Search Results for: Frances Scott
Review: The Art of the Brick, Great Northern Warehouse, Manchester
It’s LEGO-tastic at Manchester’s Great Northern Warehouse.
Read the full story..Review: Precarious Carnaval
Precarious Carnaval has plunged into the past, present and future to unearth the secrets of The Bridgewater Canal.
Read the full story..Review: Out on the Floor – Manchester Camerata present Northern Soul and Motown, Bridgewater Hall
Well known for collaborating with a diverse range of artists and groups, Manchester Camerata are back at The Bridgewater Hall with a fresh take on a 60s sound.
Read the full story..Review: Slay In Your Lane – The Black Girl Bible, Manchester Literature Festival
Rebels with a cause, Elizabeth Uviebinené and Yomi Adegoke, are challenging the barriers surrounding race.
Read the full story..Review – BRIT(ish): Afua Hirsch, Manchester Literature Festival
Working to forge a sense of belonging, Afua Hirsch lays out her conflicting ideologies as a half-Ghanaian, half-English woman.
Read the full story..The Single Life: What made you love pop music? Northern Soul writers share their seminal songs
If you’re old enough to recall brick-like mobile phones, TV pong and computers the size of a bungalow, the pop single may be one of the first things you bought with your pocket money.
Read the full story..Review: Jaws in Concert, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
There’s trouble in the water for the residents of Amity Island as swimmers are picked apart by a great white shark.
Read the full story..Review: Patrisse Khan-Cullors in conversation with Jackie Kay, Central Library, Manchester
Inside Manchester Central Library, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors and award-winning author Jackie Kay ask ‘what does freedom look like to you?’
Read the full story..Review: The Sleeping Beauty, Birmingham Royal Ballet, The Lowry, Salford
First performed in 1890, Birmingham Royal Ballet has stepped back in time to sample a classic steeped in history.
Read the full story..Who we are
EDITOR
Helen Nugent
Helen Nugent is the Founder and Editor of Northern Soul. A Northern lass, born and bred in Manchester, Helen is back in her home town for good after working in London for The Times and a number of other national newspapers. When she’s not writing, her time is spent exploring the North’s nooks and crannies. You can find articles by Helen in, among others, The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, The Times, the i newspaper, The Observer, Big Issue North, the Yorkshire Post, The Spectator, the Daily Star, Creative Tourist, British Theatre Guide, Amateur Gardening, The Journal of Trading Standards, Catena, MCR and various in-flight magazines.
Previous roles include producing and presenting the business news at BBC Radio 5 Live and on BBC local radio across the UK, and freelancing for The Daily Telegraph, The Independent on Sunday, The Sunday Times and the Financial Times. She also spent 18 months as Money Editor of The Spectator. In addition, Helen was Editor of Nuclear Future.
During ten years at The Times, she won a series of awards including Journalist of the Year and had a number of jobs including News Reporter, News Editor, Lobby Correspondent in the House of Commons, Business Reporter and Financial Writer. In addition, Helen runs her own media training and consultancy firm. Roles include Media Consultant and Content Provider for a number of high-profile businesses.
Helen has appeared on Sky News, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC 6 Music, BBC Radio Manchester, BBC Radio Merseyside, BBC Radio Lancashire, BBC World Service, talkRadio and GB News. She regularly chairs conferences and events for, among others, Penguin, HOME, CityCo, The Lowry, Virgin Money and Tech Nation. She was also a Guest Lecturer at Westminster University in the Department of Journalism & Mass Communication, and a Guest Lecturer at City University. At present, she teaches Music Journalism at the University of Salford, and has previously taught Political Reporting at the University of Huddersfield. Currently, she is UK Editor for AeroTime. In 2017, she was shortlisted for Person with Purpose at the Northern Power Women Awards.
In 2017, Helen established Northern Soul Events. Along with her team, she hosted the inaugural Northern Soul Awards at Manchester Hilton. The 2018 awards were held at Manchester Cathedral. In addition, Helen chairs events for the Rochdale Literature & Ideas Festival and for literature events run by Trafford Libraries. In 2019, she was a judge for the HWA Gold Crown Awards which recognise the best historical novels published in the UK.
Feel free to drop her a line at nugenthelen@hotmail.com or via the contacts page. All correspondence is welcome, particularly if you would like to share a magical Northern experience.
