhere you can easily get to on foot and walk through the cobbled streets, warehouses and Roman gardens. Each summer, visitor numbers swell with people enjoying the canal side walks together with a drink and something to eat at Dukes 92 or Albert’s Shed. There’s also an outdoor arena that played host to a live screening of an Elbow and Hallé Orchestra concert this summer, and following recent discussions with local residents, it looks like the arena is set to provide even more vibrancy in years to follow. How can visitors make the use of the canal? One thing that many people don’t realise is the ease of access that Castlefield has with Salford Quays and, in particular, Old Trafford. Dukes 92 run trips to every Manchester United home game during the football season and, with no locks to contend with on this stretch, it’s a very pleasant 20 minute jaunt to the game. There’s also talk of a water taxi starting along the Irwell which runs adjacent to the Bridgewater Canal. We heard a rumour that you were interested in Barca? (Another bar in Castlefield, opposite Duke 92 and Albert’s Shed) I put a bid in for it but unfortunately didn’t get it. The good news is that after nearly a year of dereliction it is due to be reopened by the operators of Lammars in the Northern Quarter and I wish them luck. The site first opened in the mid 1990s its success benefitted the whole area and hopefully it can do so again. Despite missing out on the Barca site I have managed to secure a site in Didsbury and with a following wind I should be expanding the Albert’s brand into the suburbs early next year.

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Manchesterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Menu 30

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With over 30 international cuisines on offer, and something for every budget, Manchester’s diverse range of dining districts has the answer to every possible culinary mood. Whether you’re looking for some quirky places for a quick bite with friends, a more glamorous setting for a special occasion or buzzing squares for a pitstop, here’s an overview of the city’s foodie neighbourhoods; Spinningfields / Castlefield The newest quarter on the block, Spinningfields has quickly established itself as a hub of food, drink and social life. It’s home to 25 popular bars and restaurants including Gourmet Burger Kitchen (Irwell Square, M3 3HF), Carluccios (Hardman Square M3 3EB) and Shimla Pinks (Crown Street, M3 3HA), to name but a few. A lively outdoor events programme entertains visitors with live music, festivals and Screenfields; the city’s first open-air cinema. In contrast, Castlefield is an historical area with cobbled streets and canal side dining. Dukes 92 (Castle Street, M3 4LZ) offers informal ambience with views over the canal. The multi award-winning Choice Bar and Restaurant (Castle Quay, M15 4NT) is just across the basin, serving a delicious,

modern British à la carte menu, while Albert’s Shed (Castle Street, M3 4LZ) brings a Mediterranean flair to the city by serving delicious Italian cuisine.

Chinatown Take in the lights, sounds and tantalising smells of Chinatown. The Yang Sing (Princess Street, M1 4JY) is considered one of Europe’s finest Cantonese restaurants, using only the freshest ingredients to create authentic dim sum and à la carte dishes. The popular and award-winning Pacific (George Street, M1 4HF) offers both Chinese and Thai food and has one of the best wine lists in town. For less formal food, stop by Ho’s Bakery (Faulkner Street, M1 4FH) where you can pick up delicious soups and sweet and savoury Chinese pastries for around £1.

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Images: top The Northern Quarter Restaurant below The Soup Kitchen

Northern Quarter Considered the creative heart of the city, the Northern Quarter is home to many of Manchester’s independent bars and restaurants. If you’re searching for a hearty lunch, Bread and Butter (Tib Street, M4 1LX) is a boutique café that both embraces chintz and offers delicious home cooking; stop by for a slab of cake or a huge meatball piadina flatbread. Soup Kitchen (Spear Street, M1 1DF) has a modern canteen feel and takes pride in its healthy menu, with daily soups and specials and a superb salad bar. In the evening, The Northern Quarter Restaurant (High Street, M4 1HQ) is a must, serving gutsy, fresh food and using prime, locally-sourced ingredients with added flavours of the Mediterranean and beyond while Ning Restaurant (Oldham Street M4 1LJ) is a simple and chic gem serving authentic Malaysian cuisine with a relaxed, social ambience.

Piccadilly Vibrant and cosmopolitan Piccadilly is conveniently situated for Piccadilly railway station, bus station and city centre shopping. The area has a range of quality places to eat and drink and there’s always something to fit any budget. For lunch, the award-winning Barburrito* serves fresh, tasty, healthy food: portions are huge with burritos, tacos and quesadillas starting from around £3. Adjacent, Rice Piccadilly* is a lively restaurant where you can take front row seats to see your meal being cooked. The menu is excitingly eclectic, serving a range of dishes from Thai to Japanese to Moroccan specialities. Kro Piccadilly* is a great bar for a post-shopping drink and is well-known for its menu of Danish classics. For something that little bit special, Michael Caines Restaurant at ABode (Piccadilly, M1 2DB) offers superb modern European cuisine, using the finest produce and ingredients sourced from the surrounding regions of Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire. *(One Piccadilly Gardens, M1 1RG)

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Deansgate / King Street For an indulgent treat, the exclusive areas of Deansgate and King Street are the places to go. It’s a great place to finish your day after a spot of designer shopping. The food and drink offerings around King Street and Deansgate lives up to the standard set by the first class stores in the area. Room Restaurant (King Street, M2 4AH) fuses antique and retro for a stunning interior that once welcomed Kylie; the classic-

contemporary menu is fantastic value for money. Chaophraya (Chapel Walks, M2 1HN) provides the finest Thai cuisine in a luxuriously modern setting. For the finest Argentinean steak head to Gaucho where you can dine in an opulent, Grade II listed building. And the five-star Lowry Hotel’s River Restaurant (Chapel Wharf M3 5LH) offers a modern British menu and serves the finest Sunday roast in the city, with the added bonus of relaxing and peaceful views over the River Irwell.

Out of Town There are so many great restaurants in the borough towns and surrounding countryside of Manchester. If you’ve got time, check out one of the following: If you’re in South Manchester then why not stop by Greens (Lapwing Lane, West Didsbury, M20 2NT), a multi-award winning venture from Simon Connolly and TV chef Simon Rimmer. This vegetarian restaurant uses the best local produce to create seasonal dishes of the highest quality. Ostara Restaurant (Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton M21 0BQ) is a popular new restaurant with a menu of hearty, organic British dishes and new bistro Damson (Heaton Moor Road, SK4 4HY) opened in

Images: above Alfresco dining on Deansgate below Room Restaurant

April 2009 and has already been hailed as one of the best in the city with a ‘masterpiece’ of a wine list. To the west of the city centre in Urmston, Isinglass (Flixton Road, M41 5AB) is an exceptional English restaurant that prides itself on using only seasonal produce grown in the Manchester countryside. Ten miles north of Manchester in the West Pennine village of Ramsbottom is Ramsons (Market Place, Ramsbottom BL0 9HT). This small, stylish restaurant provides the perfect setting for couples and small parties. The proof is in the astonishing list of local and national accolades held by the restaurant that include several ‘Restaurant of the Year’, a Michelin Bib Gourmand, ‘Best Chef’ and 'one of the best ten places in Britain to eat Italian food' (The Independent, 2004). Nutters Restaurant (Edenfield Road, Rochdale OL12 7TY), home to celebrity chef Andrew Nutter, is set in a tudor manor house in over six acres of groomed parkland with panoramic views across Greater Manchester. The award-winning cuisine is unique incorporating the finest local food and regional produce in a truly eclectic style.

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The heart of shopping. The pulse of the city. Manchester Arndale.

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Indulge yourself at one of our many eateries or coffee shops such as Starbucks, Eat, Costa Coffee, Bagel Nash and Baskin Robbins. Or for a more leisurely dining experience, try Bella Italia, Est Caffe or Nandos restaurant. Our Food Court is also home to Pizza Hut Express, Subway, McDonalds and Wings, so there's something to suit everyone!

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Bursting at the seams with the latest fashion, footwear, accessories, music and entertainment, Manchester Arndale forms the heart of the city's shopping district. It boasts more than 240 retailers including Next and All Saints flagship stores. Hot high street fashion names such as Topshop, Oasis and Warehouse, stand next to cult independents like Superdry, G-Star, and Pulp with the latest music and pop culture fashions. It offers new concept stores from Puma and Disney as well as the UKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only Helly Hansen Store.

CENTRE OPENING HOURS Monday - Friday Saturday Sunday

9am - 8pm 9am - 7pm 10am - 6pm

Telephone: 0161 833 9851

the centre of the city

Shopping Spree When it comes to shopping, Manchester is hard to beat. Whatever style your heart is set on, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll find it here. The good thing is that most of the shops and quarters are within walking distance from each other, so it comes as no surprise that high-end shopping is just around the corner from vintage chic.

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To help you find your way around Manchester’s retail heaven here are our top tips on where to go...

High Street Heaven on Market Street In the heart of the city centre and car-free, Market Street couldn’t be a better place for high street shopping. Besides the likes of American Apparel and Urban Outfitters there is also the Manchester Arndale, a double layer of renovated loveliness stuffed to the rafters with big names including Topshop, Levis, Apple, Adidas and a huge Next. Situated in Exchange Square and next to the Wheel of Manchester is the Triangle Shopping Centre - the original Corn Exchange building which has been wonderfully resurrected and now houses a wide range of shops, cafés and restaurants.

Vintage and Vinyl in the Northern Quarter The Northern Quarter is packed with small and unusual shops and outlets, home to all sorts of oddities and quirky finds. Take Den, for example. It’s part gallery, part shop, showcasing not only its trademark bespoke furnishing but also selling a mish-mash of vintage homeware and decorations. Down the road you will find one of Manchester’s iconic shopping outlets. Opened in 1982 and still occupying the brightly decorated corner of Church Street and Tib Street, the legendary

Afflecks continues what it does best providing affordable outlets for independent designers and traders. Rags to Bitches - a vintage clothing boutique - offers gorgeous and unique vintage and hand-tailored clothes and accessories, while the Craft & Design Centre, housed in the beautifully restored former Victorian Fish and Poultry Market, is home to an array of artist-run studios offering the best in local design, jewellery, bags and accessories. There are also a handful of shop-cum-café places that are worth checking out, namely Café Pop, a vintage shop with a small downstairs café, and Oaklahoma, a bazaar of all things weird and wonderful including gifts and homeware and a quirky little eatery. For those who are on the hunt for rare vinyls and independent music, try the different record shops along Oldham Street such as Piccadilly Records and Vinyl Exchange.

Exclusive Shopping on King Street Exclusive King Street has been a place for prestigious retail therapy since the 19th Century and is now home to designer shops including Emporio Armani, Boss and Jaeger Ladieswear. Vivienne Westwood’s flagship store can be found at the top of King Street but it’s also worth visiting her

Anglomania Store on Bridge Street, the first of its kind to open in the UK. Just a short walk from here and you’ll find upmarket shopping at Harvey Nichols and Selfridges on Exchange Square.

Out of Town Shopping Further out of town but easily accessible by public transport and car (with the benefits of free car parking), The Trafford Centre is the place to go for your fashion fix. It is home to a whopping 230 stores and 60 restaurants, bars and cafés. Check out Barton Square with its flagship homeware outlets including Dwell, Habitat, M&S Home and British Home Stores. Over at Salford Quays, the fashion conscious should head to the Lowry Outlet Mall, Manchester’s only factory outlet shopping. Open seven days a week with prices up to 50% below the high street all year round, the Lowry Outlet Mall offers more than 260 brands at over 80 stores. These includ a Nike Factory Store, Flannels, Whistles as well as a choice of cafés and restaurants, entertainment, free shopper parking and a stunning Quayside location.

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Image: Bernard Sumner, New Order (6 February 1981) © Kevin Cummins

Pop Goes Manchester By Dave Haslam There’s a famous gig in Manchester – the Sex Pistols appearing at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in the Summer of 1976. Not much more than a few dozen people were there (among them, future members of the Smiths and Joy Division). What’s significant is how many of the audience went on from there to form bands, or establish record labels or clubs.

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That Sex Pistols gig specifically, and punk, generally, energised a generation of Manchester music fans and laid the foundations for what happened over the subsequent decade and a half, an era when bands like Joy Division, New Order, the Smiths, Happy Mondays, and the Stone Roses, and dance clubs like the Haçienda formed a focus for a Manchester so transformed by 1989 it was tagged ‘Madchester’. That was the most important legacy of punk; not the Mohican haircuts or the tabloid provocations, but the way punk encouraged participation. Richard Boon - the man behind the independent label New Hormones - remembers the time like this; “Part of my, and that punk rationale, was: make things happen. Make the place that you happen to be living in a place that you want to be living in.” In my book ‘Manchester, England’, I argue that one reason why the notion of creating your own culture struck such a chord in Manchester was that it connected with older traditions of independent thought and selforganisation in the city. Two hundred years ago, at the birth of Manchester during the industrial revolution, the rapidly growing city had no infrastructure - in terms of everything from a sanitation system to local governance - so the local citizenry made their own organisations, and understood self-reliance. The Free Trade Hall is a product of this; the original building was financed by an association of merchants known as the Anti-Corn Law League. Hedonism is also part of the city’s DNA; nowhere in the British Empire would you find workers who worked as hard or played as hard. Out one Sunday evening in 1849 Angus Bethune Reach reacted with both fear and exhilaration; “The public houses and gin shops were roaring full. The whole street rung with shouting, screaming and swearing, mingled with the jarring music of half a dozen bands”

It was perhaps a result of Manchester’s status as a trading city that when jazz music was arriving in Britain in the 1920s, Manchester accepted this American import with enthusiasm, and dancehalls multiplied throughout the city. Likewise, when rock & roll hit these shores, the city rocked around the clock. In the 1960s, Manchester bands took their cue from the Beatles and the music scene in that other great trading city in the North West of England, Liverpool. And when British bands invaded the American charts in a neat reversal of the way Britain had been importing American music for decades - a triumvirate of Manchester bands had massive success over there; Freddie & the Dreamers, Herman’s Hermits, and the Hollies. With full employment, great clubs like the Twisted Wheel, and the flair of George Best infecting the city, in the 1960s Manchester was a great place to be. Manchester wasn’t quite a music vacuum in the 1970s - the city being able to boast hits songs by Sweet Sensation and 10cc (among others) - but it was those post-punk acts who took British music onto another level. Ian Curtis, Mark E Smith, and Morrissey (of Joy Division, the Fall, and the Smiths respectively) revolutionised the vocabulary and scope of pop music and the music magnificently soundtrack a troubled time in the city’s history. The swinging Sixties had dissolved, but at least we had the music as the city disintegrated into post-industrial gloom. During the 1980s, cultural activists like Tony Wilson from Factory Records were establishing the city as a popular culture powerhouse. Factory, and their most successful band, New Order, opened a venue, the Hacienda in 1982; the club struggled as a live venue but blossomed in the rave era as we entered an era of superstar DJs and a new generation of Manchester bands emerged, like Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses, powered by a day-glo

