Entertainment

Cameron Mackintosh and Disney’s highly anticipated and award-winning stage musical Mary Poppins has flown into Manchester’s Palace Theatre for just five weeks as part of a new UK and Ireland tour, and audiences are in for a jolly holiday of a treat from start to finish.

This week, a strange blend of unicorns, artificial intelligence, and lava chicken. I'll start with the biggest film of the Easter holidays, A Minecraft Movie. I'm a little worried the movie's title suggests there could be more films to come. For fans of the game, I'm sure this is great. It was nice to see the cinema packed on a Monday afternoon, especially given how sunny it was.

Has the death of the physical format been exaggerated? In a world dominated by streaming services, 2024 saw a rare rise in overall physical music sales. Based on data from the Official Charts Company, sales of albums on physical formats rose for the first time since Wet Wet Wet's Love Is All Around dominated the hit parade in 1994.

For a decade The Clash gave the music scene songs and live shows which would ensure they would live forever as one of the most influential and important British bands of all time. Forming in London in 1976, the classic Clash line up of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Nicky Headon were one of the first UK bands in a punk scene which would change the course of music forever.

Pleased to say I've not had a backlash or been cancelled after declaring my enjoyment of Disney's Snow White last week. In fact, my friends Rose and Pete have both been to see it separately, and declared it a hit, with Rose saying "honestly, really loved it.

It's 42 years since Inspiral Carpets burst onto the music scene in 1983, and since then they've become a British Institution, a band whose name will be forever brought up when the 'Indie' and 'Madchester' genres are mentioned.

Eid Mubarak! But what are Ramadhan and Eid all about?

Romiley Operatic Society take Centre Stage at Stockport Plaza

A much-loved musician from Manchester released his debut solo single on Tuesday (March 25th), a track named 'Lullaby In The Sky'. Tommy Smith, frontman of 'The Haciendas', released the single as a tribute to his late son Elias, who he and partner Millie Gladstone lost during their twin pregnancy due to a condition called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome.

There's only one film everyone is talking about this week, and I'm pretty sure a lot who are attacking it most vociferously haven't even watched it. Disney's Snow White stars Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, and I went to see it with an open mind. Whilst you could absolutely make the case that it's a remake that doesn't need to exist, you could say the same about everything from Moana to the Lion King (and this was better than those).

Last weekend marked five years since the beginning of the first Covid lockdown, announced by gold wallpaper enthusiast Boris Johnson on the evening of 23rd March 2020. In a lot of ways, the days of the 'rule of six' when meeting outside, drones patrolling the Derbyshire countryside in search of walkers contravening the rules, and suitcases of booze being wheeled into Downing Street seem like a lifetime ago. As for the discussion about whether scotch eggs constitute a main meal and that Barnard Castle eye test, the pandemic frequently went from the sublime to the ridiculous.

It's just over two years since I became the permanent drivetime presenter on Tameside Radio, and tomorrow, Friday February 7th, will sadly be my last day on the show.

A mix this week of stuff that I watched over the festive season and a couple from this week, to start another year of movie watching!

It was tempting to write something this week about the digital darts being fired from the keyboard of the world's richest man, and how it might be better if we just switched social media off for a bit, but for the sake of my blood pressure, I thought I'd share the first part of a musical Top 10 with you.

After the massive success of last year's huge 40th anniversary tour,  legendary soul band Stax Of Soul will be rolling back into Uppermill in November as part of this year's series of tour dates.

Rock n Roll Star, National Treasure, Musical Icon, Manchester legend, and TV hero Shaun Ryder next week begins a huge UK theatre tour which runs until May 2025, telling stories and tales of his life as one of music's most iconic and wildest frontmen

Two days before Oasis's debut album 'Definitely Maybe' celebrated its 30th anniversary, the news broke that 15 years since splitting up, Liam and Noel Gallagher would be getting the band back together next year. If you had asked me a few years ago if i would like them to get back together, I probably would have said no, leave it in the history books just as The Beatles and The Jam did

When we started our Local music Spotlight feature on Tameside Radio and across the Not Really Here Group media outlets back in January 2023, I knew what an important feature it would be for local bands and artists, but I don't think anybody could have predicted just how successful it has been.

Pauline Town MBE is a Tameside hero and a legend. As landlady of The Station Hotel in Ashton, she has made the respected British pub much more than that, it's also a hub for the homeless, victims of domestic abuse, families in need, and those facing poverty in this area.

Its three years since Stereophonics last toured, and last week the band announced their biggest ever UK and Ireland stadium tour which will take place in 2025.

It's almost impossible to review The Substance without spoilers, but I'll try. It's grisly, bone-crunching, shockingly gory stuff, but what a performance from Demi Moore. This is possibly the most bananas movie I've ever seen, and Moore's finest hour in my book.

Back in the day, I used to love watching Top Of The Pops on a Thursday night. It was one of the telly highlights of the week, at a time when there were only three channels, no social media, and Dial-A-Disc was still a thing (ask your parents if this doesn't ring a bell).

It's a rarity, but a trio of films were all released last Friday that I couldn't wait to see. I've managed two of them this week, and both are outstanding.

Starting this week with my film of the month for September. Strange Darling is grisly and twisty as hell The best review I've seen comes from rapper Kid Cudi, who wrote: "Movies like this come every so often. As a fan of horror, I've never been this thrown by a horror movie before. I went in thinking one thing, and left knowing another". The difficulty in reviewing this movie is that it's definitely best enjoyed without spoilers. It's gory, tense, and nerve shredding.

The UK has a rich history when it comes to condiments. A lot add unami taste to our dishes (a Japanese word meaning 'savoury deliciousness'), and a survey carried out recently by Fentimans found brown sauce ranks second in a list of the UK's top 10 favourite bold flavours.

I wrote about stress recently, and feel quite zen this week, apart from the fact I'm writing this column right up against the deadline.I don't know where the weeks are going, and Christmas is now less than 100 days away, whilst the nights are drawing in faster than I can eat a bag of Haribo Tangfastics.

Following the Ellis Mano Band's European tour last year in support of the critically acclaimed "Luck of the Draw" album, fifteen songs recorded in Germany and Switzerland have now been released on their first live album "Live: Access All Areas".

The first of two films based on that Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew hit Netfllix this week, and Scoop was a five star treat in my book. Based on three chapters of a book by producer Sam McAlister, who arranged te interview at Buckingham Palace and has since said it was "hard to keep a poker face" while he was speakin

This week, I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix, and I would highly recommend that you give it a whirl. As one of the quotes at the beginning says: "Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse" (Sophocles), and if you're anything like me, you'll be left questioning how much information you've given away to social media platforms over the years.

"Fortuna", the long-awaited studio album from the British Blues rock roots guitarist and vocalist Bex Marshall, is a ten-track blues tapestry that bulges to the edges with addictive hooks and story lines.

If you're a John Wick fan, there will inevitably be comparisons with pulpy new action film Monkey Man, which is out this weekend. Armed with little more than a monkey mask and a shedload of grit and determination, Dev Patel's Kid won't rest until the men who took everything from him get what's coming to them.

Stockport based NK Theatre Arts head to New Mills Art Theatre for the very first time with their production of Rock Of Ages. 

Event cinema is pretty popular, with reports that Queen Rock Montreal (IMAX) raked in over $4 million, split across the USA and the rest of the world. Clearly, the lure of a remastered Queen concert from 1981 is strong.