DEPUTY EDITOR
Phil Pearson
Phil Pearson is Northern Soul‘s Deputy Editor. He is a journalist and playwright, living in South Manchester.
He has worked at the BBC, The Guardian, The Independent and the Manchester Evening News as a sub-editor, writer and online reporter. He was also Deputy Editor of the North West Evening Mail in his birthplace of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.
Phil has written two full-length and 11 short plays, all of which have been performed in England and Ireland. His play Blackpool, What A Shit Place To Die toured extensively in 2019.
CONTRIBUTORS
Carole Baldock
Carole Baldock is the proud owner of three children (all in good working order), two cats (need slight attention), and a BA Hons. Widely published with enough poems over the years to fill a drawer, she has a pamphlet, BITCHING, and a poetry collection, Give Me Where to Stand (Headland) to her name. Her other books include Writing Reviews and How To Raise Confident Children, and she is also editor of Orbis, an international literary journal of more than 50 years standing. She has been on the press list for many North West theatre venues for a long time now – ever since Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was a kitten kind of thing. Formerly books reviews editor for Theatre Magazine, reviewing is an area with which she is well acquainted, having also covered, among other things, films, books, art, restaurants and music. Over the past umpteen years, her work has been published by The Stage, WhatsOnStage, the BBC, the Liverpool Echo and the Manchester Evening News. And Northern Soul, of course.
Simon Belt
Simon Belt is Northern Soul‘s IT Consultant. He is the coordinator of Manchester Salon, a forum that engages individuals through discussion and debate, using web and social media techniques to reach audiences in innovative ways. In addition, Simon helps businesses make better use of technology through his company, Simply Better IT. Simon is keen to ensure that technology isn’t fetishised and doesn’t become a barrier to productive human relations.
While Simon has always had an irreverent passion for challenging ideas, he tries to write reviews and organise public discussions in ways that draw out wider social trends. Simon moved to Manchester during the miners’ strike in the 1980s amidst widespread opposition to austerity in Thatcher’s Britain. He thinks that politicos and businesses alike can learn much from picking up on the spirit of the times – and reacting in a proactive way. Perhaps his return to his childhood joy of playing golf may reflect the trend for more social sports? Or maybe not. Either way he would love to have a game with you in the delightful surroundings of New Mills where he plays golf at probably the friendliest golf club in Derbyshire.
Megan Bond
Megan Bond is a passionate fan of the arts and music with a bubbly character which pours through her work. She is currently an undergraduate broadcast journalism student at Salford University. So far this year, she has featured on Shock Radio (a student radio) and Tameside Radio.
Follow her on Instagram at meganl.bond and Meg_bondshockradio
Kevin Bourke
Kevin Bourke is a writer and broadcaster. He is a freelance ‘art blokey’ who can be seen pontificating about theatre, film, and almost any vaguely artistic topic on the BBC Breakfast sofa, or heard on local and national BBC Radio. He’s a regular contributor to The Big Issue In The North, Songlines, the roots music magazines R2 and No Depression and many other magazines and websites here and in the US, as well as chairing the fearlessly-independent Manchester Theatre Awards. For many years he wrote about film and theatre for the Manchester Evening News, sneaking in esoteric folk, blues and Americana music whenever he could. He was an early champion of the likes of Peter Kay and Danny Boyle, but he’s equally proud that Lou Reed slammed the phone down on him and that Robbie Williams once tore up one of his articles in front of thousands of angry fans. Visiting some dubious Manchester dives with the late Leonard Cohen and, more recently, dodging polar bears with a bunch of blues musicians are just a couple more of his adventures in arts land. Although he was born ‘a soft Southern Jessie’ in that there London, Kevin is keen to point out that this wasn’t his fault and that, ever since coming up to Manchester University in the 70s, he has lived here – next to a pub in the lovely Saddleworth hills these days – by choice.
Marissa Burgess
Marissa Burgess is Northern Soul‘s Comedy Editor. She was born in Crewe but got a train out to Manchester 20 years ago and has been there ever since. She has been a freelance journalist since 1997 covering the arts, mostly, in the North West of England. Her specialised area is comedy and it’s probably quicker to ask her which comics from Joan Rivers to Johnny Vegas to whom she hasn’t asked nosy questions.