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Images: below The Smiths (22 February 1985) Left Shaun Ryder of the Happy Mondays & Tony Wilson (November 1989) © Kevin Cummins

optimism that was a key factor in helping to convert social disintegration into cultural regeneration. In ‘Manchester, England’ I talked to representatives of enterprise teams and Government quangos charged with finding inward investment for Manchester and they admitted this was a huge challenge in the early 1980s but that the buzz created by popular culture in the ‘Madchester’ area suddenly started to open doors. The international profile of the city grew further in the early 1990s thanks to the pop success of bands like Simply Red and Take That. The landscape changed as clusters of bars and clubs opened in some of the city’s rundown areas, the gay community were out and proud in pioneering venues like Manto on Canal Street, students were applying to study in the city in record numbers; music had helped transform the built environment, the psyche of the city, the economy. Activity on the margins of the city is always worth exploring. That example of the Sex Pistols gig; this happens all the time, groups of people looking for something new, establishing the next wave. It was the same in 1998, in an unprepossessing Australian

theme bar on Peter Street where a few local musicians ran an acoustic night called ‘Gecko’. If you’d stumbled in there you’d have heard the likes of Badly Drawn Boy, I Am Kloot, and Elbow playing their first songs to a handful of people. Years later, Elbow are award-winning local heroes, lighting up the 2009 Manchester International Festival, and playing to over fifteen thousand people at the Manchester Evening News Arena. If Manchester was a giant school of rock not a fanciful idea when you think about it then the honours board detailing those who have made a contribution would be a huge list, but we can be assured there will be some new names soon, the next generation; Delphic, perhaps, or the Vortex, Airship, or Everything Everything. Popular culture has given Manchester a quality of life and a sense of pride, and Manchester has given bands inspiration to create. It’s one of the popular culture capitals of the world; fertile ground where great music grows.

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Walls of Sound Music has always been an important part of life in Manchester. Over the years, every genre imaginable has drawn a crowd: from classic performances of the Hallé Orchestra to the 60s ‘British Invasion Band’ Herman’s Hermit’s; Joy Divisions punk era; an 80s ‘Madchester’ scene; mid-90s Britpop from Oasis and even a viable attempt at hip-hop which carries on regardless from the ashes of a now deceased but never forgotten Grand Central records. Today, the city continues to build on its legacy with some world-class venues that play host to all kinds of musical styles. Here, we take a look at a handful of Manchester’s very best.

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The Bridgewater Hall Construction of The Bridgewater Hall commenced in 1993, but the idea of a new concert hall for Manchester dates back to the reconstruction of the Free Trade Hall in the 1950s after wartime damage. Despite holding great public affection, the 1850s hall was ill-equipped to respond to the rising standards of service and acoustic excellence demanded by performers and audiences. The cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s response was a new concert hall, the design of which was strongly informed by acoustic considerations. So much in fact, that the entire structure floats free of the ground on almost three hundred, earthquake-proof isolation bearings or giant springs. There is no actual rigid connection between the 22,500 ton building and its foundations. This ensures the hallâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s carefully designed acoustic is protected from all outside noise and vibration. Another interesting aspect of the hallâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design is that it is neither concrete nor steel-framed, but is mostly formed from solid, reinforced concrete, moulded and cast like a vast sculpture. This gives it the acoustic ideal of enormous density and mass. The remarkable roof appears to hover, weightless, above the building. With the opening of this magnificent venue, Manchester's civic and cultural history entered a dramatic new phase. For over 150 years, the city had an unrivalled tradition of fine civic building, of architectural and artistic patronage and of amateur and world-class professional music-making. The Bridgewater Hall continues and consolidates these traditions. For more information: www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk

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The Deaf Institute On Grosvenor Street, in the midst of Manchester’s student-friendly pubs, an elegant gothic revival building from 1877 stands proudly as the Deaf and Dumb institute. The former name is still engraved boldly into the stone above the main entrance. Trof, a small chain of established bars, set up their third venture here in 2007. They evaded controversy by going for the more music friendly name of ‘The Deaf Institute’ and within a relatively short period of time the building has become one of Manchester’s most sought after performance venues for both emerging and established artists. The building is split into three floors with the intimate and cosy top floor set up like a miniature theatre, with a sizable dancefloor, stage and seating area. Many of Manchester’s most favoured and cutting edge music events take place here on a regular basis, such as Akoustik Anarkhy, El Diablo’s Social Club, Now Wave and Chips with Everything. For more information: www.thedeafinstitute.co.uk

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Band on the Wall Almost everyone knows that Band on the Wall got its name because of the small stage high up on the wall that visiting musicians used to perform on. But less well known is that this internationally famous music venue began life as the George and Dragon pub back in 1803. Remnants from the beginning of the nineteenth century still exist in the cellars at the front of the building and can be seen in the layout of some of the internal walls. The building survived the bombings of world war two - with the band often carrying on playing during air-raids especially when the raids became more common. However, by the middle of the twentieth century the area was in decline and by the mid-1970s the George and Dragon was on its last legs. It was at this point the decision was taken to develop the old George and Dragon as a jazz venue, re-opening as such in 1975. Punk became the most popular music in the late 1970s and Mondays soon became known as New Manchester Review nights providing a focus and support for a local political and music magazine of the time. Bands who played under this title included John Cooper Clarke, The Passage, A Certain Ratio, Joy Division (who played the night they first got a syn-drum) The Fall, Buzzcocks, John the Postman and The Distractions. The last decade has seen a greater concentration on quality jazz performers and there has also been an increasing emphasis on bringing out new young talent. The venue re-opened in September 2009 following ÂŁ4 million redevelopment. For more information: www.bandonthewall.org

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Night & Day

Sankeys

Situated on Oldham Street, in the heart of the Northern Quarter, the Night & Day Café was established in 1991 as a fish and chip shop.

Sankeys was voted fifth best club in the world in DJ Magazine’s 2009 readers’ poll. The venue began life in 1994 as Sankeys Soap. The club is based on the edge of Manchester in Ancoats at the Beehive Mill; a building almost 200 years old and possibly one of the ‘dark satanic mills’ described by poet William Blake in his 1820 work ‘Jerusalem’. The nightclub took its name from the mill’s former incarnation as a soap factory. Over the years, Sankeys has hosted superstar DJs and internationally acclaimed acts including Pete Tong, Josh Wink, Francois K, Masters at Work, Chemical Brothers, DJ Hell, Groove Armada, Erick Morillo, Laurent Garnier, 2Many DJs, Carl Cox, Judge Jules, Erol Alkan and many, many more. The low ceilings and edgy atmosphere can make for an intense evening of clubbing, boosted in no small part by the ‘Phazon’ soundsystem, an internationally acclaimed audio installation designed by an ex-NASA engineer. In 2009, to celebrate its 15th birthday, Sankeys owner David Vincent introduced 15 significant upgrades to the nightclub which included barcode entrance technology, a beachclub, a cinema and an LED video wall with new lighting and lasers.

It is synonymous with the city’s music scene - even clocking up a name check in the US television series Lost as the place where the character Charlie Pace's band DriveSHAFT played their first gig. In the real world, Night & Day hosted early shows from the likes of Elbow and Badly Drawn Boy. More recently, the hallowed stage has hosted MGMT, The Enemy, Glasvegas and Little Boots. Live music takes place on a nightly basis as local rock n roll musicians find their feet, whilst the weekend hosts club nights and DJs until the early hours. For more information: www.nightnday.org

For more information: www.sankeys.info

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Chetham’s School of Music / Manchester Cathedral

The Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM)

Chetham’s is a prestigious training ground for young gifted musicians with genuine talent. Each year, there are approximately 290 students aged between eight and eighteen who study at the School of Music. Competition to gain a place at Chetham’s is understandably tough. In its own words the school educates only “the brightest young musicians based on their talent and potential, not background or ability to play”. Between September and June, visitors to Manchester can sample performances by the music school students at free lunchtime concerts which take place every weekday. The performances take place in the oldest existing buildings in Manchester, which date back to the medieval period. Entrance is free and no booking is required.

The RNCM was established in 1973 following the merger of the Royal Manchester College of Music with the Northern School of Music. It is one of the leading conservatoires in the world and is the only one to be given the award of a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Today, nearly 700 students from 50 countries are studying here for professional careers in music. Throughout its life the college has enjoyed strong royal connections - being opened by Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Kent and boasting Her Majesty The Queen as its patron. The Duchess of Kent maintains an active role with RNCM and serves today as the president of the college board.

In addition to the free afternoon performance, another great way of hearing the more traditional sounds on offer in Manchester is to head to the city’s cathedral for Evensong. Located next door to Chetham’s, the cathedral used to be a chantry chapel; in which masses were sung. It was said that this helped to speed the souls of the rich into heaven. Evensong, which usually takes place around 5.30pm on selected days during the week, as well as at weekends, is often a chance for the public to hear the Manchester Cathedral Choir. The choir consists of a group of students aged between eight and thirteen, from Chetham’s School. The Choir have created a number of recordings and have been featured in broadcasts on national television and radio. For more information: www.chethams.com www.manchestercathedral.org

The college’s four public venues host a performance programme that is unique in its range and quality, featuring a rolling programme of student performances alongside visiting artists and ensembles. For more information: www.rncm.ac.uk

The photographs taken at The Bridgewater Hall and the Royal Northern College of Music are used with the permission of William Ellis. Ellis’ work is exhibited at international music festivals and galleries in the UK and throughout the world. A long term project commissioned by the Bridgewater Hall will culminate in an exhibition at the Richard Goodall Gallery in Manchester’s Northern Quarter in Spring 2010. For details of exhibitions and portfolio visit www.william-ellis.com The photograph taken within Night & Day is the work of William’s son, Sam Ellis. For details and portfolio at www.samellisphoto.com

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Ones to watch In the last issue of MCR we asked local experts from the world of music, TV and literature to give us their top five ‘ones to watch’ for those interested in some cultural research before their visit. It was so popular, we’ve done it again. So here are some suggestions of how to get a glimpse into the spirit and soul of Manchester.

BANDS TO LISTEN TO Kelly Murray is a music journalist from Manchester. After graduating in 2006, she honed her skills writing for BBC Manchester and City Life. Today she writes for the NME and Tin Can, a new audio/visual website dedicated to music and culture. You can check out her music blog, Candid Fever, at www.tincan.tv. Here, she reveals her top five up and coming Manchester bands for you to keep an eye on.

1. Kong

Images: below Delphic right The Jessie Rose Trip

The best band to come out of Manchester in a long time. Kong play an experimental punk, avant-garde monster. A completely fascinating three piece, they take on alter egos and get away with crazy antics. Definitely a band’s band, not a media band; they can count The Bronx, Biffy Clyro and Future Of The Left as big fans, and yet every bit of press they’ve had in the nationals is a brilliant response to honest music that goes against the grain. The city should be proud.

2. Delphic Delphic have really come into their own this year, they’ve been knocking around Manchester for a little while, having built a great reputation for new era dance music inspired by the classics. They’re quite European-sounding and effortlessly cool without trying to be. At the end of the day, they make geek music - wires and buttons everywhere - but it’s accessible, making their gigs perfect for a club night.

3. Liz Green Liz Green is a real gem, one of those artists you’ll hear by word of mouth only to be left utterly charmed and completely smitten. Amongst the copycats and the mundane,

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Green’s acoustic folk is tailored by 1930s blues vocals, making her one of the most distinguished songwriters we’ve got. Not original by any means, but if you’re going to be inspired, be inspired by the best and create some individuality amongst the generic retro comeback.

4. The Jessie Rose Trip Led by 20-year-old Hendrix-loving Jessie of Mrs Merton country, that’s err, Heaton Mersey if you don’t know, this front lady wears brogues and slacks and plays the ukulele. She’s ace. Again, breaking the stereotypes of Mancunian music, TJRT bring much needed soul to the streets of our indie nation via powerful vocals and a mesmerising wardrobe. Feisty, raw and undeniably talented.

5. Kid British The equivalent to northern, working class comedy; not in an insulting way, but with linear lyrical themes, Kid British will make you giggle. They write about every day struggles in a somewhat clichéd, but effective manner. After all, we’ve all been lost in London, had rows about the heating or lack of paydays. They are signed to a major label, have brought reggae and ska onto daytime radio and these hip-hop rude boys recently supported The Specials.

BOOKS TO READ Zahid Hussain is a Manchester writer and poet whose first novel ‘The Curry Mile’ exposed the Machiavellian machinations of Manchester’s curry district. Zahid is also a former Northwest poetry performance champion and runs Manchester Muslim Writers - the UK’s first collective of writers of Muslim origin. Here he outlines five novels that provide an insight into Manchester’s rich cultural heritage.

Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange (1962)

Carol Birch Turn Again Home (2004)

Joe Pemberton Forever and Ever Amen (2000)

Anthony Burgess is a Manchester literary giant: his dystopian novel, A Clockwork Orange, remains his most enduring fictional work. The story is narrated through the eyes of anti-hero Alex, the leader of a sadistic gang. Society reforms Alex using an experimental brainwashing technique that renders him a pacifist and subsequently many past victims seek vengeance on him. When Alex’s conditioning is removed his natural self-development leads him to overcome his violent nature. At times an uncomfortable read, A Clockwork Orange continues to shock and provide insight into the human mind.

In Turn Again Home, Carol Birch charts three generations of a Manchester family without falling into the trap of sentimentality and banality. She weaves a narrative filled with the intricate and precisely observed details of every day life. It begins at the turn of the twentieth century and lights the lives of the Holloway family against a backdrop of the bold movements of history. Poignant and beautifully characterised, Turn Again Home is a novel that brings more than history to the reader.

