Imaginarium Theatre returns to Merseyside outdoor venues this summer after the pandemic led to its 2020 tour being cancelled. The Prescot-based company will perform Shakespeare’s As You Like It in parks and gardens in Liverpool, Knowsley, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral during July and August. The production, which it last staged in 2016, opens at Prescot Woodland Theatre on July 3. Liverpool venues are Woolton’s Reynolds Park on Sunday, July 4, Calderstones Mansion House on Jul

The Bombed Out Church is the venue for an 11-hour Come Together Festival of entertainment this Bank Holiday Monday. The Unusual Art Sourcing Company is curating the event which takes place at St Luke’s from noon until 11pm. And unlike most other live events at the moment, there is no booking in advance – festival goers are invited to simply turn up to gain access. Although if Covid distancing capacity is reached, you may have to queue. The free event on May 31 includes music,

Liverpool Everyman hosts the return of the YEP Directors’ Festival next week. Last year’s event was cancelled because of the pandemic. Six young directors will be given the chance to stage work at the Hope Street theatre between Monday, May 31 and Saturday, June 12. Each production will have three performances. The festival opens with Icing Sugar/White Lilies, two short plays written and directed by Lorna McCoid, on May 31 and June 1. Mary Savage directs Florence Keith Roach’

A permanent chief executive has been appointed to run the new Shakespeare North Playhouse which is due to open next summer. Melanie Lewis comes to the new multi-million pound theatre and education centre from National Museums Liverpool where she is currently executive director. She will take up her role in Prescot in August. She said: “I feel privileged to have the opportunity to lead the regions newest and most exciting cultural attraction. To be involved with such a ground-

Julie Hesmondhalgh saw just one show last year – and the experience moved her to tears. Lots of tears. It was a live performance of RashDash’s Don’t Go Back to Sleep lockdown album at HOME in Manchester, and the actress wondered if she would really want to see a piece about Covid in the midst of the pandemic. The answer was yes, but there was more to the emotional experience than simply the subject matter. “The experience of being in the theatre,” she explains. “I had those t

My but who could have imagined a Sunday afternoon of classical music could be quite such an emotional experience? I realise I said something similar when we were finally let back into the Philharmonic Hall last autumn following the first lengthy Covid-driven absence. And here we are, five months after the last live concerts, breathing the same air and sharing the same space and experience once more – albeit behind masks and still socially distanced. From the woman in the ladi

The RLPO will perform nine new concerts at the Philharmonic Hall during June and July. They include two final appearances for Vasily Petrenko before he leaves the Phil after a 15-year tenure as first principal and then chief conductor. He will then assume his new role as conductor laureate at Hope Street while he takes up his new post as music director with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. Tickets for all concerts are on sale now. On June 22, pianist Víkingur Ólafs

Fourteen new works will be premiered at Little LTF – part of Liverpool Theatre Festival – at the Bombed Out Church this summer. The inaugural new writing strand of the main festival, which was launched by city producer Bill Elms last year, will take place from July 12-18 inside the historic St Luke’s site. Tickets for Little LTF are on sale from 10am today. Little LTF will open on Monday, July 12 with A Brief Conversation About The Inevitability Of Love by writer Ian Salmon.

As an exhibition space, Liverpool Cathedral takes some beating. But artist Peter Walker has made something of a speciality of bringing large scale, though-provoking and visually arresting works to some of the UK’s most historic places of worship. Peace Doves was due to be staged in the Well at the grade I listed sandstone landmark last spring to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day, along with a complementary exhibition of the artist and sculptor’s fine art. In fact, it

Physical Fest returns for 2021 with a mixture of live performances, online events and workshops. The annual international festival of physical theatre, run in the city by Liverpool company Tmesis Theatre, is the only one of its kind in the world. This year’s festival takes place from Sunday, June 27 to Friday, July 2. It opens at the Unity Theatre on June 27 and 28 with Dive – A Night of New Physical Theatre featuring four extracts of new pieces on one programme; Rewind by Ep