Wirral has revealed a busy programme of major public events to mark its Borough of Culture 2019 title. Discovery, exploration and the great outdoors are the core themes being explored over a 12-month celebration which borough bosses hope will showcase Wirral to the wider world. The Borough of Culture initiative was introduced by Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and designed to encourage cultural activities across the region. St Helens held the inaugural title, which w

Well deck the halls and put out a mince pie for Santa – the countdown to Christmas has officially started. You can always guarantee seasonal silliness mixed with a good dose of musical mayhem at the Everyman’s near-legendary rock ‘n’ roll panto. But this year the team at Hope Street seems to have turned the entertainment level up to 11, with The Snow Queen one of the best festive shows the theatre has staged in recent years. The Ev has, rightly, worked on the premise that if

The Liverpool Everyman’s Repertory Company is set to take ‘a pause’ with no third consecutive season of productions at the Hope Street theatre. Instead, associate director Nick Bagnall will helm a new homegrown and politically-charged production of Sonheim’s Sweeney Todd at the venue. Liam Tobin, who was part of the 2018 Rep Company, will take on the title role in the show which opens on April 12. In spring 2017 and 2018, the Everyman stage was given over to the Rep Company o

First it was a real calendar. Then along came Tim Firth who captured the amazing true-life story in a hit screenplay. He returned to the subject to create an equally successful stage production. And most recently, Firth joined forces with his Frodsham neighbour Gary Barlow to pen a musical version of the terribly sad and yet entirely uplifting tale of a small Yorkshire WI who challenged the Institute’s jam and Jerusalem image to raise funds to fight Lymphoma. Barlow’s name ma

“When I told my son I was going to do panto, he went ‘oh lordy, Liverpool – hold on to your hats!’” laughs Shirley Ballas. Strictly’s head judge is about to step out from behind the desk and take to the floor to make her stage debut in pantomime at home this Christmas. She will be playing Mother Nature in Jack and the Beanstalk at the Empire over the festive season, and it’s going to be a busy time for the 58-year-old. Not only do rehearsals take place while the current serie

The link between art and science is explored in FACT’s latest exhibition which brings together work from international artists. Broken Symmetries, running until March 3 at the Wood Street venue, features pieces by 10 artists whose works rethink scientific facts, challenging our notions of reality and how we arrive at something as ‘certain’. The show is co-produced by SCANNER (the Science and Art Network for New Exhibitions and Research) whose members include FACT, Barcelona-b

Tate Liverpool is celebrating the work of French painter, sculptor and film maker Fernand Léger with the first major UK exhibition of his work in three decades. Fernand Léger: New Times, New Pleasures – being staged at the Royal Albert Dock gallery until March - brings together more than 50 works from across Europe, including many never seen in the UK before. They include abstract and figurative paintings, drawings, graphic design, films, books, textiles and the recreation of

Twenty years ago, the members of a small Yorkshire Women’s Institute produced a nude calendar that attracted global attention - and raised a lot of money for leukaemia research. In fact, to date, the women of Rylstone WI have generated more than £5m for research. Which is quite something when you consider they intended only to raise enough to buy a sofa for a hospital waiting room. Not just that but their story has captured the imagination of millions – and spawned a slew of

A new work by Turner Prize-winning Lubaina Himid is set to be premiered at Liverpool Central Library. Random Coincidence will be unveiled this Friday at the William Brown Street landmark, followed by a talk about the 64 year old’s career, and an artist Q&A. The work was commissioned by RRU (Rapid Response Unit) News, part of Liverpool 2018 celebrations, and was made in response to a week she spent inside The Guardian as a “ghost” artist in residence to observe how the paper t

“There aren’t many concerts where you come out with a smile on your face,” I overheard one man saying to another in the street outside the Philharmonic Hall. There also aren’t many concerts where an audience member produces flowers for the soloist and conductor – and gets a big hug from the stage in return. But then Liverpool long ago decided Macedonian virtuoso Simon Trpceski was one of its own, and his 'Dream Team' musical bromance with conductor Vasily Petrenko (pictured a