Forever and Ever Amen is set in the 1960s and charts the life of James and his family who have migrated from St. Kitts in the Caribbean to Moss Side. There are wonderfully wrought descriptions and nuggets of witty observations. Forever and Ever Amen is joyful and sad, sprinkled with a black boy’s yearnings and despair. Joe Pemberton masterfully evokes the nostalgia of childhood and yet gives a unique insight into a part of Mancunian life that few will know, but many can treasure.

Cath Staincliffe, Blue Murder (2004) Billy Hopkins - Our Kid (2007) Our Kid is a coming-of-age and autobiographical tale dips into the pre-World War II era and beyond. Our Kid is a nostalgic read that is filled with the tonal quality of a long gone era that that will never return, but it also skilfully pushes back the clock and invokes the past one last time. Billy Hopkins provides a flavour of how Manchester’s communities helped to shape the city - and in turn how Manchester shaped the people that have inhabited it.

Cath Staincliffe is a prolific Manchester writer whose crime fiction has successfully made the leap to television. In Blue Murder DCI Janine Lewis, a single mother of three, has just become Manchester’s first detective chief inspector and is handed her first murder to investigate: the grisly killing of a deputy head teacher. Cath Staincliffe’s characterisation is modern and complex and she adroitly sidesteps cultural and social stereotypes and breathes life into a cliché-ridden genre. Easy reading that won’t leave you feeling empty.

Zahid Hussain’s novel The Curry Mile is set in Rusholme and uncovers the worlds of restaurant owner Ajmal Butt and his daughter, Sorayah Butt, as they lock horns and then become rivals on Manchester’s most competitive mile.

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FILMS & TV TO WATCH Dave Moutrey is Director and CEO of Cornerhouse. Dave has worked in the arts in Manchester for over 25 years and is a passionate advocate for the city’s arts and cultural scene. This is his list of Manchester on screen that gives you a view of how the city is and was but also what Manchester can do.

Gorillaz: Live in Manchester (2006) Filmed at Manchester Opera House as a Trailblazer for Manchester International Festival this is a record of an amazing event that captures Manchester’s love of great music, having a good time and taking the odd creative risk. Being there was amazing but this film is a very good second best.

A Kind Of Loving (DVD 1962) John Schlesinger Set in a ‘Northern Town’, aka Manchester this is an adaptation of Stan Barstow's best selling novel of the same name. One of the New Wave of British films in the 60’s it tells the story of a draughtsman who gets his girl friend pregnant and has to get married. If you want to see how much society and Manchester has changed this is a good one to watch. Great performances from Alan Bates; June Ritchie and Thora Hird.

Clocking Off (2000-03 TV series) This is an interconnected series of dramas about employees at a Manchester textile factory that focuses on the home life of a different character in each episode. Produced by Red, a Manchester based production company, and filmed on location in Greater

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Manchester this not only shows a huge slice of Northern Life it is also a great platform for Manchester based production, writing and acting talent (in particular Nichola Schindler and Paul Abbott)

Control (2007) Anton Corbijn Another music film, but what would you expect in Manchester. Control is the story of Joy Division from their beginning until the untimely and tragic death of Ian Curtis. Although it was not filmed in Manchester this is a fantastic evocation of the city at that time. Amazing performances for Sam Riley as Ian Curtis and Samantha Morton as Deborah Curtis.

State of Play (2003) David Yates Brilliantly written by Paul Abbot this is a breathtaking thriller set in Westminster. If you watch the 6 episodes as a DVD box set make sure you have 6 hours to spare as this is the TV equivalent of a page turner, you will have to know what happens in the next instalment. Not only was it written by a Manc, (well Burnley really but he has written for Coronation Street and conceived/wrote Shameless so that counts as naturalization) parts of it were filmed in the House of Commons set at Granada TV.

Cornerhouse is Greater Manchester’s international centre for contemporary visual arts and film. It presents a year round programme of cultural film and high quality art exhibitions. To find out more visit www.cornerhouse.org

Manchester after dark 24 Hour Party People is more to Manchester than just the name of the Happy Monday’s song and the film that documents the infamous ‘Madchester’ period of the late eighties and early nineties – it has become something of a personal mantra for the city. On the following pages we’ve outlined just four of the many nightlife itineraries that might take your fancy once the sun goes down.

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Check-in at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel - a fivestar retreat in the former Free Trade Hall building. Peter St. www.radissonedwardian.com/manchester

Culture Vultures

Dinner for two atThe French - the double AA Rosette award winning restaurant at The Midland Hotel. Peter St. www.qhotels.co.uk

Enjoy a performance of Manchesterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world famous HallĂŠ Orchestra at The Bridgewater Hall. Lower Mosley St. www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk

End the night with cocktails in Opus One back at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel. Peter St. www.radissonedwardian.com/manchester

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Check-in at Velvet Manchester - a 19-bed boutique hotel in the heart of the village. 2 Canal St. www.velvetmanchester.com

Start the night in Taurus – the community bar at the start of the gay ‘strip’. 1 Canal St. www.taurus-bar.co.uk

The Gay Village

Out on the street. Enjoy drinks in the bars along Canal Street: Queer, Churchills, View Bar, Via Bar, The Rembrandt, Eden, Spirit and The New Union.

End the night with drinks in Vanilla, the city’s most popular lesbian bar. 39 - 41 Richmond St. www.vanillagirls.co.uk

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Get the best of both worlds at the Castlefield Hotel, with views of the picturesque canal basin and just a stoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s throw from the busy lights of Deansgate. Liverpool Road, Castlefield. www.castlefield-hotel.co.uk

A short walk to the delights of Oxford Road - a hive of activity from bars, restaurants, cinema and clubs.

The Independent Traveller Catch a film at Cornerhouse - Manchester's international centre for contemporary visual arts and film. 70 Oxford St.

www.cornerhouse.org

Taste real ale at the Lass Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Gowrie - one of the city's most famous, traditional pubs. With nine local ales on sale at any one time, you will be spoilt for choice! 36 Charles Street.

www.thelass.co.uk

Dance the night away at Pure Space. 11-13 New Wakefield St. www.purespacecafebar.co.uk

Drop into the Danish KRO 2 bar and restaurant a popular spot for many along Oxford Road.

www.kro.co.uk

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A stylish home from home: the five-star Lowry Hotel. 50 Dearmans Place. www.roccofortecollection.com

The City Breaker Start the night with drinks overlooking the city from the stylish surroundings of Cloud 23 - the bar at the top of the Hilton Manchester Deansgate. 303 Deansgate.

www.cloud23bar.com

Dinner for two at Panacea Bar & Restaurant - a sophisticated playground in the heart of the city. 14 John Dalton St.

www.panaceamanchester.co.uk

Hedge your bets in Manchester235 - the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very own Las Vegas-style casino. The Great Northern, Watson St. www.manchester235.com

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Manchester Voices

Irene Khan

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Why did you decide to study at the University of Manchester? The University of Manchester is a great university and was one of the first to introduce courses on civil liberties within the faculty of Law. (In the 1970’s) The city was not as appealing as it is nowadays, but from a student perspective the university lay in the heart of a vibrant city with a rich industrial past, not far from the deprived areas and the inner city, so student life was not played out within an ‘Ivory Tower’.

Irene Zubaida Khan became the seventh Secretary General for Amnesty International when she joined in 2001. She is the first woman, first Asian and first Muslim to lead the world’s largest human rights organisation. She first came to Manchester in 1978 to study law at the University of Manchester and has recently returned to the city to take up the post of chancellor at the neighbouring University of Salford. Here, Irene explains her passion for the city of Manchester.

Do you think Manchester’s radical spirit has helped to nurture the activist within you? It was while at university that I became actively engaged in human rights issues at that time - the anti-apartheid movement and the Portuguese military dictatorship - and the city of Manchester has always had an activist student population. Throughout your extremely busy career, you’ve managed to keep returning to Manchester, what is it about the city that draws you back? I have learnt a lot while being in this city, a city with a cosmopolitan nature and multicultural identity. It is a city that constantly changes, revives itself, and the reconstruction after the mid-nineties bombing particularly inspires me.

You have been appointed as the new Chancellor of the University of Salford. Why would you encourage new students to take up their education in Salford? The University of Salford serves a multiethnic community within Greater Manchester, linking student life to the existing population. The University has begun a new academic emphasis on racism and human rights, and scholars at risk. Not only this but it has one of the best schools in social work, and has strong links to the new MediaCityUK. Out of all the things you can do here, what would you personally recommend for visitors to Manchester? I was in Manchester at the beginning of July and was really impressed with the restoration and rebuilding of the Roman and Victorian architecture of the inner city. A walk down by the canal when the sun is shining can make the city feel almost Mediterranean. My favourite ways to pass the time in Manchester would be a walk around the restored city, take part in the Manchester International Festival, have a meal at Albert’s Shed, followed by a visit to the theatre at the Royal Exchange.

One of the best examples of a local campaign for equality is the Manchester Pride festival. Have you had chance to check it out yet? Not yet - but it is great that the city recognises its peoples identity in all forms and embraces the expression of such identities.

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Streets ahead As Manchester changes, so too has the city’s soap incarnation. By Andy Baker When Coronation Street was conceived in 1960, it put the Manchester area firmly on the television map. The most watched TV show in British history, is set in the heart of Greater Manchester on a back-street in fictional Weatherfield. Loosely based on Salford, the soap and the lives of the characters have always remained rooted in the shadow of the nearby city, and just as Manchester continues to evolve, so too has the show. In 2008 it was announced that storylines were in place to extend the set. Alongside the traditional cobbled street, with its pub, corner shop and knickers factory, a development of swanky city-centre style apartments was to be erected by local entrepreneur Tony Gordon (known to devoted fans as the cold-blooded killer of hunky Liam Connor). With balconies, open-plan living and city views, the flats are a far cry from the two-up, two-down dwellings on the cobbles that have been home to the likes of Elsie Tanner, Ken Barlow and Jack Duckworth over the decades. No stone-cladding on these apartments, they are reserved exclusively for only the show’s upwardly mobile characters like Luke Strong, or the mid-life crisis stricken Dev Alahan. It’s a move symbolic of the show’s continued attention to local changes. As the years roll on and Manchester grows and redefines itself, the street follows closely. The biggest and most defining changes to the set occurred in 1990 when ‘the posh side of the street’ (Sally Webster’s words) was built on

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Norris proudly promoted the sporting event, which was being held in the city for the very first time. The cast even filmed scenes at the City of Manchester Stadium, to air as the games were screened. Other local landmarks and buildings have featured too, such as Sarah Platt’s departure from Piccadilly station, Steve and Karen’s engagement at the Castlefield marina and Richard Hillman’s attempt to kill the Platt family by driving them at full speed into one of the city’s canals.

the site of the old Mission Hall and caretaker’s flat. Coronation Street was no longer occupied by factory workers and their flat-cap wearing other halves, it had been infested with ‘yuppies’ - like Des Barnes. Recognising the diverse population of Manchester, the show started to film much more on location from this point, incorporating real events and landmarks into the storylines. Characters no longer stayed confined to the then-Granada studios and were often found filming in the city centre. The writers even took a stab at weaving the 90s ‘Madchester’ era into the show when Tracy Barlow’s penchant for house music led her to a rave at which she experimented with ecstasy – the consequences of which led to the need of a kidney transplant. Sadly, we never got to see mum Deirdre shake her maracas with Bez. Producers have always been aware of including big events in to the show. Local busybody Norris Cole threw himself into the preparations for Manchester’s hosting of the Commonwealth Games back in 2002, taking up a job as a steward for the event. For weeks

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Images this page: top Coronation Street hits Canal Street above Norris volunteers for the Commonwealth Games

Storylines took Corrie away from the Rovers Return and in to Manchester’s vibrant gay scene in 2003 when student Todd Grimshaw embarked on an affair with nurse Karl Foster. The show, keen to inject some realism in to the storyline, braved the crowds of Canal Street to film the shocking moment that Todd first kissed Karl, narrowly missed by his fiancée Sarah Platt. The storyline also heralded the introduction of the show’s longest serving gay character Sean Tully. Played by Antony Cotton, fresh from his role on Queer As Folk, Sean brought Canal Street to the Rovers when he

was installed as the pub’s first gay barman. The show has regularly returned to filming in the clubbing area, but has recently made the decision to build its own ‘Canal-esque’ gay club to incorporate an upcoming storyline that would rely too heavily on location shoots. Just as Manchester has built up a reputation as a shopping mecca, characters with cash don’t stay confined to spending their dough on sherbet lemons at the Kabin either. After some of the designer department stores opened in Exchange Square, shoe-loving Karen McDonald was first in the queue. Crowds nearly stopped filming of scenes where husband Steve attempted to curb his wife’s credit-card massacre. As much as Manchester is vital to Corrie, the show itself has become an icon of the area too. Every year a group of fans from Canada, where Coronation Street maintains a huge following, descend upon the city on their annual trip to honour the show with a tour of the set. Based just a short walk from the city centre, the studios themselves are these

days an uninvited tourist attraction, where fans gather at the gates to get a glimpse at the cast. For as much as Coronation Street would not exist in a world without Manchester, the soap has become one of the city’s most iconic features too. But as the soap strives to develop and move with the changing face of the city, one fixture of the show will never be modernized: its cobbles. In 2000, as part of a storyline to celebrate the show’s 40th anniversary, the cobbles were under threat from evil tarmacing plans, keen to bring the street in line with the rest of Greater Manchester where cobbles are as much a thing of the past as outdoor toilets. In a symbolic gesture of solidarity, the live birthday episode saw residents uniting in a protest to keep Corrie cobbled, and won. A modern Manchester is something the soap might be keen to fit in to, but some things will never change. Images this page: top The Coronation Street set above Sarah and Jason at Manchester Piccadilly

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DIGITAL REVOLUTION Brendan Dawes is the creative director for magneticNorth, an interactive design company based in Manchester. Ever since his first experiences with the humble ZX81 (one of the first â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; computers) back in the early eighties, Brendan has continued to explore the interplay of people, code, design and art. In 2009 he was listed among the top twenty web designers in the world by .Net magazine and was featured in the "Design Icon" series in Computer Arts. Here, Brendan talks about how new media is catching up with all of us - whether we like it or not.