Previously comedy editor at City Life magazine and the main comedy writer at the Manchester Evening News for a number of years, she has written for publications such as The Guardian, The Times, Time Out, Chortle comedy website,The Big Issue in the North, Manchester Confidential and The List. In addition, she has made many TV and radio appearances.
She is also a versatile copywriter and PR and is currently completing her debut novel November and a graphic novel The Amazing Maisie. She gets regularly drawn into a variety of ill-advised oddball projects with the comedian Arthur Smith.
Desmond Bullen
Desmond Bullen is a graduate of the MA Screenwriting course at Salford University.
A mental health nurse, he has written for Roy Of The Rovers, Creative Tourist and Chapter & Verse.
Nancy Collantine
Nancy Collantine used to work in public relations until she left Manchester to live in Queensland in 2017, which is when her love of painting became a full-time preoccupation. She is now back in Manchester doing painting and site-specific art and continues to write on the side. She is currently a Turps Banana student of painting and runs an artist-led temporary exhibition programme called Dez-Rez Projects.
Karen Connolly
Karen Connolly has been a journalist for thousands of years. She started her career on her home town’s paper, The Wigan Observer, and has been a crime reporter, business correspondent and, her favourite, music journalist in the 90s – a right indie kid at heart.
She’s now a regular on BBC Radio Manchester drive-time where she drones on about what’s trending. She’s also a contributor to regional and national press.
Music is still her passion and, after years of ‘being with the band’, she’s now the ‘mother of the lead guitarist’ of the band MazeBound.
Cathy Crabb
Cathy Crabb is an award-winning writer who has written extensively for the stage. Her plays include Beautiful House, Moving Pictures, and Beyond the 4th Wall. Her critically acclaimed play The Bubbler toured in 2014. Earlier this year, she co-wrote the musical Dreamers with Lindsay Williams. Her poetry appears in Best of Manchester Poets 2013 and her first collection Beside The See-Side is published by FlapJack Press
She is currently writing The F**k It List– a sit-com with actor Sally Carman, a new musical with Lindsay Williams, her new poetry collection and a play for Proud and Loud about two young people with disabilities who fall in love online called Oh For God’s Sake. Her poetry will be placed on four sculptures in Oldham by the sculptor Emma Hunter in January 2016.
Damon Fairclough
Damon Fairclough is a freelance writer based in Liverpool (via a long-lost Sheffield of the soul). In a career spanning a shocking number of years, he claims to have written about ‘brutal grey music, ultra-brite passions and the dogged persistence of memory’. In practice, this means writing about mix-tapes, cities, theatres, haircuts, concrete, drizzle and bus stops – among other things.
You might find his words in publications including Northern Soul, Louder Than War, Bido Lito and Stuplex, or you could well discover them over at his own writing archive, Noise Heat Power. You might also wish to know that he’s available for hire as a freelance copywriter and content creator, having previously written for Sony, Toyota, Motorola, Interflora and more. Yes, actual brands you’ve actually heard of.
Find his portfolio at damonfairclough.com, stalk him on twitter by following @noiseheatpower or, failing that, simply whisper rumours about him when he’s out of the room.
Susan Ferguson
Susan Ferguson has lived in Birmingham, Manchester, Barcelona and London. She has picked strawberries in Norway, olives in Spain, vegetables in Bolivia and fights in bars. She has worked in nightclubs, schools, galleries, offices, archaeological digs, shops and marquees.
She cut her journalistic teeth on Debris magazine and after a 30-year hiatus is back. When she is not travelling, Susan divides her time between Salford and Manchester.
She is a minor player in her own life story. Follow her on Instagram @sferg10
Claire Fleetneedle
Claire Fleetneedle is a foraging enthusiast who has been writing about free food and herbalism for almost a decade. She has a particular fascination with using local wild plants as both edibles and remedies. As the cost-of-living crisis bites, and with free healthcare seemingly soon to be a thing of the past, she seeks to revive and share a largely forgotten herblore. In her day job she is a voice, elocution and dialect coach at www.clairefleetneedle.co.uk. She is also an audio and voiceover artist.
Bernard Ginns
Bernard Ginns is a director of www.branksomepartners.com, a communications advisory firm based in the North of England. He works with clients across a range of sectors including technology, engineering and healthcare. He is Visiting Fellow of Journalism at Leeds Business School and a member of the regional leadership group at Mosaic, a Prince’s Trust charity which inspires young people from deprived communities to realise their talents and potential.
