Author: Alfred Searls
Book review: Ascent by Jed Mercurio
Now and again you come across a novel so closely published to your own specifications that you strongly suspect the publishers have secretly focus-grouped you to within an inch of your life, and then wiped all memory of it from your mind.
Read the full story..Review: Red Star Over Russia by David King
This year marks the centenary of the Russian Revolution. In the first of a new series of articles for Northern Soul, Alfred Searls explores how 1917 – and the Soviet society which developed in its shadow – has been portrayed by writers since that momentous year of revolution.
Read the full story..The book that changed my life: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury’s landmark 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 is not a book about censorship.
Read the full story..Review: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
That Walter M. Miller had a unique perspective on monastic life is hardly surprising given he gained it one bright February morning in 1944 from the rear gun turret of a B-25 bomber.
Read the full story..Review: Martyrdom in Manchester – the Hallé, Bridgewater Hall
On the evening when Manchester United was fighting for the FA Cup down in London, back in Manchester a different season was also drawing to a dramatic close.
Read the full story..Interview: Felix the Huddersfield Station Cat
It is a matter of general agreement that, in today’s world, instant fame is too often accorded to the talentless and undeserving – the ‘stars’ of reality television, the one hit wonders of social media, and the disgraced minor public figures determined to turn their shaming into a successful career.
Read the full story..Death in Manchester: a sublime evening with the Hallé Orchestra
Mortality might be considered a brave choice as a theme for an evening at the symphony, but Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra has always taken risks.
Read the full story..Review: The Oresteia, HOME, Manchester
Staging any of the theatre’s most enduring classics is an exercise fraught with danger, and few works are quite like The Oresteia. But in this violent and visionary re-telling of Aeschylus’s great masterpiece, HOME in Manchester has certainly lived up to the challenge.
Read the full story..Review: Verdi’s Requiem, Hallé Orchestra, Manchester
Earlier this month a full house at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall was treated to a night of high drama and fine performances as the Hallé Orchestra performed Verdi’s great and glorious Requiem Mass.
Read the full story..Manchester Camerata: Beethoven and The Beatles
Autumn is upon us and with it the annual signifiers of the change of seasons: the days shorten, the trees take on their first hint of gold and in Manchester the city’s great orchestras begin their new programmes.
Read the full story..Editor's Picks
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