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It was one of those things you never forget. One of those events when you remember were you where when you “heard the news”; kind of like when JFK was shot or when Elvis died. The “where” in this case was Manchester Airport’s terminal 3, waiting to board a plane to Athens with my wife Lisa. As we sat there unaware that the week ahead would reveal Athen’s taxi drivers to have not yet caught on to the idea of “taking paying customers to a destination” like the rest of the world, Lisa uttered the words that would forever be imprinted on my memory – “I think I’d like one of those Nintendo DS thingies”. For a short while time seemed to stand still as I tried to make sense of what she’d just said. My wife, a self confessed techno-phobe (apart from the ubiquitous mobile phone), someone who would never think of playing any kind of video game and who regularly tells me “she doesn’t do space things” or anything vaguely science-fiction like, had just said she’d like to own a games console. Was this some kind of sick joke? Had my wife been taken over in a Stepfordesque way overnight? Maybe it was some kind of sign that the end of the world was truly nigh. If so, could I get the money back I’d spent on the week in Athens before the fateful event? As it turns out the world wasn’t ending and there had been no overnight brain transplant. But those words, and the subsequent purchase of the “Nintendo DS thingie”, which Lisa now carries around in her handbag alongside her Dior mascara, tissues, phone, address book and whatever else, meant something was happening. The contents of my wife’s handbag was suddenly very interesting to me not because I’ve got a weird bag fetish but because as someone who makes a living as an interaction designer the fact that this hi-tech piece of plastic had a permanent place amongst Lisa’s other essential everyday items was really significant. Here was a sophisticated device,

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a “computer”, a “games console” that used an innovative (at the time) touch screen interface but yet felt so invaluable day-today that Lisa deemed it worthy to take up valuable space in her already full bag. This wasn’t someone who loved to play games, or someone who had a history buying the latest must-have gadgets. This was my “don’t do space things” wife. It was then I realised more than ever that these digital objects, these interactive screens, were now a part of our everyday lives; a constant in the flow of the everyday. And things are changing because of them. Just take a train journey, or any public transport for that matter, look up from your own screen for a few minutes and make a moment to fully take in how many people are interacting with some kind of digital “thing”. Yes there’s the all pervasive (or is that intrusive) mobile phone, the iPod and the myriad of portable game consoles, but now we also have the so called smart phones, with Apple’s iPhone being the poster child of this new shiny must-have-tech. Now as someone who my mum would describe as “good with computers”, but mainly because my job involves me playing with all this digital stuff for a living, I’m what so called marketeers call “an early adopter”, meaning I’m a sucker for any new technology – the polar opposite of Lisa. So having been wedded to my iPhone for what seems like an age now, it’s become as invaluable to me as any handbag, though I like to think of it more as a digital Swiss army knife rather than a handbag – for one thing it’s just a bit more macho. But calling an iPhone a phone is a bit of a misnomer. In my opinion the iPhone is 1% hardware and 98% software. One minute it is indeed a phone, the next it’s my morning newspaper. A touch of the screen later it’s a movie player, a book, a camera, a web browser a notepad, a handheld video

camera, a restaurant guide and a billion other things besides – even a spirit level. It’s changed the way I work. It’s changed the way I get information. Traveling into the city everyday I can quickly check the train times (there’s an app for that) without having to consult a screen on the platform. There isn’t one anyway, and even if there was surely I should be able to consult my own personal screen with information seemingly grabbed out of the air rather than one big fixed social screen that I then have to trawl through to find the station I’m heading to? But so called “early adopters” such as myself change nothing. If these devices stayed purely the domain of cool-gadget fans then we wouldn’t find train carriages awash with more tech than your local branch of Dixons. For the everyday to change these new devices need to become the everyday. Paradoxically when technology works well it should become invisible; part of the background of how we live and play. This is absolutely how it should be – just something we do without thinking about it. Change is happening not because of people like me, but ultimately because of people like Lisa. It’s changing how we communicate with each other, how we receive and digest information, how we interact with services and even how we interact with cities and the places we live. And yes. Lisa has an iPhone. www.brendandawes.com

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Manchester Art Gallery Mosley Street, Manchester M2 3JL T. +44 (0)161 235 8888 www.manchestergalleries.org

Manchester Art Gallery is one of the city’s most popular attractions. The collections include world famous Pre-Raphaelite paintings and a Manchester themed gallery of art and design. Visitors can relax in the cafe or browse in the gallery shop. Families are welcome too. Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism 26 September - 10 January Angels of Anarchy is the first major exhibition in Europe to explore the crucial role that women artists played in the surrealist art movement. Enjoy 150 paintings, photographs, sculptures and surreal objects by three generations of artists from around the world, including Frida Kahlo, Lee Miller and Meret Oppenheim. Tickets £6 (£4 concs, under 18s and Manchester Art Gallery Friends free) To find out more and book tickets see www.angelsofanarchy.org.uk Exhibition supported by the Northwest Development Agency, the Zochonis Charitable Trust, Manchester Art Gallery Trust, MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University and The Granada Foundation.

Entry to Manchester Art Gallery is free (excluding Angels of Anarchy exhibition)

On being an Angel #1 (detail), 1977, Francesca Woodman. Courtesy of George and Betty Woodman and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York.

Open: Tuesday - Sunday (and Bank Holiday Monday 28 December), 10am - 5pm. Closed: Mondays (except Bank Holidays) and 24 - 26 December, 31 December and 1 January.

MOSI (Museum of Science & Industry)

WINNER MANCHESTER TOURISM AWARDS 09

Liverpool Road, Castlefield, Manchester, M3 4FP T. +44 (0)161 832 2244 www.mosi.org.uk

One of Manchester’s top attractions, MOSI is located on the site of the world’s oldest surviving passenger railway station. Five listed buildings house many lively and interactive exhibitions, showcasing the North West’s industrial, scientific and social achievements. Da Vinci - The Genius 14 November 2009 - 13 June 2010 Get inside the mind of one of the most extraordinary artists and scientists in the world. This fascinating exhibition explores the genius behind Da Vinci's amazing inventions, drawings and paintings, including giant original colour and infra-red versions of the Mona Lisa. Da Vinci’s genius ideas - some of which were hundreds of years ahead of their time - are also brought to life in 65 hand-crafted, large-scale machines. Inventions such as the tank, helicopter and parachute have been created by Italian artisans, using his original notes and designs. This exhibition has been created by Grande Exhibitions, the Anthropos Foundation, Italy and Pascal Cotte, France. Official exhibition sponsor, Radisson Edwardian, Manchester.

Free entry to Main Museum Admission charges apply to Da Vinci - The Genius www.ticketmaster.co.uk Open daily 10.00am - 5.00pm (except 24 - 26 Dec & 1 Jan 2010)

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CITY OF ANGELS?

From phantasmagoric art to cinematic breakfasts; from Pollock’s prints to great British grub; from hot curry houses to underground raves: Manchester has all the ingredients for the perfect city break. Uncover the galleries, museums, shows, bars, boutiques and restaurants that are distinctly, uniquely Mancunian. Download your free city guides now.

Manchester’s guide for the creative tourist

People’s History Museum Left Bank, Spinningfields, Manchester M3 3ER T. +44 (0)161 838 9190 www.phm.org.uk

Due to re-open in early 2010 after a £12.3 million re-development project, the People’s History Museum tells the dramatic story of the fight for democracy in this country. There have always been ideas worth fighting for - come and find out more about this story. Visit the Grade II listed Pump House restored to its former glory and now joined by a spectacular new extension using the striking material Cor-Ten. Carried Away Early 2010 - Summer 2010 The first changing exhibition will take a sideways look at protest over the last 100 years featuring people protesting about a variety of different causes and being ‘carried away’ by the authorities. FREE entry. Open daily 10.00am - 5.00pm (except 24, 25, 26 Dec, 1 Jan & Good Friday)

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Imperial War Museum North

WINNER MANCHESTER TOURISM AWARDS 09

The Quays, Trafford Wharf Road, Manchester, M17 1TZ T. +44 (0)161 836 4000 www.iwm.org.uk/north

The multi-award winning Imperial War Museum North is a great free day out for all ages. Designed by world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind to represent a globe shattered by conflict, it reveals how war shapes lives through powerful exhibitions, the Big Picture (a 360 degree light and sound show), tours, object handling sessions, and family activities. Visit the cafe, shop and viewing platform offering views over The Quays. Open 7 days a week. 10am - 6pm (closes 5pm Nov-Feb) Free entry.

John Ryland’s Library 150 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 3EH, England t. +44 (0)161 306 0555 www.manchester.ac.uk/library

Experience the Gothic splendour of one of Manchester’s most beautiful buildings and discover the library’s world famous collections through themed displays and hands-on activities. Enjoy a full and inspiring programme of exhibitions, talks, and family events throughout the year. Entry to the library and all exhibitions is free, and there is a fabulous café and gift shop to enjoy during your visit.

Visit The Quays, Greater Manchester’s unique waterfront destination and discover a world of entertainment and leisure on your doorstep. Internationally renowned venues, dazzling architecture, superb shopping and world-class sport all combine to create the perfect day out. In fact, there’s so much to see, why not make a weekend of it? Our partner hotels are within easy walking distance of the attractions and a short tram ride from Manchester city centre. Weekend breaks start from just £49.00 per night! Plan your visit today – call Salford Tourist Information Centre on 0870 420 4145 or visit the website where you can also sign up for special offers.

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ster ManCculthuere Trails Urban

Did you know that Manchester is where the legendary Sex Pistols concert took place which started the punk rock movement, where the oldest known piece of the New Testament is archived or where the modern theatre movement started? Want to ďŹ nd out more? Discover Manchesterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s art, music and culture scene and explore the city at your own pace through one of the self-guided tours!

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THECOMEDYSTORE

Arches 3 & 4 Deansgate Locks, Whitworth Street West, Manchester M1 5LH T: 0161 839 9595 E: manchester@thecomedystore.co.uk www.thecomedystore.co.uk

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Stunning countryside, historic gems

A place to relax and unwind

Rochdale

Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s another side to Greater Manchester visitrochdale.com T: 01706 924928

Hollingworth Lake, ©Phil Long

Rochdale North of Manchester, at the foot of the Pennines, you’ll find Rochdale an area with a fascinating history, fine architecture and wild, breathtaking countryside. It makes for a great day out from Manchester and so we’ve pulled together a list of things you absolutely must see during a visit.

The Baum Pub Rochdale’s ‘hidden gem’ The Baum Pub lies just next door to the Co-op Museum. This cosy place was CAMRA Pub of the Year 2009 and serves a wealth of refreshments and home-cooked food all day. Try a beer from Rochdale’s Pictish Brewery, awarded Best Beer Brewed in Greater Manchester 2008.

The Rochdale Pioneers Museum

A must-do for music lovers...

Rochdale is the birthplace of the modern co-operative. In 1844, a handful of labourers set up The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers and formed a set of ideals that paved the way for the subsequent international co-operative movement. The museum is on the site of the world’s first co-operative shop, set up by the pioneers, No 31 Toad Lane. Today there are 700 million members in 100 countries and cooperation is even known as ‘Rochdale’ in many parts of the world.

Rochdale was instrumental in the early ‘Madchester’ Music era. Bands such as Joy Division and, later, New Order used recording studios in the town to make their music. Most notably, the Cargo Studios on Kenion street was the site of the recording of Joy Division singles Atmosphere and Love Will Tear Us Apart. The bands were regulars at the San Remo coffee shop on Drake Street, pop in for a slice of history!

The Town Hall A trip to Rochdale should include the magnificent Town Hall. This grand, grade 1 Victorian building is a neo-Gothic masterpiece set on The Esplanade. Considered one of the finest municipal buildings in the country, it is still in use as a town hall, but call in advance and you might be lucky enough to see inside. Rumour has it that Adolf Hitler was so taken by the building he planned to move it brick by brick to Germany, had he won the war.

Rochdale’s Pioneers Museum

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HEROES, LEGENDS AND THE GREATEST FOOTBALL STORY EVER TOLD.

Every day is a great day at Old Trafford. On match day there’s no better experience than watching your modern day heroes in their quest for silverware whilst enjoying world-class hospitality. Or you can immerse yourself in the legacy and legend of Manchester United on every non-match day by taking a glance behind the scenes of the world’s greatest football club at our captivating Museum & Tour Centre. For a truly great day out call 0161 868 8000, email hospitality@manutd.co.uk or tours@manutd.co.uk

Manchester: the perfect pitch By Ian Herbert, sportswriter, The Independent

For an idea of how passionate Manchester is about its football, consider the story of an advertising billboard and three words which, to those uninitiated in the city’s intense sporting religion, will read like a fairly uninspired message to tourists. ‘Welcome to Manchester ’ proclaimed the billboard placed on the city’s central thoroughfare, Deansgate, this summer. But the accompanying image was of Carlos Tevez, the Argentine striker who had just defected from Manchester United to play for Manchester City. The mischievous inference of the hoarding was one that long-suffering City fans love throwing at mighty United: Tevez had joined the club who some might say represent the real soul of Manchester - City - and had left a global sporting phenomenon, its shirts worn by fans from Thailand to Timbuktu, who do not - United.

I was in South Africa, covering City’s pre-season tour, when word arrived that United fans had attempted to deface the poster with red paint and there were some wicked smiles from the City executives present when it was reported that the offenders’ ladders had not stretched high enough to make a serious impact. A few days later, United’s manager Sir Alex Ferguson, whose Vesuvian explosions are known among the football fraternity as the ‘hairdryer,’ delivered the riposte. They are a “small club with a small mentality,” he fumed, about City. “All they can talk about is Manchester United.”