Bernard served as Business Editor of the Yorkshire Post from 2008-16, leading the newspaper’s highly regarded business coverage and chairing the flagship Yorkshire Post Excellence in Business Awards, attracting blue-chip sponsors and political speakers such as David Cameron and George Osborne. Previously, he was Editor of the award-winning new media start-up Kent on Sunday (2005-08) and a Reporter at The Mail on Sunday (2002-05), chasing stories across Britain, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Bernard started his journalism career at the London Newspaper Group and is a philosophy graduate of the University of Manchester. Outside of work, he enjoys squash, yoga, the outdoors and researching urban subcultures of the 1990s.
Robert Hamilton
Robert Hamilton is Northern Soul‘s Opera Correspondent and our man about town, Hamiltonic. He was born in Belfast more years ago than he cares to remember and has lived and worked in Manchester for 25 of those years. Robert lectures in World Cinema at Manchester Metropolitan University, where it has taken him a quarter of a century to climb to the bottom of his profession. He studied fine art but, on being told that he was not the world’s worst painter but “bloody close”, he decided to follow more profitable pursuits.
He has written for the late and lamented City Life as well as Artscribe, Aspects and Cut Magazine. He wrote an award-winning blog, Around the World in 80 Dinners, and is a founding member of the Chinese Film Forum, UK. He is currently developing a project dedicated to the culture of eyewear called The Society of the Spectacles. He can often be found in the Cornerhouse nursing many gin and tonics. A common term among the bar staff for a G&T is a ‘robert’. Oh, and he loves opera.
Chris Holmes
As Northern Soul‘s Football Correspondent, Chris Holmes spends too much time getting angry about things which don’t matter while skewering the many-headed beast forming the North’s Premier League clubs.
An ex-marketing manager, he recently jumped off the cliff of full-time employment and is now scrabbling in the foothills of freelancing as a content, copy and speechwriter.
In his native habitat, he can be found listening to obscure psych rock bands who look like that guy in the corner of every pub, an image which equally applies when Chris looks in the mirror.
Paul Hunter
Paul Hunter is Northern Soul’s North Yorkshire Photographer. A freelance landscape photographer based in North Yorkshire with a background in engineering, film, photography and video, he moved into landscape work six years ago and has been busy building a portfolio of local and national landscape imagery ever since. His love of the landscape began as a child with family holidays to Scotland where the dramatic landscapes of Glen Coe and Ben Nevis were imprinted in his mind.
He has exhibited locally and been published in local and national magazines. Paul aims to create positive emotions for viewers of his images, and provide a viewing platform for those who are not able to enjoy visiting the actual locations of his shots.
Lucy McNamara used to be the producer and presenter of The Northern Soul Podcast. A freelance radio presenter, podcaster and voiceover artist, until recently Lucy was the Weekend Breakfast presenter at 2BR, Lancashire’s local commercial station. Lucy started out as a journalist 10 years ago and has worked for BBC Radio Leicester, Norfolk, Cambridge and Stoke, presenting, news reading and reporting.
Prior to 2BR she was BBC 6 Music’s regular cover for Elizabeth Alker’s music news on Radcliffe and Maconie. During her time at 6 Music she presented the music news on the Shaun Keaveny breakfast show and also took part in BBC Music Day appearing with Craig Charles. She has also assistant-produced for Guy Garvey and Marc Riley. During her time covering music festivals for radio she has interviewed Nile Rodgers, Everything Everything, Jean Michel Jarre, Tim Burgess and many more musicians both national and international.
Danny Moran
Danny Moran is Northern Soul‘s Manchester Correspondent. Born in Radcliffe, he’s been a bartender, a life model, a musician and a journalist, contributing to City Life, Dazed & Confused, Attitude, The Face, Manchester Confidential, Guardian Guide and The Express.
Andy Murray is Northern Soul‘s Music & Film Editor. He has been an arts freelancer since 1999, initially for City Life magazine and more recently for The Big Issue in the North, among others. He edited a story anthology for Comma Press, and currently teaches Film Journalism at the University of Salford.
Originally from Timperley, Andy can’t recall ever seeing Frank Sidebottom down the local Spar. But he does have vivid childhood memories of being menaced by big boys when trying to cross the bridge onto the local field – boys who are now better known as key members of The Stone Roses.