Welcome to a new era; one in which Manchester’s passion for football has been taken to new levels. City, whose years without a trophy is marked by a banner at the famous Stretford End at MUFC’s Old Trafford ground (34 is the current tally), have been acquired by wealthy Abu Dhabi owners, prompting a spending splurge on players which offers them the chance to compete at last. Though United have not always been the top dogs - City bailed them out during the Red Devils’ dark days in the middle of the last century - the novelty is an extraordinary one. To the so-called Theatre of Dreams, the Old

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Trafford stadium where a permanent memorial tunnel was created last year to the 23 lives lost in the Munich air disaster which has come to define United, City anticipate regularly filling a sporting Mecca of their own in the City of Manchester stadium, built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games. Manchester also has its eye on a new sporting horizon, which will enable it to harness the footballing passion which George Best and Bobby Charlton engendered and Cristiano Ronaldo and Robinho have maintained. England is bidding to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022 and Manchester - naturally - wants to be one of the host cities. To do so it must demonstrate, along with the other 15 cities and one town (Milton Keynes) who are bidding that its population have embraced the idea. England ’s Football Association, which wants host city bids in by 6 November and will announce on 14 December which have been successful, need only travel to United’s Carrington training ground as I do each Friday, to see how World Cup matches would be received here. The narrow approach lane is always lined with fans, desperate for just a glimpse of their heroes. But a city which considers itself Britain's football capital - the BBC’s decision to relocate the HQ of its sport operation from London to MediaCityUK at neighbouring Salford Quays from 2011 has only reinforced that notion - is gathering more than circumstantial evidence. It has employed a World Cup coordinator (now there’s a job for any Mancunian to die for!), recruiting Clodagh Buckley from the Manchester International Festival - the biennial event dedicated to premiere performances which has brought in £35.7m of revenue in this, its second year. (More evidence of Manchester’s love of putting on a show.) The fruits of her labours include the new website www.manchesterworldsport.com which offers a way to pledge support and Manchester being the kind of sporting place it is, the 3,000 pledges already received have come - literally - from East Didsbury to East Timor, Denton to Denmark.

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Images this page: top Old Trafford Stadium below Manchester United players celebrate Images facing page: top England fans outside the City of Manchester Stadium below Inside the City of Manchester Stadium

The site is already encouraging more sporting participation, too. “It’s not just about staging football and the direct economic benefits that brings (the 2006 World Cup brought £1.8bn into the German host cities’ economy) but about the wider effects it will have on real people here and real communities,” Buckley says.

The 2002 Commonwealth Games showed what these might be. We have the Manchester Velodrome, to the east of City’s stadium, without which the golden generation of competitors, including Sir Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins and Victoria Pendleton, might not have flourished at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The regeneration benefits for east Manchester, once one of Manchester’s poorest areas, are also self evident and scattered around the city are the 10,000 individuals who trained as volunteers for the Games. “Once again, our bid is about getting children more interested in sport, providing a better infrastructure and nicer places in which to live” Buckley says. This is one campaign which transcends loyalties to United and City, red and blue. The host city bid team has enlisted Mike Summerbee, part of the legendary City team who collected four trophies between in the late 1960s - and Bryan Robson, Old Trafford legend of the 1980s and early 1990s - to help jointly promote the bid. Local clubs including Stockport County, Rochdale, Oldham Athletic, Bolton Wanderers, Bury and Altrincham will play their part too - encouraging their own supporters to back the city’s bid. There is no doubt that Old Trafford would attract bigger crowds to 2018 World Cup games than it did back in the 1966 finals, when the rather uninspiring Group 3 fixtures it was allocated, involving Portugal, Bulgaria and Hungary, attracted 37,000 at best. And whilst it’s one of only two English stadia besides Wembley with the current capacity to stage a World Cup semi final, City will want a serious piece of the action, too. An act of union between clubs this might be just now, but soon they will be fighting their own battles once more. FIFA will reveal the host nation in December 2010. For more information: www.manchesterworldsport.com

MANCHESTER HOST CITY BID

England’s 2018 FIFA World Cup Bid Pledge your support for Manchester www.manchesterworldsport.com

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Manchester Voices

Brian Cox Brian Cox is a professor of particle physics at The University of Manchester. Whilst studying at Manchester University he played keyboard in the 90’s UK pop band D:Ream. He is well known as a keen advocate of all things science related, with regular appearances on national television. Today, his work includes a role in one of the most topical science projects of recent years - the Large Hadron Collider at CERN - the world’s largest particle physics lab near Geneva in Switzerland. John Dalton, the father of modern atomic theory, did much of his pioneering work in Manchester and Ernest Rutherford famously split the atom here in 1917. With your research into particle physics, you may one day be recognised as following in their footsteps. Have you been inspired by the city’s background in scientific research? Absolutely. Manchester has an astonishing record where physics is concerned. For me, it was visiting Jodrell Bank (the UK's national radio astronomy facility in Cheshire) so often as a child that got me hooked. But in those days it was more astronomy than physics. The thought that there was this telescope that could see to the edge of the universe sat in a field in Cheshire was amazing. It was definitely the biggest inspiration to me as a child. Can you give us an insight into your field of work and particularly any exciting developments or breakthroughs that have occurred in Manchester over the recent years?

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That would definitely be our contribution to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. We’ve helped to build Atlas – the digital camera that will photograph the particle collisions that CERN hopes will unveil new information in the field of particle physics. The camera should show us what the universe was like one billionth of a second after the big bang. It’s 40 metres wide by 20 metres high and weighs 7,000 tonnes - so no small project by any means. How intense is the competition to CERN? There’s a project in Chicago called Tevatron which is quite similar. It’s technically a smaller project but they’ve been going for ten years so they might produce results before CERN does. Having said that, there are two academics from Manchester working on it, so I guess we’ve got both ends covered! Is there any substance behind the more adventurous theories that CERN might cause earth to implode into a black hole, open up a portal for time travel, or send us into another dimension?

That’s an easy answer. No. It’s incredible the amount of crap that gets out there just because some maniacs have computers with access to the internet. They’ll have something new to talk about soon enough – spacecraft, or something like that. Back to Manchester... would there be any particular reason(s) that you would recommend the city as a place of study for potential students? There are lots of reasons! It’s one of the biggest campuses in Europe and the facilities reflect that. Everything a student could possibly want is here. It’s already in the premier league as far as universities are concerned - what it needs to do now is challenge the established centres of Harvard, Stamford, Oxford and Cambridge for similar recognition. How about Manchester as a leisure destination? As a former band member, do you still get a chance to appreciate or even get involved with the city’s music scene? The city’s music heritage is unquestioned. As Liverpool dominated the UK’s music scene in the 60’s, Manchester did so in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. As someone who grew up in Manchester in the 80’s I can vouch for the level to which the music scene dominated everything about the city. It’s the lifeblood of Manchester. You’re a keen advocate of all things science related. How can people in Manchester, including those visiting for the very first time, get a taste for the subject? Jodrell Bank would be my biggest recommendation. It’s amazing. Take a look on the website for more information: www.jodrellbank.manchester.ac.uk Also, it’s worth keeping an eye on the university website for their public events. They’re very popular so make sure to look in advance! Tell us something about Manchester that we might not know! The Geiger counter (a scientific instrument that measures radiation), was born in Manchester. Hans Geiger was working with Ernest Rutherford here at the University of Manchester when they invented it in 1909.

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Images: top Clarence Mill by the Macclesfield Canal below Decorative Silk at the Silk Museum, Macclesfield Right page The Anson Engine Museum

King Cotton By Alice Ferguson Alice Ferguson has spent the last 25 years working in tourism and most of those writing about the North of England. It all started when she went to work for the little independent museum trust that first opened the museum at Quarry Bank Mill in Styal.

More than 150 years after the warp and weft of the Industrial Revolution wove England’s Northwest into a hotspot of the global textile industry, Alice Ferguson finds its legacy alive and well in the sights, sounds and transport network of the 21st century. I know I’m not as young as I used to be when I am asked to write about Industrial Heritage. I am proud to have frequented the Haçienda, Berlin and Band on the Wall - first time round - in the very early 80s. I still love my forays into Manchester but these days I’m more likely to be heading for The Bridgewater Hall, the RNCM, the Cornerhouse, the Royal Exchange Theatre or the Lowry. Dinner at the Market followed by a late night in Matt & Phreds is about as daring as we get. And when I shop I want to do so amid truly grand architecture, beneath open skies and within walking distance of the Art Gallery for respite. There is a point to this pre-amble. My own passion is for music and art, so what does Industrial Heritage really mean to me? Well, call me old-fashioned - or just call me old but suddenly it matters to me what this building was originally put there for, or how that building came by its name. I want the stories behind the cultural, creative, commercial face of today’s Manchester. Once I start on this train of thought, the industrial heritage of this region provides a rich layer of beauty and inspiration. And whichever thread I follow I always come back to textiles, the product that fuelled the great Manchester powerhouse.

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One of my favourite journeys is by bike, south from Marple into Cheshire along the Middlewood Way - a 10-mile traffic free route along a disused railway line that was built in the 1860s to serve the cotton mills along its way. We're heading for Macclesfield, to the Silk Museum. But there are a few essential stopping-off points first - the Anson Engine Museum. And if you thought you'd give this a miss because noisy smelly dirty engines simply aren’t your thing, think again. It's beautiful. It’s even musical. The engines make rhythmical clunks and breathe gentle sighs. They gleam, reflecting in each other’s glory, the cogs and levers make intricate patterns, everything is polished, balanced, slotting perfectly into place. And the enthusiasm that fuels this place is palpable. The next distraction is only a couple of miles further on at Bollington, a handsome, stonebuilt mill town with one foot in the Peak District hills and the other in industrial Manchester. Here the Macclesfield Canal, which runs parallel to the Middlewood Way, is carried through the town on aqueducts, passing the mills that were once part of the Gregs’ cotton empire, the same family that built the vast Quarry Bank Mill at nearby Styal. Bollington is renowned for its number

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of pubs and the Vale Inn is a favourite, not least as home to the Bollington Brewing Company and so the perfect place to sample a glass of White Nancy or Happy Valley. The Middlewood Way brings cyclists and walkers right into Macclesfield, once the centre of England's silk weaving industry, now home of the Silk Museum, with ambitions to become the National Centre for Silk. This has become the focal point for a biennial textile festival which proves a point - that history will always inspire future creativity. And there's plenty of industry still going on around here too - textile printers, weavers, ribbon makers, tie-makers. The Silk Museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s permanent displays tell the story of silk and changing exhibitions often showcase more contemporary textile arts. My next thread takes me west from Manchester to Liverpool, and what better way to make this journey than along the Manchester Ship Canal? This really was Manchester's trump card - bringing oceangoing vessels with their loads of cotton right

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into the heart of landlocked Manchester. The audacity of Victorian Manchester knew no bounds. I will digress a little at this point and tell you about my father. He moved us all to the Northwest in the very early 1960s, when he came to work for the Ship Canal Company. We lived in one of the Victorian Cheshire suburbs that developed with the coming of the railway, where Manchester merchants, riding the crest of the industrial wave, were encouraged to buy homes with the incentive of a lifetime of free travel on the new railway line into Manchester. A hundred years later it was still the place to live for Manchester businessmen, and my father took the train into work every day, bowler hat on head, brief case in hand - the same train every morning, the same train home every evening. Our domestic timetable was ruled by that of the railway company. And just occasionally, during our school holidays, he would invite us all into Manchester for lunch. We would meet him in the foyer of Ship Canal House on King Street, an opulent

Images: this page Manchester Ship Canal Cruise, facing page View to the Quays, below The Middlewood Way

symbol of Manchester's success. Of course at that time we were oblivious to the difficulties that made up his working life - the long and painful process of industrial decline through which he helped to steer the last years of the Ship Canal Company - with quiet dignity, respect and care for the thousands of livelihoods that had depended on it. Another Alex Ferguson of Manchester - less famous and never knighted, but always a true gentleman. Later and inevitably, he and his colleagues moved out of King Street headquarters into more modest surroundings - the Dock Office in Salford, with a view of shipping containers and the huge trundling Derricks that shifted them around the docks. It is still visible amid the new world of Salford Quays - a stylish 1920s reminder of the place that was Manchester's original gateway to the world. The Ship Canal may not carry the loads that it was built for, but it is still a shipping route which makes a cruise along it all the more exciting - the locks long the ship canal are on an altogether different scale from any you might have navigated on a narrowboat holiday. And it is a very much cleaner waterway than it was. Sit back and enjoy the ride - a great commentary describes the passing scenery and wildlife. And maybe Liverpool has the last laugh in the end Manchester Ship Canal Cruises are run by Mersey Ferries. It takes a little longer but this mode of transport beats the M62 and Edge Lane any day as a route into Liverpool. Disembarking at the Pier Head, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a short walk to the Merseyside Maritime Museum, one of many attractions on Liverpoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world famous waterfront, and one of the eight National Museums of Liverpool. This is a brilliant museum which for me really captures the spirit of Liverpool as the gateway to the world that it was in the 1900s. Over nine million people emigrants travelled from Liverpool to start new lives in America, Australia and New Zealand, taking with them their industrial skills and expertise to help build those new worlds.

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My next trip out of Manchester - north east this time – takes me on a steam train along the East Lancashire Railway Line - to Helmshore Mills Textile Museum. It's a great journey - like much of Manchester's surroundings, it's pretty in a kind of industrial way. And it's fun. Just before I reach Helmshore I look out of the window to see open moorland populated with huge turning wind turbines - so close I can actually get a sense of their magnificent size. But here’s the bizarre thing - there are people hang-gliding all around them. As if flying isn't dangerous enough, they are doing so surrounded by gigantic, heavy blades that are powering the national grid. Talk about extreme sport....I can hardly look. I settle back safely in my steam hauled railway carriage. What a land of contrasts. I love Helmshore Mills Textile Museum – it’s friendly and manageable and its recent overhaul has created a museum that entertains and educates me without ever being patronising. Here I discover everything about the northwest's textile heritage that other places haven't quite explained to me. The museum occupies the site of two mills, one a woollen mill, the other cotton. And if Manchester was the industrial powerhouse, Lancashire was its father. This really was the birthplace of the textile industry and its greatest inventors, Arkwright and Crompton.

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Finally I keep heading north for the fresh air and scenery that was the escape from industrial pollution for the more fortunate in the 19th century. Many of those who made their fortunes in Manchester spent it on grand country homes in the Lake District and so the threads continue. I have had to resort to the car to follow this final thread, but not for long. At Pooley Bridge I board Raven, one of four heritage vessels run by Ullswater Steamers, to transport me into quintessential Lake District scenery, across its most beautiful, inspiring lake to Glenridding, once a lead-mining village. But any signs of industry here are dwarfed by the sheer scale of the landscape, so vast and so beautiful that it will never change. So the threads always come full circle. So many other industries were born to power the textile boom - engineering, transport, construction, financial – and then the cultural, creative and artistic wealth that were the rewards of its success and are the riches of today’s Manchester. In the end it all comes back to textiles and I find my life inextricably caught up in it all.

Images: below The East Lancashire Railway right Ullswater below The Raven - Ullswater Steamer

For more information about the industrial attractions based in Englandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Northwest, please see www.industrialpowerhouse.co.uk

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Piccadilly Manchester a day in the life Piccadilly Manchester. Whether you visit the city for business or pleasure, the chances are you will know the area. So many of you - 83,000 people per day, in fact, will arrive at Piccadilly Station from across the UK or beyond via Manchester Airport. The Station offers an impressive welcome with its modern concourse surrounded by shops and cafés. On leaving the station, you may head over the Manchester Curve bridge towards Piccadilly Place, where the City Café awaits. Its terrace provides the perfect getaway on sunny days, allowing you to pause for a coffee and admire the modern architecture in this new quarter. Alternatively, you may find yourself strolling down Station Approach to Piccadilly – a glance in every direction showcases the area’s mix of rich history combined with gorgeous interior design. If lunch beckons, there are many food outlets to choose from, ranging from fresh and fast meals at GO Italy to sophisticated dining at the Michael Caines Restaurant at ABode Manchester hotel.

On your tour, be sure to see the Piccadilly Basin Canal, where the Rochdale canal meets the Ashton canal. It was built in 1796 to transport coal from the pits in areas such as Oldham into the heart of Manchester. It is six miles long with just 18 locks. Development has seen the oldest stone warehouse in Manchester beautifully restored here and now bursting with creative businesses.

Post lunch, a walk is in order and depending on how energetic you may feel, a historical tour of Piccadilly may be just what you need. Professional guided tours are available, or you can adventure along with just a map for company. Sports fans can find the first meeting place of the football league, which was held in Piccadilly on 17th April 1888 at the former Royal Hotel; whereas music fanatics can check out The Roadhouse to hear the sounds of the future. Music lovers can’t go wrong here, with a hectic programme of live gigs and club nights on offer.

If shopping is more your thing, then head over to Piccadilly Gardens; a vibrant public square that is the city’s meeting place for people and the central hub for buses and trams. The Gardens used to be owned by Sir Oswald Mosley who, in 1775, granted permission for the construction of Manchester's second infirmary. He declared that this space must be open to the public forever, so if you find yourself sat in the Gardens on a sunny day, thank Mr Mosley. In December, the area comes alive with festive spirit and is home to a range of

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winter activities to thrill and entertain both adults and children alike. If you’re lucky, your visit could coincide with the twice monthly Real Food Markets, that lay out their wares for customers to sample – after all, a hot cup of homemade soup or a hot chocolate is perfect in the cold weather. If this all seems a little too hectic for you, worry not; indulge in a little pampering before you head back to your hotel or rush for your train; the Macdonald Hotel Spa offers a superbly tranquil experience - try the Decléor Aroma Ultimate Relaxer Facial as a starting point and see where you go from there! That’s it; your day is complete – you have sampled the Piccadilly life. Be warned though: it may take more than a day. Visit www.piccadillymanchester.com for more information.

Malmaison, Manchester

WHERE TO STAY Manchester has achieved an international reputation as a vibrant and dynamic leisure and business destination. This could not have happened without the quality accommodation to go with it. All the accommodation in this section has been quality assessed by either Quality in Tourism or The AA, or has recently applied for a rating and is awaiting assessment. All types of accommodation including hotels and guest accommodation (B & Bs, guesthouses etc) are now assessed to the same criteria and awarded one to five stars; the more stars the higher the quality. Budget accommodation such as Premier Travel Inns which includes roadside or lodge-style accommodation do not have a star rating.

Ratings Made Easy «Simple, practical, no frills ««Well presented and well run «««Good level of quality and comfort ««««Excellent standard throughout «««««Exceptional with a degree of luxury You can rest assured that wherever you choose to stay in Manchester, you can book with confidence that the highest standards of service, facilities and comfort await you. For more information on star ratings go to www.enjoyengland.com.

More detailed information about accommodation facilities are available online at www.visitmanchester.com. Greater Manchester has a huge variety of accommodation available from chic five star hotels to stylish boutique hotels to traditional B&B’s. If you prefer to spend your money on restaurants and shops and Manchester’s nightlife, then you should check out the wide range of budget hotels and youth hostels available.

Price Bands All establishments are listed within a price band, that shows the minimum charge per person, per night, based on two people sharing. AAA AA A B C D E

How to Book Go to www.visitmanchester.com for a huge selection of accommodation in Greater Manchester. Real-time availability and online pricing make it easier than ever to book your accommodation. Alternatively contact the team at the visitor information centre who can provide advice and assistance with your booking. Manchester Visitor Information Centre Town Hall Extension, Lloyd Street, Manchester M60 2LA T. +44 (0)871 222 8223 E. touristinformation@visitmanchester.com

£80.00 and above £66.00 - 79.99 £50.00 - 65.99 £36.00 - 49.99 £26.00 - 35.99 £16.00 - 25.99 under £16.00

Price bands are given as guidance only, as rates can often fluctuate due to availability and demand. All prices should be confirmed at the time of booking to avoid any misunderstanding.

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Britannia Hotels www.britanniahotels.com Price Band: C/D

Britannia Hotels - has over 1500 rooms in 8 hotels throughout Manchester all offering excellent locations, comfortable accommodation and extensive facilities for business or leisure - including 4 with health clubs and pools. The Britannia Hotel Manchester & Britannia Sachas Hotel both enjoy city centre locations with a range of restaurants, bars, meeting & event facilities and comfortable, well appointed rooms. Sachas also boasts a health club with swimming pool and gym which can be used by guests at the Manchester hotel Each hotel is ideally situated at the heart of the city with all major entertainment and shopping venues, including the MEN Arena, close by. The hotels are served by excellent transport links with national rail, bus and Manchester Metro within walking distance.

The Britannia Ashley Hotel Hale & Britannia Stockport are located in leafy suburbs offering comfortable accommodation and, at Stockport, a health club with swimming pool. Hale itself offers exclusive shopping, bars, and restaurants whilst Stockport town centre hosts markets, theatre and museums. Both hotels offer easy access to Manchester and the scenic Cheshire countryside. The Britannia Airport, Country House & Stockport hotels are within a few miles of Manchester airport and offer ‘Stay & Fly’ packages as the ideal way to start your holiday early and relax before flying. The Britannia Country House Hotel also has an excellent health club complete with pool and gym. Again all 3 hotels are well positioned to give easy access to Manchester and its many attractions.

The Britannia Wigan Hotel is adjacent to J27 of the M6 and offers a light, airy lobby, comfortable bedrooms and a health club with pool and gym. The location means that the many attractions of the North West are easily reached from this welcoming hotel. The Britannia Hotel Bolton is just minutes from the M61 and has 96 well appointed bedrooms alongside a welcoming bar & restaurant. The hotel’s position means Manchester & Bolton are easy to get to as is the Trafford centre and the magnificent Lancashire countryside.

Britannia Hotels offer the following, please contact us for details: Free places available to parties of 20 or more Free Bar Packages Festive Packages from £160 pp Turkey & Tinsel Murdery Mystery Packages

· ·

Please Contact our Travel Trade Team on +44 (0)871 222 5502 E: grouptravel@britanniahotels.com www.britanniahotels.com

Britannia Airport Hotel «««

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Britannia Ashley Hotel ««

Britannia Manchester Hotel

Britannia Country House Hotel «««

Britannia Manchester Hotel «««

Britannia Sachas Hotel «««

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Marriott Hotels

Manchester Airport Marriott Hotel «««« Hale Road, Hale Barns, Altrincham, Cheshire, WA15 8XW T. +44 (0)161 904 0301 www.manchesterairportmarriott.co.uk Price band. B

Manchester Airport Marriott Hotel – The vibrant hub for business and pleasure. Set at the gateway to Cheshire and minutes from Manchester International Airport, this 4 star hotel embodies a unique mix of Manchester’s energy and Cheshire’s charm. Marriott Manchester Airport Hotel has evolved into a fashionable venue that is vibrant and stylish, with the newly designed Lounge Bar, Restaurant and a modern conference centre with 8 suites capable of holding up to 150 delegates. Our extensive Leisure Club and Spa offer a full range of facilities including Dance studio, treatments and on site sports masseuse. The hotel is located on the doorstep of Wilmslow, Altrincham and Knutsford offering car parking and transfers by airport Hopper Bus to and from the airport.

Renaissance Manchester Hotel «««« Blackfriars Street, Deansgate, Manchester M3 2EQ T. +44 (0)161 831 6000 www.renaissancemanchester.co.uk Price band. A

The ideal location in an ideal city, that’s Manchester’s Renaissance. The Renaissance is situated at the heart of Manchester's entertainment quarter. Experience the vibrant café and bar culture of this bustling cosmopolitan city; positioned on Deansgate within walking distance to Harvey Nichols, Selfridges, MEN Arena and Manchester Central. Upon entering the hotel you will feel instantly taken care of with outstanding levels of service. The hotel is located close to Manchester United and Manchester City football stadiums; excellent transport links with Piccadilly and Victoria stations are just a short walk away, as well as being close to Manchester Airport, making the Renaissance Manchester ideal for both business and leisure travel.

To book the Mcr4 offer rate which represents a saving of 20% off the Marriott Escapes bed & breakfast and dinner bed & breakfast rate at any of our Manchester hotels please visit ManchesterMarriottHotels.co.uk and enter the promotional code LPR or telephone 0800 221 222

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Marriott Hotels

Manchester Marriott Victoria & Albert Hotel «««« Water Street, Manchester, M3 4JQ T. +44 (0)161 832 1188 www.Manchestermarriottvictoriaandalbert.co.uk Price band. A

Unique Charm and Timeless Elegance at the Manchester Marriott Victoria & Albert Hotel. Set in the vibrant city centre on the banks of the River Irwell, located adjacent to Manchester’s newest business and leisure district Spinningfields, the Manchester Marriott Victoria & Albert Hotel is a perfect venue for the discerning business traveller or cosmopolitan socialite. The recent £5.2 million renovation displays old architectural detail with contemporary flair, comfort and services. Luxuriously appointed guest rooms are graced by original oak beams and exposed brick all featuring highspeed Internet access. The hotel has eight superb conference rooms and is ideal for a variety of social and corporate events. On-site valet parking for hotel residents ensures a smooth arrival. We look forward to welcoming you soon.

Worsley Park, A Marriott Hotel & Country Club «««« Walkden Road, Worsley, Manchester, M28 2QT T. +44 (0)161 975 2000 www.MarriottWorsleyPark.co.uk Price band. AAA

Worsley Park - Manchester’s Country Club Hidden away in over 200 acres of parkland, this garden metropolis is minutes away from the motorway network and just seven miles from the heart of Manchester city centre. The striking contemporary interior respects the traditional Victorian architecture, and once inside you will discover thoroughly modern facilities throughout the estate, encompassing restaurant and bars, nine conference rooms, championship Golf Course and extensive leisure club and luxury Spa. Whether it is for business or pleasure, whatever your reason for visiting, the resort’s location and fresh interior, partnered with the sharpness of its savvy service and vibrant atmosphere makes Worsley Park the perfect venue for any event.

To book the MCR4 offer rate which represents a saving of 20% off the Marriott Escapes bed & breakfast and dinner bed & breakfast rate at any of our Manchester hotels please visit ManchesterMarriottHotels.co.uk and enter the promotional code LPR or telephone 0800 221 222

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City Inn Manchester «««« One Piccadilly Place, 1 Auburn Street, Manchester, M1 3DG T. +44 (0)161 242 1000 www.cityinn.com Price band. B

City Inn Manchester is an award-winning, stylish, contemporary hotel in the heart of the dynamic city centre of Manchester and opposite Piccadilly train station. Canal Street, the gay village, China Town, Piccadilly Gardens and shopping galore are all just on the doorstep. Our 285 guest rooms, including City Club and City Suites all come complete with a light, fresh design, floor to ceiling windows, personal bars, fabulous Apple iMac entertainment systems, complimentary wi-fi, bespoke toiletries,

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bathrobes, walk-in power showers, 24 hour room service, library of movies and music and of course the best of beds! The hotel also has two stunning bars Piccadilly Lounge and Blue Bar - two fantastic spaces to relax and chill out. City Café is our critically acclaimed restaurant offering innovative, modern European food using seasonal, fresh ingredients. Or why not eat alfresco on our lovely, sunny terrace. And if all the food and drink is too much, then we have a really great gym on the first floor.

Malmaison Manchester ««« 1-3 Picadilly, Manchester, M1 1LZ T. +44 (0)161 278 1000 www.malmaison-manchester Price band. AAA

Located a stone's throw away from Canal Street and Picadilly train station this one time elegant warehouse is now a gorgeous boutique hotel with a very theatrical style Boasting 167 rooms, 13 luxury suites, 5 meeting rooms, a fabulous bar and brasserie and least we forget the Le Petit Spa we guarantee you won't be disappointed All bedrooms come with a complete set of Mal ingredients - great beds for sleepy heads, moody lighting, power showers, CD players, CD libraries, satellite TV, serious wines and naughty nibbles. Other little luxuries include fast internet access, same-day laundry, toiletries that you’re encouraged to take with you and ‘vroom’ room service for breakfast, dinner or those midnight munchies!