He is, needless to say, not the Scottish tennis guy. But he did once receive a publicity photograph of him to sign by mistake.
Henry Normal
Henry Normal was born in St Ann’s, Nottingham in 1956 and now lives in Brighton with his wife, the screenwriter Angela Pell, and their son, Johnny. He is a writer, poet, TV and film producer and founder of the Manchester Poetry Festival (now the Manchester Literature Festival), and co-founder of the Nottingham Poetry Festival.
In June 2017 he was honoured with a special BAFTA for services to television. Henry co-wrote and script-edited every episode of the multi-award winning Mrs Merton Show and the spin-off series Mrs Merton and Malcolm. He also co-created and co-wrote the first series of The Royle Family.
With Steve Coogan he co-wrote the BAFTA winning Paul and Pauline Calf Video Diaries, Coogan’s Run, Tony Ferrino, Doctor Terrible, and all three of Coogan’s live tours and the film The Parole Officer. Setting up Baby Cow Productions Ltd in 1999, Henry executive produced all, and script-edited many of the shows of its 17-and-a-half-year output during his tenure as MD. Highlights of the Baby Cow output during this time include Philomena, I believe in Miracles, Gavin and Stacey, Moone Boy, Uncle, Marion and Geoff, Nighty Night, The Mighty Boosh, Red Dwarf, Hunderby, Camping and Alan Partridge.
Since retiring in April 2016, Henry has written and performed two BBC Radio 4 shows, A Normal Family and A Normal Life, combining comedy, poetry and stories about bringing up his autistic son. He is currently writing a book on autism for Two Roads publishers, A Normal Family, drawing on his family experience. Henry performs poetry at literature festivals around the UK and has three poetry books out: Staring Directly at the Eclipse, Travelling Second Class Through Hope and Raining Upwards.
He was recently given a honorary doctorate of letter by Nottingham Trent University and has had a beer named after him in Nottingham.
Charlotte Oliver
Charlotte Oliver is a writer/poet who lives in Yorkshire. She regularly writes for a number of magazines including The Dalesman and Yorkshire Life. Charlotte is BBC Radio York’s Saturday Poet Laureate and her poems have been published widely, including with iambapoet, Dream Catcher, The Yorkshire Post, Green Teeth, Ice Floe, Black Bough, Cape, Spelt and Fevers of the Mind. She runs workshops and also accepts poetry commissions, most recently from the BBC and South Cliff Gardens Heritage Restoration Project, Scarborough.
How To Be A Dressing Gown is Charlotte‘s debut poetry collection (published by Dreich) and her latest project is a radio ballad called The Dark Store, written with composer Sarah Dew and funded by the Arts Council England. Twitter: @charlotteolivr, IG: charlotteoliverpoet, website: www.charlotteoliver.com
Lewis Palmer
Lewis Palmer is a photographer based in Newcastle upon Tyne with varied interests including commercial, event and concert photography. His photography blog and favourite images are available on his website (www.lewispalmerphotography.co.uk).
He is also an avid fan of Instagram. @lewispalmerphoto
Chris Park
Chris Park has been writing for Northern Soul for five years and in that time he has sat in Vera Duckworth’s living room and propped up the bar in The Woolpack, met Postman Pat and discovered a love of Victorian gangs. But his finest moment was reporting on Bet Lynch opening a bathroom showroom in B&Q. Who knows what the future will hold?
Chris also writes for www.canal-st.co.uk and, after graduating with a MA in Television and Radio Scriptwriting from Salford University, is now attempting his first novel as well as a bit of blogging on the side.
Chris enjoys all things cultural from theatre to gigs to reading and is trying to love gardening but it is proving elusive. @parkslifeblog
Phil Pounder
Phil Pounder is Northern Soul‘s North East Photographer. A Durham University maths graduate whose artistic/creative side has taken 40 years to fight its way out of his logical brain, Phil is originally from County Durham. Via a seven year stint in London, he now lives in Low Fell and works for an IT consultancy based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Can often be found down the Quayside with his ‘way too expensive camera’ (not his words obviously) looking for new angles of the Tyne Bridge. A keen photographer who is discovering the joy of ND filters, bokeh and pano stitching. Can be found on twitter @glasses502.
www.philpounderphotography.com
Wendy Pratt
Wendy Pratt was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire in 1978. Wendy now lives just outside Filey. She studied Biomedical Science at Hull University and worked as a microbiologist at the local NHS hospital for some years. She completed a BA in English Literature with the Open University in 2014.