With 5 luxurious meeting and events rooms it's the perfect spot to give your business that important edge. Large windows create an abundance of light, with each room offering more than it's fair share of creative space. Then there's the state of the art equipment such as plasma TV's and wireless internet access throughout The Brasserie serves up divinely tasty, beautifully presented cuisine all prepared with incredible home, grown and local ingredients and served with a genuine passion. Whether you’re looking for a business lunch, a quick light healthy bite or a relaxed brassiere experience, you simply have to sample Manchester’s finest. Eat, drink and sleep Malmaison Manchester, a hotel that dares to be different

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312

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106 yearss of glamorous decadence 15 million n pound restora ation 2 AA roseettes

One of a kind A modern, business focussed f city needs a modern, bu business siness focussed hotel and in the very v heart of Manchester’ss vibrant city centre stands the ic conic Midland Hotel. iconic ment which has seen it lovingly restored has investment This city landmark ha as undergone a £15 million invest r position Manchester. to its traditional posit tion as the ﬁnest hotel in Manche ester. conference Finest for business – boasting 14 fully equipped confer rence and meeting rooms for up to 700 Co-ordinators a its dedicated Event Co-ordina ators make sure nothing is left to o chance. people, the Midland and bedrooms,, a choice of dining options; inclu including ding Finest for leisure – with w its 312 sumptuous bedrooms Rosette Restaurant, you the double AA Roset tte award winning French Restaur rant, and 2 contemporary bars, yo ou are stunning history winning surrounded by a stun nning mixture of grand rich histor ry and cutting edge, award winnin ng design. famous Complementing the fabulous f decor, is the Midlands fa mous service that is unrivalled Manchester throughout Manchest ter and beyond. looking better So, whether you’re lo ooking to succeed in business or relax in splendour, there’s no be tter venue in the North West. W Discover the magic of o the Midland.

To T o book yyour our st stay taay please contact us on 0845 074 0060 Magazine’ or at stay@QHotels.co.uk sta tay y@QH @QH H t l Hotels.co .uk k quoting i ‘Manchester ‘M M Manchester h t M Ma ag gazine i e’’ www.QHotels.co.uk www w.QHotels.co . o.uk

Hotel Group Group of the Year Year e 2008 - 2009

Park Inn Manchester Victoria «««« 4 Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester, M4 4EW T. +44 (0)161 832 6565 www.manchester-victoria.parkinn.co.uk Price band. B

The brand new 4 star Park Inn Manchester Victoria opened in June 2009. Ideal for both business and leisure guests and with a prime location in the city’s Green Quarter. The hotel is opposite the Manchester Evening News Arena and in close proximity to Manchester Central and to the buzzing shopping and business districts. Both Victoria and Piccadilly train stations and Manchester’s extensive tram system are close by, whilst Manchester Airport is only 20 minutes away in a taxi.

The RBG Restaurant Bar & Grill will tempt guests with succulent steaks, gourmet burgers, light bites, a choice of soups, local dishes, salads and signature dishes from the grill. The adjoining outside terrace is an oasis in the city and an ideal place to relax, enjoy a snack, a business lunch, or simply a coffee or cocktail. Pace Health Club and Nu Spa offers an impressive black tiled swimming pool, gym, sauna & steam room and 2 beauty treatment rooms.

Our 252 colourful, comfortable and modern guest rooms, including 6 luxury suites, interconnecting rooms for families and accessible rooms, offer floor to ceiling windows with fantastic views of the city, tea & coffee making facilities, air conditioning, and WiFi access.

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Located opposite the Manchester Central Conference Centre (formerly known as the G-MEX), this modern hotel offers great value, with contemporary comfortable rooms and a fully equipped Fitness First on-site gym, which is free to guests. The Premier Inn Manchester Central has a convenient city-centre location just a short walk from Manchester Piccadilly Station. We can offer you an excellent standard of accommodation at very affordable prices with the option of; double, twin or family rooms that can accommodate up to 2 adults and 2 children (under 16).

Our all you can eat full English breakfast is available everyday and is priced at ÂŁ7.95. Premier Inn offers a unique no quibble Good Night Guarantee! We guarantee good quality rooms, friendly service and comfortable surroundings or your money back! Our hotel also accommodates a fantastic Table Table restaurant and bar serving lunch and dinner. Located next to our restaurant is our Costa Coffee shop serving Italian coffee as well as a selection of delicious hot and cold snacks.

Children under 16 also eat breakfast free when accompanied by an adult eating a full breakfast.

Visit www.premierinn.com or call 0870 990 6444 to check availability.

The Radisson Edwardian Hotel

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The Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Free Trade Hall, Peter Street, Manchester, M2 5GP T. +44 (0)161 835 9929 www.radissonedwardian.com/manchester Price band. AA

The acclaimed Radisson Edwardian Hotel on Peter Street, voted the city’s Best Large Hotel at the Manchester Tourism Awards 2007, Large Hotel of the Year in the North West at the Regional Tourism Awards 2007, and joint Silver at the Enjoy England 2008 awards, continues to be first choice for leisure and business visitors, offering the perfect fusion of luxury and city centre convenience. With 263 rooms, ranging from king-size doubles to a range of 23 newly refurbished suites, each room is dramatic and indulgent containing everything expected of an up market hotel. The hotel offers guests dining opportunities for every occasion from the newly redesigned Alto

Restaurant offering guests a relaxing and inviting dining experience; to the dramatic Opus One restaurant, which continues to gain acclaim for its stunning interiors and honest British food. Sienna Spa and Health Club provides an urban retreat for guests, with five treatment rooms and two inviting relaxation rooms, as well as a swimming pool and full gym, sauna and steam room. Conveniently positioned for Manchester’s vast business, cultural, retail and night life, the 5* Radisson Edwardian Hotel offers the ultimate city break experience.

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Abode Hotel Manchester «««« Abode Manchester, 107 Piccadilly, Manchester, M1 2DB T. +44 (0)161 247 7744 www.abodehotels.co.uk Price band. AAA

At the bustling heart of Manchester’s stylish and cosmopolitan centre, just minutes from Piccadilly, is the latest addition to the city’s foodie scene. This hotel is breaking the mould, offering fabulous accommodation along with a selection of drinking and dining options that cover every possibility and taste – welcome to ABode Manchester.‘..exquisite modern European cuisine...’Carefully designed to pay homage to the building’s past as a cotton merchant’s warehouse, Abode's Victorian facade gives way to modern British style, comfort and absolute luxury. Attention to detail is paramount in all bedrooms, whether rated ‘comfortable’, ‘desirable’, ‘enviable’ or ‘fabulous’, they all boast handcrafted beds, comfort cooling and secondary glazing to ensure that you experience a good night’s sleep. Flat screen LCD televisions, DVD players, bespoke toiletries and a refreshment tray offering plenty of tempting treats complete the unrivalled picture. And after all of the rest, relaxation and pampering, ABode also offers the very best when it comes to refuelling and rejuvenating.

Chancellors Hotel and Conference Centre ««« Chancellors Way, Off Moseley Rd, Manchester, M14 6NN T. +44 (0)161 907 7414 www.meeting.co.uk/chancellors Price band. B

A three star AA hotel set in five acres of landscaped gardens and only 10 minutes from Manchester City Centre. Guests can unwind and relax in one of our 69 recently refurbished bedrooms, single and double occupancy rooms including suites. The beautifully restored Carriage Restaurant offers a range of tempting dining options complemented by a good selection of wines. Chancellors also provides modern purpose-built conference and events facilities and a selection of new and contemporary Executive Boardrooms. Free internet access is available in all bedrooms and conference rooms with free WIFI in public areas. Conveniently located, we are only 3 miles from Piccadilly Train Station, 5 miles from Manchester International Airport and if travelling by car offer 90 free parking spaces.

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The Spa at the Macdonald Manchester Hotel

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London Road, Piccadilly, Manchester, M1 2PG T. +44 (0)844 879 9088 www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk Price band. AAA

Discover harmony and serenity in the middle of the city in our luxury spa. We all need 'me time' and we can give you just that. Leave your everyday cares behind as our spa therapists ease you into deep relaxation with a full range of spa and beauty treatments designed to enhance and rejuvenate. As a spa package guest, our trademark touches await you at every turn as you enjoy our healthy treats and detoxifying rituals from the comfort of your own fluffy gown and slippers. Depending on the time of your visit you’ll also be treated to our legendary spa breakfast, lunch or afternoon munchies. Our spa days include full use of a range of luxurious facilities consisting of a Technogym, rock sauna, infra red sauna, steam room, ice fountain and a sensation shower. Day spa packages to include the above plus treatments start at £80 per person. Overnight packages including dinner, bed and breakfast start at £135 per person. Quote MCR when booking and you’ll receive a lively glass of fizz with our compliments to enjoy after your treatments.

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Arora International Hotel Manchester «««« 18 - 24 Princess Street, Manchester, M1 4LY T. +44 (0)161 236 8999 www.arorainternational.com Price band. A - AA

Contemporary in design yet maintaining the unique character of its Grade II listed heritage Arora International Hotel Manchester is located in the heart of the City. Only minutes away from the main business and shopping districts it is the perfect location. Boasting 141 beautifully furnished bedrooms with many unique design features including “Cloud 9” beds, broadband access, power showers and air conditioning combining a feel of style, space and comfort along with award winning hospitality – an Arora trademark!

Lancashire County Cricket Club & Old Trafford Lodge ««« Talbot Road, Old Trafford, Manchester, M16 0PX T. +44 (0)161 874 3333 www.lccc.co.uk Price band. D

The superb 68-bedroom hotel is situated in Old Trafford Cricket Ground, one of the world’s great international sporting arenas and home to Lancashire County Cricket Club. With free parking, en-suite facilities and complimentary breakfast along with 36 executive bedrooms overlooking the famous Old Trafford pitch, where else can you relax on your own balcony at the end of the day as well as being close to the city centre and The Quays?

Ramada Manchester, Salford Quays «««« 17 Trafford Road, Salford Quays, Manchester, M5 3AW T. +44 (0)161 876 5305 www.ramadasalfordquays.com Price Band. C

Opened May 2008 and designed to a high standard, we are perfectly positioned for The Quays and City Centre. All our 142 en-suite rooms have LCD TV’s, power showers and amazingly comfortable beds, with free Wi-Fi throughout. Add comfort cooling, triple glazed windows, iron and ironing boards and you’ll have everything on hand to make your stay comfortable and relaxing. To compliment this, we have 5 versatile meeting rooms and on-site parking, along with our very own Italian Restaurant, Stresa. Enjoy!

YHA Manchester ««««

Hostel

Potato Wharf, Castlefield, Manchester, M3 4NB T. +44 (0)161 839 9960 www.yhamanchester.org.uk Price band. D

Some call it the best youth hostel in the world! Contemporary city centre hostel offering the highest quality budget accommodation in Manchester. All rooms are for four persons, and all are en-suite. Modern furnishings and décor compliment the stylish canalside location. The Wharf bar and restaurant offers the best of British food and beers with an international flavour.

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official travel partner of manchester united

Manchester United LIVE at the Theatre of Dreams You could be there! Packages available for ALL home games throughout the season

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APARTMENTS Whether you’re travelling with a group or prefer your home comforts, serviced apartments provide an ideal option for your stay in Manchester. There is an array of properties across the city centre to suit every need and budget, allowing you more privacy and flexibility. Choose from five-star luxury, stylish boutique or simple contemporary, each one is equipped with all the essentials – it’ll be like a home away from home.

Staying Cool

The Place Hotel «««« Ducie Street, Piccadilly, Manchester, M1 2TP T. +44 (0)161 778 7500 www.theplacehotel.com Price band. A

The Place Hotel offers unique loft style living, in the centre of Manchester with all the services and convenience of a hotel, with the comfort and space of home. Each apartment has either one or two bedrooms, lounge and fully equipped kitchen, Sky TV, DVD player, CD player, two telephone lines, internet access, microwave, dishwasher, laundry and ironing facilities. The Place Hotel is an ideal location for corporate and leisure guests, providing flexibility for individuals, couples, groups and families. For a special treat, relax and enjoy city views from the roof terrace of our penthouses. Enjoy coffee, fine wines, continental beers and snacks in The Place Bar, which also serves a light lunch and evening meal menu daily, all of which are available as room service. Take advantage of our Full English or Continental Breakfast served daily in our restaurant. Car parking is available on site, and Piccadilly train station is a short walk away.

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The Atrium «««« 74 Princess Street, Manchester, M1 6JD T. +44 (0)161 235 2000 www.atriummanchester.com Price band. C

The Atrium by BridgeStreet consists of 116 4 star serviced apartments. Situated in the heart of Manchester, The Atrium is the ultimate ‘home from home’ experience.

The Light Aparthotel ««««« 20 Church Street Manchester M4 1PN T. +44 (0)161 839 4848 www.thelight.co.uk Price band. AAA

Situated in the Northern Quarter of Manchester. The hotel features one and two bedroom apartments, family apartments and penthouses with lounges and kitchens. Meeting rooms. 2 outdoor terraces including hot tub for bespoke events.

Padhotels.co.uk Ltd «««« 74 Bridge Street Manchester M3 2RJ T. +44 (0)161 839 9654 www.padhotels.co.uk Price band. B

Set in the heart of Manchester’s vibrant city centre, these contemporary 1 and 2 bedroom apartments provide the comfort, privacy & freedom of your own home with the services of a hotel.

Staying Cool ««««/« Various city centre locations T. +44 (0)161 832 4060 www.stayingcool.com Price band. A-AAA

Hip hotel meets boutique serviced apartment. Eco-friendly places with the most comfortable beds, the best designers, Apple Macs, Gaggias, organic foods and free wifi. Marvellous!

StayDeansgate Apartments «««« Deansgate Quay, Manchester M3 4LA T. +44 (0)16974 76254 www.staydeansgate.co.uk Price band. A

Spacious city centre apartments with fully equipped kitchens, stylish leather and glass furniture, free wifi & phone calls. Private south east facing balconies. Leisure club option.

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MANCHESTER AIRPORT Your gateway to the North of England. Situated in the heart of the UK, Manchester’s award-winning airport prides itself on being one of the world’s busiest and friendliest. As the largest airport outside of London, Manchester Airport handles over 20 million passengers per year. Its facilities are world class with three terminals, two runways, over 250 check-in desks and 65 airline operators. Over 190 destinations worldwide are served from this international hub and a comprehensive European and domestic air network enables visitors to use the city as a convenient base for transfers to the rest of the UK and indeed Europe.

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The £35m transformation of Terminal 1 will see the unveiling of stylish new retail outlets and restaurants as well as increased security lanes, to make your journey through the airport so much easier. In fact, it has never been easier to fly to Manchester with a variety of competitive fares and direct scheduled flights offered by major US, UK and European airlines. If Manchester is your gateway to exploring the many attractions the North of England has to offer, or alternatively the venue for a connecting flight, why not take advantage of the fantastic offers available from the array of hotels located on the doorstep of Manchester Airport. From budget to four star luxury, these venues make for a perfect take off or touch down.

When you arrive at Manchester Airport, head for The Station, a £60 million ground transport interchange which brings rail, coach, bus and taxi under one roof, offering frequent and direct transport services to Manchester city centre, York, Leeds, Windermere, Blackpool and Newcastle to name but a few. State of the art technology with an impressive ticket sales facility provides up-to-date travel; visitors will enjoy a relaxing introduction to the region. Alternatively pick up a hire car at the airport and take to the open roads of Greater Manchester. A train service from Manchester Airport to Manchester Piccadilly railway station operates every 10 minutes, with a journey time of approximately 15-20 minutes. For further details of the many airlines that fly into Manchester, visit www.manchesterairport.co.uk

MANCHESTER AIRPORT SCHEDULED FLIGHTS

DOMESTIC SCHEDULED FLIGHTS Aberdeen Belfast - International Belfast - City Cork Dublin Edinburgh Exeter Galway Glasgow Guernsey Isle of Man Jersey Knock London - Gatwick London - Heathrow Newquay Norwich Plymouth Southampton Waterford

bmi bmibaby Flybe bmibaby, Aer Lingus Aer Lingus, Ryanair bmi, Flybe Flybe Aer Arann bmi, Flybe Aurigny, Flybe Flybe bmibaby, Flybe bmibaby British Airways bmi, British Airways bmibaby, Air Southwest Flybe Air Southwest Flybe Aer Arann

INTERNATIONAL SCHEDULED FLIGHTS Abu Dhabi Alicante Almeria Amsterdam Athens Atlanta Barbados Barcelona Basel Bergerac Billund Bordeaux Brest Brussels Budapest Chambery Chicago Cologne Copenhagen Crete Dalaman Doha Dubai Dusseldorf Faro Frankfurt Geneva Gibralter

Etihad Airways Monarch Scheduled, Jet2.com, bmibaby, easyJet Monarch Scheduled KLM, bmibaby easyjet Delta Air Lines Virgin Atlantic Monarch Scheduled Swiss International Air Lines Flybe easyJet bmibaby Flybe Flybe, Brussels Airlines, Ryanair Jet2.com Jet2.com American Airlines Germanwings SAS, easyJet easyJet, Jet2.com Kibris Turkish Airlines, Jet2.com Qatar Airways Emirates Flybe, Lufthansa Jet2.com, Monarch Scheduled Flybe, Lufthansa bmibaby, Jet2.com, Saudi Arabian Airlines, easyJet, Swiss International Air Lines Monarch Scheduled

Gothenburg Gran Canaria Hamburg Hanover Helsinki Islamabad Istanbul Jeddah Karachi Kos Lahore Lanzarote Larnaca La Rochelle Lisbon Lyon Malaga Malta Marrakech Menorca Milan Munich Murcia New York (Newark) New York (JFK) Nice Olbia Orlando Oslo Paderborn Palma Mallorca Paphos Paris Philadelphia Pisa Prague Rennes Rome Reykjavik Rhodes Riyadh Salzburg Sharm El Sheik Singapore Sofia Stockholm Tel Aviv Tenerife Tolouse Toronto Tripoli Vancouver Venice Zurich

City Airline Jet2.com Lufthansa Flybe Finnair Air Blue, Pakistan International Airlines Turkish Airlines Saudia Arabian Airlines Pakistan International Airlines Jet2.com Pakistan International Airlines Monarch Scheduled, Jet2.com Cyprus Airways, easyJet Flybe bmibaby bmi bmibaby, Jet2.com, easyJet Monarch Scheduled, Thomson Air Malta, easyJet Thomson, easyJet Monarch Scheduled Flybe Lufthansa Jet2.com, Monarch Scheduled Continental Airlines American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Pakistan International Airlines Jet2.com Jet2.com Virgin Atlantic SAS Air Berlin bmibaby, Monarch Scheduled, Jet2.com Cyprus Airways, easyJet Air France, Flybe US Airways Jet2.com bmibaby Flybe Jet2.com Icelandair Jet2.com Saudi Arabian Airlines Thomson, Jet2.com Jet2.com Singapore Airlines easyJet SAS Jet2.com Monarch Scheduled, Jet2.com, easyJet bmibaby Air Transat Libyan Arab Air Transat Jet2.com Swiss International Air Lines

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Why pay more than you have to for your train tickets? Just switch to crosscountrytrains.co.uk and we’ll search every train company’s schedule to ﬁnd you the right train, at the right time, at the right price. And unlike some other train ticket booking websites, we won’t charge you a booking fee. The more you plan and book in advance, the more you’ll save. And, if you’re travelling on a CrossCountry train, you could even print your ticket off at home. Click on crosscountrytrains.co.uk and let your search engine search out some big savings for you.

crosscountrytrains.co.uk your search engine

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Valet Service Packages Collection Only - £20* Your vehicle will be collected from your destination and securely stored for return at our valet reception at The Grand car park, Chatham Street.

Collection and Return - £25* Your vehicle will be collected from your destination and securely stored before being returned to your location.

Collection, Car Care and Return - from £50* Your vehicle will be collected from your destination, securely stored at The Grand and given a Gold or Platinum car care treatment before being returned to your location * All prices are for a single day. Each day thereafter is charged at £15.

Please call - 0207 510 1631 or visit www.ncp.co.uk/manchester for further details. Alternatively, send the following information to: manchestervaletparking@ncp.co.uk

· Name & telephone number · Address & postcode · Vehicle make, model & registration · Arrival date, time & location · Return date, time and location

Want to explore Manchester in comfort?

Coming to Manchester? Want to get closer to where you want to be? Why not park with NCP Manchester at one of 46 car parks in the heart of the city. Time is precious – to make the most of your break why not visit www.ncp.co.uk/manchester or call +44 (0)161 817 8900

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www.visitmanchester.com/giftshop

MANCHESTER HOST CITY BID

England’s 2018 FIFA World Cup Bid Pledge your support for Manchester www.manchesterworldsport.com

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Escape the kids from only ÂŁ11 With up to three trains an hour from London to Manchester and an average journey time of only 2hrs 8mins. Book in advance at virgintrains.com

Fare advertised is Standard Advance fare. Bookable until 23.59 day before travel, subject to availability on off peak services between 10:30 and 14:00 and again after 19:30 Monday to Friday with travel permitted anytime on Saturdays and Sundays. Reservations compulsory. Customers must travel on the trains they reserve. Normal railcard and child discounts apply. Correct at time of going to print and according to timetabled journeys, Monday - Friday. For full terms and conditions visit virgintrains.com

GETTING AROUND GREATER MANCHESTER Manchester’s central location, and excellent transport links, makes it one of the most accessible cities in the UK. Whatever your preferred mode of transport, Manchester has it covered, offering a comprehensive local public transport system. So once in Manchester you’ll have no problems getting around using buses, trains and trams.

up and go anytime from early morning until late in the evening. Remember to purchase your ticket from the machine before you board. www.metrolink.co.uk

Gardens, bus drivers, tram ticket machines and train stations. www.systemonetravelcards.co.uk or phone +44 (0)8717 818181.

TRAINS There are four key train stations in the centre of Manchester - Piccadilly, Victoria, Oxford Road and Deansgate. Piccadilly is the main hub and is most visitors’ principal arrival point into the city.

For more information about public transport in Greater Manchester visit: www.gmpte.com or phone Traveline on +44 (0)871 200 22 33 (7am - 8pm Monday to Friday and 8am - 8pm at weekends and public holidays).

In the city centre hop on one of the Metroshuttle buses. Metroshuttle buses are free and link the main rail stations, shopping areas and businesses in the city centre. www.gmpte.com

There is a comprehensive network of local services to many local destinations and beyond. Trains run every 10 minutes or so from Manchester Airport to Manchester Piccadilly Station. The journey takes around 15 to 20 minutes. www.nationalrail.co.uk or phone +44 (0)8457 484950.

TRAVELLING FURTHER AFIELD National Express operates from the modern Chorlton Street Coach Station to cities throughout the UK. www.nationalexpress.com or phone +44 (0)8705 808080.

TRAMS Metrolink is Manchester’s innovative tram system. It allows easy travel in the city centre and further afield. Because Metrolink runs every few minutes you don’t need a timetable, you can just turn

DAYSAVER SYSTEM ONE TRAVELCARD DaySaver is a Travelcard that is accepted by most bus, train and tram companies and allows you to transfer effortlessly from one form of transport to another, as many times as you wish. Available from Piccadilly

Frequent rail services run to London and many other major UK cities, including Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle and Glasgow. www.virgintrains.co.uk or phone +44 (0)8457 484950.

BUS Buses are an excellent way to see the city and the wider region of Greater Manchester. A comprehensive network of buses offer fast and frequent services to many destinations.

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The Last Word This is the first year that I’ve holidayed in this country since, ooh, I don’t know when, I don’t think I can remember - was it Shaldon in 1966, the year of my birth? Being the son of emancipated post war parents and them being part of the swinging ‘60’s middle class, Mum and Dad could afford to get on a plane and leave cloudy old Blighty to the die-hard Brits. Such has it ever been…..until now the recessionary summer of 2009. With piggy banks broken by piggy bankers and our collective consciences pricked by the press about doing the right thing for the sake of the planet, it added up to holidaying at home. Now I’ve ‘outed’ myself before as a fan of canals, a narrow boater - so seven weeks circumnavigating Britain’s canals was an attempt to compensate for an August in Amalfi foregone. And whilst nothing, absolutely nothing can compensate for the magnitude of that loss, I found out that it’s perfectly possible to fall in love….with your own country. Pottering, for that is what one does at four miles per hour, along 535 labour-intensive linear miles on the historic industrial arteries that pass through Britain’s villages, towns, cities and countryside is an eye opener. From Manchester to London - down the Grand Union Canal, out onto Old Father Thames at Limehouse, off at Oxford and back to Manchester up the Shropshire Union has to be one of the most amazing and truly undiscovered British journeys that anyone can do; it’s a delight, assuming you’ve got time to live more slowly. Traversing the country, stopping off to feed, fuel and generally just faff brought into sharp focus something that’s been bothering me for the last 20 years and that’s the erosion of regional identity. Frankly, if we don’t stop and think about where it’s all taking us, it soon won’t be worth bothering exploring anywhere at all because it will all look, smell, feel and taste the same.

Take Banbury, the destination for your cock-horse, the home of the Banbury cake (a confectionery endeavour that doesn’t come close to the puffy delights of an Eccles cake or its flatter Chorley cousin), Banbury has had its soul snuffed out, its identity smothered by a downtown shopping mall possessing what little charm can be mustered amongst the dreary high street chains. I’m sure that at one time it had a raison d’être, a function, a sense of reason and a sense of self worth. Banbury is only one example - the country is littered with lookie-likey towns, towns with their souls knocked out, Stepford Towns that do precisely what we ask, with no bark and no bite. The solution to all of this is, of course, to raise the plight of the independents, the characters, the individuals, the entrepreneurs that dare to be different: people who take risk and reward us with their endeavour by making places worthwhile, by making places worth visiting. By embracing its independents Manchester is the one city in the country that could rise to the ambition to deliver a city that is truly worth visiting, a city that balances corporate culture with a good dose of counter culture and combines those components to create desire. If we just lived through the lost decade, then let’s make up for it in the next: let’s embrace, empower, encourage and most importantly reward the independents and start to make this city and this country truly distinct. Nick Johnson Chairman of Marketing Manchester and regional representative of CABE - the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.

MANCHESTER CITY CENTRE

*(For costs see overleaf)

Bus Stn.

Manchester City Centre Welcome! Manchester’s compact city centre contains lots to do in a small space. To help, we’ve colour coded the city. Explore and enjoy! Manchester Arndale & Market Street

Exchange Square & New Cathedral Street

Home to all the high street favourites and a few independent surprises.

Home to the biggest names in fashion, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and lots more.

The Gay Village Unique atmosphere with restaurants, bars and clubs around the vibrant heart of Canal Street.

Deansgate, King Street & St Ann’s Square

Northern Quarter

Spinningfields

A host of prestigious designer stores.

Manchester’s creative, urban heart with independent fashion stores, record shops and cafés.

A newly developed quarter combining retail, leisure, business and public spaces.

Petersfield

Piccadilly

The Corridor

Home to Manchester Central conference complex, The Bridgewater Hall and Great Northern.

The main gateway into Manchester, with Piccadilly train station and Piccadilly Gardens.

Home to the city’s two universities and a host of cultural attractions.

Chinatown Made up of oriental businesses including Chinese, Thai, Japanese and Korean restaurants.

Castlefield The place to escape from the hustle and bustle of city life with waterside pubs and bars.

Cover Photography: The Henri Oguike Dance Company The Contact Theatre. Photograph by Matt Davis

The information contained within this guide is copyright and no part of the guide may be reproduced in part or wholly by any means, be it electronic or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publishers. Marketing Manchester is the agency charged with promoting the city-region on a national and international stage.

Designed & Published: Marketing Manchester, November 2009

Photography: Ian Howarth, Steve Aland, Photolink, Jonty Wilde, Jan Chlebik, David Millington, Northwest Regional Development Agency, Paul Jones, David Lake, Manchester City Council, Matt Davis

Contributors: In addition to the authors of our features and Manchester Voices, Marketing Manchester would like to thank everyone that has provided editorial for this issue of MCR.

Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy in this publication, Marketing Manchester cannot accept liability for any loss or damage arising from its use. As changes often occur after publication date, it is advisable to confirm the information given.

Marketing Manchester Carver’s Warehouse, 77 Dale St, Manchester, M1 2HG T. +44 (0)161 237 1010 F. +44 (0)161 228 2960 www.visitmanchester.com

Visit Manchester is the Tourist Board for Greater Manchester and is a division of Marketing Manchester. They are funded by 360 commercial members and the organisations below.