Wendy started trying to fashion a career out of her writing in 2008 and has since had her poetry published in many journals and magazines including The Interpreter’s House, Pennine Platform, Prole, Envoi, Other Poetry, Acumen, The Frogmore Papers and The English Chicago Review. Wendy’s first poetry pamphlet, Nan Hardwicke Turns into a Hare, was published by Prolebooks in 2011 and was well received, being reviewed favourably in the Times Literary Supplement. The collection centred on the loss of Wendy and her husband’s baby daughter who died during an emergency C-section in April 2010. Her first full size collection, Museum Pieces, is also published by Prolebooks. It was launched in January 2014. The collection has already had a number of positive reviews. The concept of the collection is that of a museum where memories, events, objects, thoughts are touchstones for something deeper; the poems are artefacts to be observed.
You can find out more about Wendy on her website: wendypratt.com
Sara Riccardi
Sara is one of Northern Soul’s visual arts contributors. A passionate art historian from Rome, she’s now found her second home in the heart of Manchester.
A keen communicator, Sara is deeply committed to sharing art, culture and history with as wide a public as possible. Founder of Art Across, she promotes visual arts from the past and present in interactive and unexpected ways. Devoted to her passion, Sara lends her enthusiasm and love for the arts to any new venture – she’s collaborated with a variety of brilliant artists including Steven Heaton, Nicola Dale, Christopher Cook, Halima Cassell and many more.
Currently pursuing her passion through PhD research at MMU, Sara is thrilled to participate in Manchester’s lively art scene; from contrasting architectural styles to the warm welcoming smiles of its people, the city has meant more for her than she ever imagined. Female entrepreneur, curator, performer, horse lover, wellbeing fanatic and coffee obsessed, she’s still working on her contradictory relationship with British rain.
Follow Sara on Instagram: @sara_artacross
Rachael Richards
Rachael Richards is an award-winning PR Manager with 12 years of PR experience, working both in-house and for agencies.
She has worked with a wide variety of clients including Manchester Pride, the RNCM, LEGOLAND® Discovery Centre and Love Hearts sweets, gaining coverage on Daybreak, The Jonathan Ross Show, ITV News at 10, The Sun, The Mirror and The Telegraph.
Rachael has a passion for the arts and has lectured in music PR at BIMM Manchester (The British and Irish Modern Music Institute). Having previously worked promoting established acts such as Echobelly and Mike Joyce from The Smiths, she used this experience to help the college’s young musicians publicise their work.
Born and raised on a farm in mid-Wales, Rachael moved to Manchester 14 years ago and has always been an avid supporter of the city’s cultural scene. As a former arts reviewer at Large magazine and Chimp, she regularly attends theatres, arts centres, galleries, gigs and festivals around the North West.
Alfred Searls
Alfred Searls was born, bred and buttered in the city of Manchester. After a grimly successful career in PR and marketing, which left him with a nagging suspicion he was becoming a character in a Kafka novel, he branched out into writing things he actually wanted to write. Consequently, he now writes for Northern Soul on a range of subjects from literature and music to architecture and the theatre.
Elsewhere his work has been published by The Catholic Herald, in both the UK and the US, and his short stories have been published in Metonym Literary Journal, Cinder Quarterly Journal, Jupiter Magazine, Dash Literary Journal, The Antonym Magazine and The Mallard.
He has also twice been a judge in the Northern Soul Awards in recent years, celebrating cultural and artistic excellence in the North of England, and a judge in the Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction, run by Comma Press and the University of Central Lancashire.
Steve Slack
Steve Slack writes about museums, galleries and days out – anything with a tea room or a gift shop. He works as a writer and consultant in built and cultural heritage. He grew up in Manchester and now lives in the city centre. Steve blogs cultural stuff at steveslack.co.uk; tweets as @steveslack and instagrams museum nonsense at @museumofsteve.
Bethany Smith
Bethany Smith is a trainee journalist and spare time musician. With a foundation degree in English and a background in music performance and songwriting, she loves sad songs, lyricism, and clever wording – especially witty one-liners. An avid believer in equality and inclusivity, she hopes to forge a career that can make a difference. She is currently entering her final year of a Multimedia Journalism course at the University of Salford.
You can keep up with her work via Twitter @bethh_journo and Instagram @itsbethh_x
Jack Stocker
A freelance copywriter, Jack Stocker was born and raised in a small town in Surrey. He moved up North to study journalism and broadcasting at Salford University, and after that there was literally no going back (the train ticket was a single).
Since then, he has taken up permanent residence as – among other things – a reviewer for Take One, as well as writing and producing short films and radio dramas. Jack has been writing creatively since the age of 13 – most of his fiction is of the fantasy and horror variety, much like the books that fill his shelves at home. You can read some of it, as well as his other endeavours, on his personal website.
Jack’s other hobbies include reviewing video games, fruitlessly learning to play the guitar, and trying to remember why he came upstairs.
http://jack–stocker.wix.com/jackstocker
Drew Tosh
In a career that can only be described as ‘all over the place’, Drew Tosh has had a crack at many things, from PR to puppetry, care homes to charity fundraising. After a 15-year career in theatre/arts marketing and PR in Scotland, promoting everything from Wagner’s Ring Cycle and Andy Warhol exhibitions to the World Pipe Band Championships and the Great Scottish Run, Drew upped sticks for Manchester.
As well as Northern Soul, Drew has written for several other titles and is a regular panellist on BBC Radio Manchester. He has written two plays which have been performed, Peg & Bessie and Physical, a novel (in a state of endless editing) and is currently having a crack at a musical.
Drew believes that Kate Bush should be made Queen, macaroni cheese should be available on the NHS and that a bowl of trifle heals all.
Chris Wallis
Chris Wallis is Northern Soul‘s Theatre Editor. He has been a radio drama producer for 25 years, a theatre director for 40 years, and a foodie fan for a lot longer than that. Born in Aberdeen and brought up in Hounslow, he went to Liverpool University in the late 60s in search of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Failing to find the first, he taught himself to cook from Mastering The Art Of French Cooking by Beck, Bertholle and Child – a manual he thinks is yet to be surpassed and is still in print. In fact, it’s probably the only cookery book to have had a film made about it (Julia and Julia). The second and third have provided him with stories ever after. Thanks to the BBC, he moved to Manchester in 1991 and has been here ever since, but he commutes to London and a lot of his restaurant experience is drawn from there. To see what Chris does for a living, go to www.watershedtheatre.com.
Lisa Wood
More than two decades ago, Lisa Wood left the sleepy town of Leek for the bright lights of Manchester and has never looked back. She now sees herself as an adopted Mancunian. After fuelling her inner creative at Salford University, Lisa forged an interesting and varied career in the world of PR and marketing and had a ball spending eight years building the global brand for MediaCityUK, where she fought off the national tabloids on a daily basis with their ‘North bashing’ and organised high-profile events including the official opening with The Queen.
She now juggles family life with looking after the PR for a digital health company and supporting her husband in building his animation business. Lisa lives in Timperley with her husband and young daughter, Sienna, and when not at work she can either be found in a spin studio, sweating in a hot yoga class, listening to a good podcast, baking or sharing details of her love of interiors on Instagram. She loves the great outdoors and often spends weekends exploring what’s on her doorstep or, if feeling lazy, socialising with friends over a good glass of wine. Lisa is also an avid theatre-goer and has been known to ‘tread the boards’ in a number of amateur productions.
Lizzie Wood
Lizzie Wood is Northern Soul‘s Travel Editor. Originally from Essex, Lizzie moved to Nottingham to study Ancient History before slowly gravitating further North and settling in Manchester to start life as a PR at Fourth Day. With a passion for food, fashion, gigs and art, Lizzie has written for titles including Creative Tourist, Made in Shoreditch and Northern Soul.
Emma Yates-Badley
Emma Yates-Badley was born and raised in Warwickshire but has lived in Manchester, on and off, for the past decade. A keen writer, she has an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester Metropolitan University and is currently working on a non-fiction book. A social media addict, Emma can be seen tweeting nonsense @emmayatesbadley.
Fran Yeoman
Fran Yeoman spent more than a decade on national newspapers before returning to her native Liverpool in 2016 to join John Moores University as Senior Lecturer in Journalism. Before that, she was Assistant Editor of i, where she oversaw the paper’s news output. She previously worked for The Independent and The Times.
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